A Study of Hummus


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4 years, 3 months ago
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4 years, 3 months ago
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Chapter 4
Published 4 years, 3 months ago
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It's slice of life trying-to-be-harder sci fi, ok?

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A Thing Shaped Unlike Itself


Alice stared at her ceiling. It was weird. She felt nude now, even under her bed sheets.

She  had tried to "shop" - if it could be really called that, with no money  to exchange, no credit cards to swipe - for a water bottle. But nobody  seemed to quite get the concept - or though it was disgusting. She kept  being pointed back to the water fountains.

She imagined stars on  the ceiling, Little glow in the dark stickers that would fade in a few  hours. But that wasn't what was out there, was it.

It was an  endless field full of invisible mines. Of stellar furnaces, consuming  themselves. Once they ate their fill, they'd explode, a tantrum that  scattered and wiped clean their planets. The small ones... would slowly  fade to darkness, so slowly than none had yet gone black. The Big ones  would continue to gobble up the universe around them, until they tore  holes in the universe itself.

Alice imagined Ken'di being sucked  into a black hole. Her white clothes burning away in star stuff - she  wasn't sure if this was hot in both meanings of the word, but definitely  at least one - and being stretched thinner and thinner as she got close  - some sort of tides at the edge of a universe that wasn't supposed to  have an edge. And then she'd dissappear. Trapped away from light. Maybe  not even left as atoms.

The long answer of Spaghettification Goth - she was sure she had missed some points - it was freaking terrifying. And it sure didn't sound made up on the spot.

Alice  tried to close her eyes, not wanting to see the ceiling anymore. And  realized that they were made of the same slime the rest of her was, and  she could see right through them. How had it worked before? Would she  even - no. No trying that. There were so many things she knew she didn't  want to see. For now, it was only that ceiling.

It went away. The sight. She didn't want to think about it any more. To not stare at anything.

It was outside of the ship. Not close. But there.

No wonder they had barely any windows.