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Permanence.
The concept is one that humans have always struggled with. The struggle to shake any thought that it exists. The struggle to forget our built-in idea that our lives and the many moments in them will last. As our lives draw ever closer and closer to the end, we begin to finally understand the truth.
Tired, groggy, sick, boiling. Those were the symptoms of Suspended Animation. Four years of her life would Ellen Lousie Ripley lose to this. Or rather, of her loved ones’ lives.
She had signed up to work on the United Americas Cargo Star Ship around five years ago. She was nineteen then, she was now twenty-one.
Waking, one eye sealed shut, the other just barely open, she looked around, slowly remembering her current situation. She looked down, her body clad in nought but the hair which grew from it. Pulling herself up, she wobbled and swayed till she sat up, holding her legs against her.
‘Ripley.’ mumbled Kane, from beside the pod.
Executive Officer Tamara Dylan Kane was born in Yorkshire, England, Great Britain, a part of The Three World Empire, one of the two great confederacies back home on Earth, the birthplace of the Human Species. Not the birthplace of Ripley.
Kane was a woman in her early thirties, with jet-black, curly hair that reached halfway down her back, and she stood at around five feet and four inches, one of the shortest members of the crew. She was considerate and charming, yet introverted and unimaginative, well-educated and skilled, yet absent creativity and innate talent.
Kane passed her a bathrobe, not for fear that Ripley could be bashful, but instead for the simple factor that the ship was – what felt to one whose body bordered on feverish temperatures – freezing.
The ships life support and air conditioning were built cheaply and made to reduce cost. The crew was expected to only be outside of their pods for days at a time. The climate of the ship would develop gradually from crisp, cold, and fresh to humid, hot, and stuffy.
‘Thanks, who’s up?’ spoke Ripley, her accent was queer, yet easily intelligible.
‘Dallas.’ Replied Kane. ‘Though, he’s not very lucid.’
Ripley stepped from the pod, the damp sole of her foot smacked against the frigid floor. She brought the other leg over the side of the pod. She donned her robe and stumbled over to a door, one of seven in a row. Pressing the button beside the portal, it opened, the door sliding into the wall quickly. She stepped inside and behold a bathroom. Stepping across the minuscule room, she reached the shower, she typed in the temperature she desired and turned it on.
She rubbed her neck with one hand and pulled the girdle of her robe with the other. She dropped her robe to the floor and viewed her naked reflection.
She sported dark, bushy, wavy-textured hair, that settled naturally into a mane. Her face was gorgeous, long and slim, with high cheekbones, a strong jaw, thin streamlined lips, and large round eyes. Her eyebrows were of a coveted, thin shape. Her body was lanky yet attractive, with small breasts, hips of a common width, and a rear that suited the rest of her. Her body and facial hair were untrimmed and she wore no make-up. She was genuine and natural, not interested in pleasing others, and content with herself.
Ripley was born in New Praetoria, Luna, on Olympia, a world colonised by The Three World Empire.
Thoughts welcome