A crew member on the 17th floor flips a page in a book that is more dust than paper. Her name escapes Aslan so she is called the 3rd inhabitant of floor 17.

She has a magnifying glass and is holding a worn out book, she has read and re-read it many times, her goal is to transcribe it. Once and only once is the only chance she will give herself. The book is young enough to be subjected to its opening and closing. To be kept whole and held for a few more movements. She is entertaining herself. She also does pushups and stays grateful for the other two inhabitants of the floor. 

 She was nice to Aslan during their brief introduction, the memory is fuzzier than it should be since most of her brain power is busy interfacing. But she had a reliable look about her. She is not reliable at all but; is a good shoulder to cry on. After Adrian vanished she had patiently stared at her until her sadness shrank into a manageable sort of panic. They had talked multiple times after that but those pieces are missing.

The ship is old enough for the layers around it to start rotting. The 17th floor is safe nestled deep inside the bowels. Knowing this, the 3rd inhabitant finds herself fastidiously checking for cracks and peeling vinyl. 

She notices a crack spreading as fast as glass breaking, and speaks “It’s going to blow up soon” she laughs. 

The list happens for her and the book slides down. She does not move and keeps staring into the wall,  her gaze settles into the back of her awareness as the situation dawns.

Aslan peels back into awareness, dimly aware of a creak droning lowly from the centre  of the ship. Tearing the ship through like a thick piece of rubber. Her hands twitch as she remembers the tacky feeling of a rubber sheet digging into her fingernails, the sting of sticky pressure.

 The ship itself pauses as the emergency system kicks in. Foam fills up around the cavity and the engines shut off.

A beat passes, as short as the swing of a cat as it bats at an unwelcome hand. 50 people rush out of their rooms into the evacuation station. The ship is screaming an unheard scream as all the air goes out.

Aslan picks up on fast footsteps, like an eight legged creature is hurrying down and down and down. Someone hacks through the foam, movements dulled by the bulky space suit. The oxygen gauge is orange from extortion. She has no idea who this person is. Wishes it was Adrian for a split second. He is dead.

 The ship judders, the crack is here, spreading. The crew member  backs down and rushes back up the stairs. Aslan hates them for it. Hates the ship and hates her position, she sacrificed herself for this, gave up her mind and body for a thin reward, time off or money or something. Just to be responsible, just for every one of those strangers to be safe. To go through space quicker. For faster processing in the food court or the med bay. So one of those faceless, nameless people would not have to spread themselves thinner. Took one for the team. 

She would 100% do the same. Would have sprinted outside and pushed people away, would have been the first one out. Would have-

She is ejected outside as the ship remembers what to do. The halo of her helmet is chipped. 

Screeching agony. Flesh torn asunder, then a hand. Reaching, reaching, reaching and catching. 

A sound, a single word caught in Aslan’s fading existence, then the pain is over.

The ship is lit up with the light of the escape pods leaving, like rats escaping a sinking ship. 55% of them make it to safety, all of them are manned. One unconscious crew member arrives three days later, brain dead. He gets yanked into the secondary engine for the vivarium, excuse to keep his organs alive long enough for him to be buried. Lilacs coming from no known seed burst forth from his body and no one touches them. The crops catch mould for 5 years after that.

Mourning in space is hard. Back on earth things would rot in predictable but infinitely varied ways. Decomposition was a science we understood. A technician could look at the leg of a fly, plucked from the eyelashes of a body,  identify it  and determine the amount of time passed from death to now.  A body would behave like a body. It would stay dead. In space things get strange, there is a chance however slim that one could come back. Burst into tumours, flowers, moss, dead bugs, organic material. Flowers made out of hair. 

Anything could happen to a body in space but decay normally, no bleached bones, swollen cavities or anything like that, still unpleasant to see and smell to a human or animal. But coveted, precious and strange, alien.