dont-throw-me-out-the-airlock

[dont-throw-me-out-the-airlock]

I May Be the Villainess, But Don't Throw Me Out the Airlock: Chapter Two

Chapter 2 - Shudder

Where We All Wind Up

I want to exhale, but I don’t feel anything in my chest to expel. I can’t feel anything. Not my chest, my hands, not even the pressure of my eyes squirming in their ocular cavities. Where is it? Where is my body? I look instinctively to try and find my hands, but it’s no use. It’s just white. No. Whiter than white. So white that it defies three dimensions. I could be looking? Seeing? Whatever. I could be seeing a blank room as easily as I could just be staring at a single pane of white glass. If there were vistas to see, they were empty. A depthless uniserve where every star shined exactly the same brightness, the same intensity, and all at the same time. 

Where is everybody? 

The echo of that thought reverberates through the void now. Enveloping me. Crushing whatever there is left of me to torment. Had I eardrums, they would shatter. Had I bones, they would splinter irrevocably. I would whimper in pain if only I had a mouth and vocal chords to make it so. Instead my essence merely quakes and shudders. I try my best not to think, to rust the gears of my train of thought long enough to soothe my soul, but it wasn’t enough. Still the question squeaked out.

How did this happen?

I braced myself (or at least attempted to) for the tidal wave to crash into me, but none came. Maybe the whisper of an echo surrounding whatever there is of me.

Maybe if I stay calm, the echo will be calm? Quieter, maybe?

Again I held for a moment. The thought came back, softly now. Less barbed. Then suddenly, a screen manifested. There was a blur of bands cycling through every color I knew of all at once. I should have been shocked, but it didn’t seem alien to me. It was as though I had seen it before somewhere. But rather than puzzling out the decor of this place, my mind was occupied with tracing my steps to here, more or less.

The screen came into focus and I saw from outside. Outside of my eyes, and the scoundrel and Maria. It was me. Before this…void. 

The last thing I remember is that punk who shoved me into the pool. And what for? Insulting my own maid? That’s my prerogative as Maria’s employer’s daughter.

Yes, Maria just also happens to be that kid’s  mother, but she isn’t paid to be that. She was my maid first. 

I think. 

She’s been with me since I was born. I didn’t even know there was someone else in her life, but me. 

Aren’t I good enough to be the only one she needs? 

Maybe- 

Just maybe, calling her a waste of space was uncalled for. She didn’t mock the family or our privileges. She’s been serving us for so long anyways. 

I just wanted to show that kid who’s the boss.

As the- window? Mirror? Went through the paces, it focused on Maria’s face as I called her a waste of space. I have never seen her look so hurt before. She was always apologetic and meek, but never sad. She knew I never meant the ugly things I said.

Didn’t she?

As the screen followed the water, it started diffusing back into white.

No. No! Come back! Don’t leave me.

Every repeat of “Don’t leave me” roared and mocked me as my soul writhed in its barrage. Then a flash of light smeared upon the dissipating screen and music? Some sort of jaunty orchestra made up of synths, acoustic guitars, saxophones, and theremins? As though someone had tried to make some sort of future soundscape, the same way you try combining all the paints on your palette to only get an ugly gray. 

Someone approved this? Someone made it. Recorded it. Presented  it and then another person approved this-

That’s when the title card came up. On a lunar field against a starry sky there was a singular station. The moon base that the elite send their children to prepare. The same I’ve been destined to attend from birth, myself.

Harvest station-

Then from the sides of the screen slid in a cast of stunningly attractive young adults with wildly unusual hair colors. Splitting them perfectly, the name “Culling Satellites” emblazoned the center. Somehow, I knew I recognized it. All of it. The name, the station, the people and then I saw her.  Standing above them all with an outstretched hand as if to crush them all within her grasp-

Me? 

And then I truly remembered

[dont-throw-me-out-the-airlock]

I May Be the Villainess, But Don't Throw Me Out the Airlock

By E.C. Darling-Bond

Forever and Always to Grace

Chapter 1 - Shallow

Earth: 2150.Cellarius.21

There are a few immutable facts about life on Earth. I’m sure you know the idioms all too well. Water is wet. The desert is dry. The Sun rises in the East. The Sun sets in the West. Especially cliche is to say that the Sun shines first and foremost on the Würgegriff clan. Of course it does, lord knows they paid for it.

In this era of space colonization, human settlements run the gamut from the Dyson Detention cells orbiting the sun to the Bottlers on Pluto. Mother Earth sits in the middle, the crown jewel of an interstellar tiara. There is no crime, there is no poverty, and there is no hunger, for it was the work of ennobled families like the Würgegriffs that saw all human misery exiled to the stars leaving Earth as the prettiest gated community in all of creation. Fitted and pristine only for the wealthy and their servants, the politician and their butler.

I do not remember my birth, but I do remember my first birthday party. All of the bottom feeders of court made glittering with their desperate tears, coming before my parents (and me!), offering anything, anything to betroth their eldest sons, wayward brothers, entitled nephews, bachelor uncles, or slightly less often, their eldest daughters, flighty sisters, dowered nieces and spinster aunts to me, a toddler. My parents would accept many gifts on my behalf that day, but they entertained no commitments. For my mother had been the recipient of a blank check by the king himself for services rendered to his majesty. Namely in allowing the king to sleep with my father on my mother’s wedding night. Being the king’s prized pimp requires certain skills to execute effectively and my mother’s foremost specialty was (and still is) human resources. To her credit, she saved that story for after my tenth birthday cotillion. For that is when she told me what I was worth.

“Nothing less than the heir itself, my darling girl. Nothing less.”

It may be safe to say this made the wrong impression on a ten year old with no concept of consequences except as something that happened to the poors.

“Clean my room at once, staff!”

“Yes, m’lady” chimed the meekest maid, Maria. The maid, I most loved gifting my temper tantrums to. I don’t know what it was about Maria exactly that I felt justified in making her professional life so miserable. Though given my status, I didn’t really need one to begin with. Noblesse oblige and all of that.

Normally I’d start the afternoons by terrorizing her after turning over every token of affection from my absent parents and demanding she clean it all up. But one day, today, Maria was not alone. Behind her was practically her duplicate in miniature. But instead of the service uniform required of maids, the interloper sported a combination of a mud brown corduroy slacks and jacket, a flat cap, and a simple white shirt with a olive cotton vest. The finishing touch was an air of familiarity I couldn’t quite place. Especially with the cap covering the upper third of their visage.

Who is that- that- that- tiny newspaper urchin? Have I met them before? They look to be my age. Maybe at school? That must be it. Eww. What is a school rat doing in my future throne room?

“Staff? Just what is that skulking in my room?

“I’m-”

“This is my child, m’lady. School was canceled after you sacke- fired, instructor Heilongjiang-

“You’re welcome for it. She was a mean old bat. Yelling at me for what? Hiring another student to do my essay. If I, Petra Würgegriff, patronized them for it, why shouldn’t I turn it in?”

“Because that’s still plagiarism?”

My eyes glowed red from the gall of facts. “What? What did you say to me?” Who was this commoner to say such things to me. I could easily have him thrown off-world with a snap of my fingers, if I knew how to snap.

“Just because you paid for it, doesn’t mean you made it.”

“That’s enough now. I do apologize for their behavior, m’lady. Please understand that we have no one else on Earth. Until the mistress approves another tutor to take her place, I will need to bring my-

I held up my hand. She stopped. If I put my hand down, will she start talking again until I bring it back up? I must remember that the next time I’m bored. “You’re lucky I am so understanding, Staff. They may accompany you today, but they better not speak out of turn, again.” Maria breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thank you. Thank you m'lady. Your kindness is overwhelming. No doubt it must be because you are the daughter of-”

Not being in the mood for my peerless character being attributed to someone who wasn’t even here to be sucked up to, I kicked the makeup chair. When it didn’t budge, I pushed it over. I can’t afford to go soft in my old age.

“I want this place spotless, staff. Do you hear me? Spot-”

“She heard you-” the dummy murmured while their mother actually did the work of resetting the chair.

“Staff, I thought I said to keep your spawn qui-

“Yes m’l-

“No. No. No. Don’t say yes, until I’ve finished talking” I bellowed. The insolence. It spreads like a disease, but does she get it from the boy or has this willfulness been inside her all along? Managing the servants is so exhausting. I need to cool off.

“Forget it. We’re going to the pool now. Dress me.”

With a quick change, eyes clasped shut, and a jaunt we were at the indoor pool within. Superior to any of the old great lakes of bygone earth. It draped the floor elegantly. Shaped, of course, in the silhouette of our family sigil. The Würgegriff Otter. Mighty, cunning, and above all else, adaptable. It is one of Earth's few species that thrived when all the animals were exiled to the colonies. I am told the otter preserve in the capital of Mars is especially exquisite. This formidable creature has emblazoned our arms for generations and our indoor pool for several weeks at this point. Only those with true taste could enjoy it. At least that’s what mother said.

Maria seemed to be a beatific trance at the sight of it. “My goodness gracious. It is so beautiful”.

Maybe mother can be wrong sometimes. It’s a little too much for me to swim in alone. Even as a family, we only ever use the feet. “I guess it’s fin-”

“Why’s it so big? You can barely use all of it”

Wha- what? This stupid bo- gi- kid! I challenged their allegations immediately.

“How dare you insult my family’s honorably sized pool, commoner?”

The urchin had the nerve to be undaunted by my reprisal.

“It’s a waste of space.”

“You’re a waste of space!” I chided them.

“No. Your house is a waste of space. What do you need with all this? We could put in so many apartments here. Like twelve of them. Or even five.” They dare? They dare to lecture me? I’ll show them.

At this point. Maria tried to broker a peace.

“Children please. Please, let’s calm do-” But it didn’t work to quell my spite. And then-

“Your mom is a waste of spac-”

“No! C-”

Next thing I knew, I was plunged into a realm of chlorine and death. My eyes burned before shutting tight from the irritation. Panicked. I tried to dog paddle my way up, but everything I did, every flailing motion of my arms only sent me back further into the deep. That little brat. I’ll get them for this. If it’s the last thing I do. Why is it so dark? No! Not again! I don’t want to die ag-

Then everything went back to white.