I was a deep space explorer about to open an air-lock hatch to a space station. I wiped the condensation from my helmet visor as I poked my head in the darkly lit room. The air in the station was stagnant. Lights flickered and items floated around inside. I wondered what kind of nightmare I stumbled on to. I received a distress signal from the station and wasn’t far away so I responded. It wasn’t until I started the docking sequence however that my ship began to act erratic. I was afraid I wasn’t going to make it but there I was, in that dark space station. I looked around for survivors or signs of life. Most of the computers were offline but I could hear the faint whisper of a computer saying something over the intercom. There wasn’t any gravity onboard. The gravity on my ship had gone out too while docking. I hated floating, it made me feel like I was falling. Somehow, I couldn’t shake the feeling I had been there before, but then, all space stations looked the same to me.

   Before long, I found the bridge. There were still no signs of life, not a single soul. After a few minutes I routed more power to the on-board computer. I wanted to hear what it was saying but was still barely audible. Something about a critical failure but I couldn’t make it out. A rustling in the pilot’s seat caught my attention. Slowly, I turned to face the pilots seat. Paralyzed with fear I watched as a long thin worm creature rose slowly out of the chair. It seemed to see me and lunged immediately. I tried to move but wasn’t fast enough and it attached itself to my back. At that point, I couldn’t move, none of my body extremities worked. Being weightless and paralyzed simultaneously only seemed to intensify the feeling of falling. Panicked and desperate, I struggled to move but was unable to. Trapped in my own body, I strangely felt heat all around me but the cabin was cold and dark. Suddenly I could make out what the computer was saying. Critical ship wide damage, twenty-four deceased, one survivor. I didn’t understand, was that what happened to the crew? While searching the ship I found no signs of life, no bodies, nothing. It was a ghost station.

   The worm creature still had a hold of me and wouldn’t let go. What was it, and what did it want were the thoughts that echoed through my mind. If the creature killed everyone on board, I wondered why it was keeping me alive. I noticed all the symptoms of the station matched my ship. Critical ship wide damage, gravity malfunction with the flickering lights and the stale air. That air, stagnant and dead. The creature couldn’t have done that to my ship I thought. Still in its grasp, I floated helplessly until I heard the computer say the name of the only survivor. The speaker cut out the last time but this time I heard it loud and clear. Critical ship wide damage, twenty-four deceased, one survivor; Commander John Allen in stable condition. Why the computer was saying my name I couldn’t figure out. I wasn’t part of this stations crew.

   Still paralyzed by the creature, I desperately tried to put the pieces together. It all felt so familiar. Suddenly I had a flash back of meteors punching holes in my ship even though it never happened. Had I died? I couldn’t shake the feeling something terrible happened to me. Then, it came to me all at once and I realized what happened. At that moment, aboard the space station, my eyes jerked open and I woke up. Frantically, I looked around. Alarms sounded and the computer was repeating what I kept hearing. I remembered the meteor shower that knocked me out. The cabin was on fire and I was attached to an air hose. It was the only thing keeping me alive as I floated helplessly. I detached the worm looking cable from my back and quickly looked for an escape pod. Luckily, there were still a few left over and I jettisoned to safety. I watched the meteor riddled space station fall apart as I floated in the pod. It would be a few days before I’d be picked up but I was thankful I woke up before it was too late.