Whistling
rating: +6+x

Sound needs matter, space has no matter, thus, space has no sound. Everyone knows this, it's basic physics. There is, however, a tale told by hardy star sailors, muttered under drunken breaths to new recruits. The tale tells of a beautiful whistling that fills the dark emptiness of space, just before the destruction of a ship. Skeptics say that it is the sound your brain makes before imploding from the sudden loss of air pressure, or an auditory hallucination caused by your body running out of oxygen. Those who believe in such a tale rarely agree on the source either. Some speak of gigantic whales, communicating with each other across light years, others talk of a mysterious, hostile alien race that uses the noise as its battlecry. Some even say, that it is the melody of Death herself.

Only a handful of people can claim to have actually heard the sound, all of them being survivors from destroyed starships. There is, however, one man whose word concerning the legend bears more weight than anyone else's. This man is Ichabod Durst, a starship captain, who has survived a total of 8 destroyed vessels. Despite this, he refuses to share what the origin of the sound is.

All of this was told to Winston, a new sailor recruit, who had been assigned to Ichabod's next vessel. It was a skeleton crew, since sailors were a superstitious bunch and only a few people were willing to sail under the command of a man who had witnessed the death of so many crews. Cursed they called him. Winston, however, wasn't so easy to discourage. This was his dream job, and it would take who knows how long for him to get a reassignment.

The first few months aboard the cargo vessel went without a hitch. Sure, the days were long and the work was tough and arduous, but Winston got to see different planets and made some close friends. The only person he hadn't really gotten a chance to talk to proper, was the captain himself, who always seemed to carry a large weight on his shoulders. He had solemn eyes surrounded by large, dark rings, and when he wasn't performing his duties as a captain, he locked himself in his quarters, never socializing with the crew after hours.

Winston had been slightly worried in the beginning, but after almost a year without any horrible accidents, he had pushed his fears back as nothing but superstitions of the less educated. Eventually, things took a turn when Winston was awakened one night by the ear-piercing sound of the emergency siren. He rushed out of his room to the corridor, where the crew was already running around like ants, preparing to evacuate the ship.

"What happened?" Winston asked from another sailor running past.

"Something breached the hull. Section 5 is just… gone. It was like it was ripped off", the man explained and sure enough, Winston could hear cracking and buckling caused by the hull complaining under some sort of pressure, but then Winston could hear something else. A sound that caused some of the other sailors to stop and turn visibly paler. Somebody was whistling.

An eerie, sorrowful melody filled the air, seeming to drown every other sound under its beautiful, but oppressive presence. For a moment, everything was still, but then chaos broke out. Everyone immediately dropped what they were doing and turned to flee towards the evacuation pods. The ship shook violently, almost throwing Winston off his feet as another part of the ship was torn off. Despite of this, the captain came out of his quarters and ran towards the bridge. Winston was about to turn and flee like the others, but his curiosity became overpowering. He had to know what the whistling was. After a moment of consideration, he followed after the captain.

The lights flickered, leaving Winston to darkness for seconds at a time, and what looked like claw marks appeared in the walls out of nowhere. There were screams echoing through the corridors from somewhere afar. And through it all, there was the ever-present whistling.

As he finally reached the bridge, Winston could see Ichabod, standing in front of the front window. Behind the glass, there was a woman, pressing her hands against the screen. Her long hair and dress flowed in the emptiness of space, her skin was as white as bone, and her beautiful face was calm, but her eyes were filled with rage and sorrow. She was whistling. The captain turned to look at Winston.

"Crewman! What are you doing here?"

"I saw you run here and I followed," he explained. "Who is she?" Winston asked, looking at the woman.

Ichabod let out a heavy sigh. "Her name is Mary-Anne. She used to be my wife, long ago. She died, and I couldn't save her. I tried. I swear to the gods I tried", he said, his voice slightly breaking.

A crack appeared in the glass under her hand.

"But why is she doing this? Why is she killing sailors?"

"She blames me for her death, she's been following me to every ship. I've been a coward and ran before", the captain said, his head hung low. Then he straightened his back and turned to face the woman.

There was another crack.

"I will run no longer. She will never stop until I'm dead. You should go."

"Are you sure? We both could still make it."

The captain turned his head to look at Winston, as another crack appeared.

"A captain should sink with their ship" He smiled.

Winston nodded and gave one final salute to the captain before turning to run. Upon entering the corridor, he turned around to see the doors to the bridge snap shut. Out of the window he could see the glass in front of the captain be filled with cracks, before it burst into millions of tiny shards, causing the air to rush out into the void, sending Ichabod flying to the waiting arms of the woman. Winston opened his mouth to say something, but there was no one there to hear him.

Within the evacuation pod, launched towards nowhere with blinding speed, he watched as the ship was torn apart like a paper towel by an invisible force.

Most of the crew had survived, but for those hadn't, a mass funeral was held. Winston, among all the other survivors, attended the funeral. They all gathered afterwards to honor the memory of everyone who was lost in the accident, but Winston was the only one who knew what had truly happened. He never told the others, returning to duty only a year later. The whistling could still be heard from time to time, but it no longer came in the wake of destruction. Instead, some sailors who heard it, claimed to have seen two figures, a man and a woman, holding each other and dancing to the melody, in the middle of space.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License