Everything began with those words.
"You are authorized to begin extra-vehicular activity."
Felix breathed deeply, feeling the recycled air rush into his lungs. This wouldn't be his first time outside the ship; it wouldn't be his first spacewalk. But still, walking out into space, beyond the safety of the metal walls of the New Era spacecraft, always got him on edge.
He put on his heavy helmet, which sealed shut against the rest of his suit. Facing the exterior wall of New Era, Felix gave a big thumbs-up to Clarissa, his mentor and the astronaut in charge of seeing him through this next mission. It was relatively routine – he needed to inspect the radio communications array to ensure that its structural integrity was as it needed to be.
Felix turned his head to see Clarissa smile her usual cheesy grin and respond with a thumbs-up of her own. And then, the exterior wall split in two, revealing an opening to the void beyond. Pulling himself along the wall, Felix reached a hand out into space, grasping for the usual handle. Finding it, Felix breathed a bit easier; it was always those few first moments that worried him. He had never not been in contact with the ship. There was a safety cable tying him to it, but Felix had trouble trusting the thing.
Inching his way across the exterior of New Era, Felix gradually approached the towering array built to send remarkable amounts of data back to Earth. It looked vaguely like the scaffolding of a skyscraper; it was skeletal, but dishes poked out here and there, aiming at distant satellites and at the world below them. Careful not to touch anything fragile – and many things were – Felix followed the instructions that had been drilled into him extensively back at Green Dawn headquarters.
The youngest astronaut to ever leave the Earth's atmosphere at the age of 20, Felix had been put through a rigorous training course by the company's executives. Sure, his role in this inaugural flight of New Era was mainly as PR, as a figurehead of the youngest generation taking charge. Even now, Felix was certain that Clarissa or Ben was taking pictures of him performing his duties. They'd make for great advertising material, surely.
Though it hurt that they didn't trust him to run any of the real experiments or anything, Felix wanted to prove to everyone that he deserved to be up there. To go where so few people have gone before. His grip tightening, Felix pulled himself along faster than before, his fear fading away as determination rushed in to replace it.
"Slow down, Felix. You've got to take it slowly and carefully," Clarissa's voice buzzed in his ear.
"I've got it, Clarissa. I did this dozens of times back on Earth in the pool," Felix retorted, slowing himself not in the least. If anything, his desire to prove his own words right quickened him. Within arms reach of the array, Felix began to inspect every place of potential critical structural damage. Every weld, every rivet. None of it seemed abnormal, and Felix relayed all of his findings to Clarissa, who in turn logged it all for the company.
In the span of minutes, all that was left to check was the top-most portion of the array. Climbing up through the support structure, Felix felt his cable grow more and more taut. He was almost at the end of his rope. "Hey Clarissa, can you put in a note to extend the cables? They're barely long enough to get to the top of this thing."
"I noticed some of that myself. I'll put in a note, no worries," she agreed. With a smile, Felix continued his work, pausing only to stare at the backdrop: Earth. Its wispy white clouds flowed over the greens and blues, and it was the only real color he could see out there beyond the ship. It was a place of refuge and sanctuary in an otherwise inhospitable universe. It was beautiful. With two hands outstretched as if he were hugging the Earth, Felix felt euphoric.
And just like that, Felix felt his cable loosen ever so slightly, as if giving him leeway to breathe and enjoy the sight. "Clarissa, the cables might be just fine after all. They must've caught on something earlier."
Silence. There was no response to his statement, but based on the interface in his helmet, he was still definitely connected to Clarissa through the communications channel. "Clarissa?"
"Felix… there's something wrong with your cable. Are you still holding onto the array?"
His breath caught. Felix knew better than to trust that stupid cable, but that didn't stop him from letting go earlier. He bit back the urge to curse, knowing better than to do so within earshot of Clarissa. "No, but I'll grab on."
Reaching back, Felix found nothing to grab onto. His heart began to hammer away, the constant pounding the rhythm to his terror. "I can't. I've drifted off."
Clarissa cursed. "We'll find a way to get you, Felix. I promise."
"Okay," he whispered, knowing full well that they couldn't do anything for him. Green Dawn wasn't capable of sending up another craft just to save him, and no government would spend the millions of dollars necessary to launch a rescue mission. With an hour of air left, there would be no hope for him.
Felix reached for a ship he knew wasn't there, and he kicked to swim through nonexistent water. He was stuck, drifting further away from New Era. Setting a timer for one hour, Felix watched the minutes tick down, rushing ever closer to zero. At least it would be an easy death. The suit would carefully restrict his airflow, lulling him to sleep before he suffocated.
The sixty minutes turned into one, and Felix turned his eyes away from the clock to look at the Earth one last time. Everyone that ever lived was down there, everyone that had ever mattered to him. "Mom, Dad, I don't think I'm coming home," he mumbled, his eyelids growing heavy. As they were about to close, his heart beat with the fury of a thousand storms.
"I don't want to die!" he cried out, knowing that none but Clarissa could hear him.
"I'm so sorry, Felix," Clarissa whispered, watching the same timer he was. "I couldn't do anything…"
As the red numbers turned to 0:00, Felix raged. One mistake had cost him his life. If only he could do things differently. If only he would have never let go of the ship. In a final, futile act of desperation, he reached out his arm in the direction of New Era. His eyes closed and his thoughts stilled, but his heart continued its drum.
When he next opened them, he was standing back inside New Era.
"You are authorized to begin extra-vehicular activity."