GamerDameMedia

           In the grand scheme of the cosmos, freezing to death while drifting along the Etherium wasn't the worst way to go.  She could think of many worse ways to die after being spaced.  She could fall into the vacuum of space and suffocate, or stray too close to a star and get pulled in by its gravitational force to burn up, sucked into a black hole, or starve (or more likely die from dehydration).  But it seemed fate had seen fit to deal her a slightly kinder hand.  A hand that still said she was screwed, but only in the gentlest way.  With fancy silk sheets and plenty of lubrication.

           She would've laughed, but that would exacerbate the splitting headache she already had, so she settled for a chuff.  Clearly the delirium of losing core body heat was setting in.

           It seemed a rather appropriate bookend to her story, short though it may be.  Fitting that her last memory should be bobbing freely along the Etherium waves to wherever they deigned to take her, as it was also her earliest.  Gazing up at the endless, twinkling abyss, she could almost imagine the hard wooden deck of her grandfather's old longboat beneath her back.  Or maybe the rough fabric of his overalls, with the button that always seemed to poke her in her shoulder blade as she reclined against his portly torso.  She smiled to herself then.  That's a nice thought, she said to herself, letting her head drift back, supported by nothing but the lack of gravity.  It was almost enough to fight off the creeping chill that raced ahead of the numbness as her limbs stopped receiving vital blood. She'd always ridden the waves as they came, be them Etherium or fate, letting them take her where they willed. Why should the end be any different? "A man's heart devises his way, but fate directs his steps," her grandfather would say.  Smart man, for just a farmer.

           The irony wasn't lost on her, even as her brain began to sluggishly flit around poorly connected thoughts.  The woman who always had an escape plan, always left a way out... Lady Luck had robbed her of her one vice.  Not that she hadn't tried.  It was getting out that had landed her in this situation in the first place.  She'd booked passage on a small transport ship out of the Calyn Abyss to... actually, she didn't remember where the vessel was enroute to.  Away, was all that mattered.  A deal had turned particularly sour, and she needed to disappear in hurry.  With enough money in the right hands and a vessel about to pull out of port, nobody asked questions.  She'd stepped onto that dock as Absence, and left as Tammy Righte.

           Things had been going well, until a bit of turbulence from a passing comet had caused some sort of electrical malfunction.  As the transport rocked and swayed, the occupants had tied their lifelines, hoping to ride out the waves.  That was when everything started blowing.  Something must've shorted, creating a fire below deck.  She remembered people screaming as the deck shook. A particularly violent blast caused the ship to tilt and lurch, bucking like a mad bonzabeast, throwing her from the deck.  She remembered feeling weightless as she escaped the protective sphere of the ship's artificial gravity.  The last thing she remembered was something metallic from the ship hitting her squarely in the face before blacking out.

           When she woke an unknown amount of time later, she found herself adrift in space, far from anything to save herself with.  Her face ached something fierce, and she'd touched it to feel blood. Without gravity, it couldn't really pour, but she felt it oozing with each pounding pulse of her heart, trickling along her face whenever she turned her head.

           Despite the name, one couldn't swim through Etherium currents like water.  You went wherever they took you.  The knock from the ship had sent her essentially careening through space, and she'd keep going that way thanks to the lack of friction unless something intervened.  Not wanting to die, as any warm-blooded being wouldn't, she'd tried to find some way to stop or change her course.  But she wasn't near anything.  Eventually, hypothermia started to set in, and her limbs became too leaden to move. At that point, she'd resigned herself to her fate.  Why die tired?

           She reached up a hand to wipe the blood trickling in the corner of her eye, but her aim was sloppy due to not being able to feel her hands anymore. Don't spend your last moments thinking about such things, she told herself.  Shouldn't her last moments be happy?

           Relaxing back into the Etherium, she went back to imagining herself on her grandfather's boat, bobbing along.  They'd spent many a'night floating aimlessly in the sky, the green plains of her home rolling peacefully below them in the breeze.  As a little girl, she would sometimes lean out over the side of the longboat, so far her grandfather would have to pull her back to stop her from falling.  She'd giggle as he tickled her, tucking her safely to his chest.  "Tryin' to fly away, little bird?" he'd ask. "Ya' too young for that, yet." Some nights, if the weather was clear, he'd teach her about the different stars and planets.  He'd tell her tales about his brief stint in the Navy, or some adventure from his wild youth-- sometimes they'd even be true! Other times, they'd fall asleep drifting, only to wake up in some random place and go on an "adventure" to get back home.  Basic navigational and map-reading skills were an essential pick up.  He liked to pretend he was teaching her, but she knew better.  Man couldn't find his way out of room with a single door some days.

           Her favorite nights, though, were when he'd pull out his old harmonica and play for her.  On particularly clear, cool nights like this, his tune would be slow, the notes dragging on for long periods before warbling, bobbing like the waves.  She always felt like she was rising and falling in time with the tune.  Her hand came up to rest on her breast pocket.  Despite not having feeling in her fingers anymore, she knew the harmonica was still safe within.  She felt its outline pressing into her chest.  Briefly, she thought to take it out and play one final song on the old instrument in memorial, but with her hands as they were, she wouldn't be able to play.  And she didn't want to lose it.  So, she settled for letting her hand rest there, taking comfort in its presence over her heart.

           Everything felt heavy now, to the point she almost expected to start sinking.  The organ beneath her hand was beginning to slow as it lost the fight to keep her warm. Non-vital organs would start shutting down soon.

           She forced her mind back to more times with her grandfather, this time on land.  "Don't think you're too good to put your hands to hard work, little bird," he'd tell her... usually while making her do something around the farm he didn't want to do.  Chasing down some ornery creature that didn't want to be hemmed up, most likely.  Or time spent fishing at Mrs. Neelie's pond. She didn't actually like to fish, didn't have the patience for it, but she always went to watch him.  She swore, her grandfather could be in the middle of an ocean, miles from anything else, and still manage to get snagged on something. Or there was the time he tripped coming down the hill and nearly knocked old Mrs. Neelie into the pond.  She'd had to sit down, she'd laughed so hard. "Go ahead, laugh at the old man," he’d warned her.

           Her laughter melded into a sob at the end, lips pulled back in a grimace. The stars around her shined even brighter in the light of her tears stuck to her lashes.  She felt her lower lip wobble.  No one was around, what was the point?  She allowed herself to cry, flailing in impotent rage.  "I don't want to die!" she shouted to the heavens. Maybe this close, someone would actually hear her and take pity.

           There would be no one to mourn her, no one to even report her missing. Absence would be hunted for a while until her pursuers gave up and cut their losses.  Tammy Righte would be listed as death in absentia, another sad statistic.  All her other alias would only be missed when a contact tried to reach her for something, but swiftly forgotten as they looked elsewhere for someone to do their dirty work.  Her more frequent clients might wonder, but it would be a passing question, like the fate of a childhood schoolmate.  She'd ghosted through life, taking different names along the way.  She went through names like normal people went through clothes: you pick one as needs demand, it gets a little too dirty, discard it and pick out a new one.  So many names and alias and identities.  Her real name safely locked away.

           There was no one left who knew who she really was.