Have you ever woken up before your alarm clock? Not being truly awake, yet still somewhat aware of your surroundings? Knowing that you properly only had a few minutes at most before that annoying tone rang out and shattered the illusion of bliss, of never ending slumber?
Time stretched as Mark snoozed like this, he knew that any moment now the annoyingly cheerful tone would wake him, rip him from the comfort of his newly washed sheets… However, as time stretched his illusion of endless bliss wasn't shattered by a copyrighted series of strangely annoying cheerful notes and that's where the anxiety crept in
What if he had forgotten to set his alarm? No, it was always on even on holidays the same tune always rang
What if his phone ran out of battery? No, he always sat it in the charger, it was part of his ritual
What if the power had gone out? Or an earthquake had destroyed his local power plant? What if a massive cyberattack had crippled his counties' infrastructure, and what awaited him was years of anarchy that would eventually transform him and have him lead his people to glory? To one day stand before those that had harmed his fellow countrymen and hold them accountable? What if the mutated fauna of his planet eventually lead him to become an enlightened god emperor!? To reign even as stars burned out!? TO RISE EVEN ABOVE HIS OWN MORTAL COIL!?
"...No, that's too ridiculous"
With that mutter, Mark shifted as he started to shake off his sleepiness however just as he had accepted that he would be up early today and would use that as a reason to get one of those extra expensive sugar filled coffees at the station instead of the usual thin shit the staff room had on self-serving for free he noticed something felt off
"Why don't I feel my bed?"
Opening his eyes, Mark saw a jagged icy surface spreading out in front of him and an endless sea of star specked black above him
'...'
Mark's mind went blank as he stared ahead, still laying on his side his mind refused to comprehend the screen before him with half his reasoning saying he was in a lucid dream and the other being able to feel the jagged ice of the surface he laid on eventually his mind managed to convince itself he wasn't dreaming, and he sat himself up and looked around
'Where is this..?'
Mark reached out and felt the icy surface with his hands, he could feel its imperfect jagged surface, however it didn't feel cold
"...What the fuck is going on?"
However just as his confusion went even higher Mark pressed down on the icy surface and felt his entire body shift away from it, after the initial vertigo he muttered
"No fucking way"
Pressing again the same happened, then his head snapped up as he looked ahead out over the jagged icy surface and saw a clear edge
"...I guess it is just like that Newton guy said"
Pressing off against the surface once again, Mark floated up and forwards, he floated about a meter up before his orbit reached its zenith, and he landed again on the icy surface and muttered
"One small float for mankind…"
After this, he found his footing and slowly rose to his feet as he looked out over the jagged ice surface and around at the other ice asteroids that floated around him in listless stillness
"This is some crazy fucking shit, man… How am I even alive?"
As the initial shock and wonder wore off, Mark was left with way more questions than answers, he was clearly in space, but he could still breathe and hear his voice? Even ignoring that, how was he able to survive the cold irradiated emptiness of outer space in just his boxers and a t-shirt?
However, before he had time to be bogged down by more endless questions while floating around in the vacuum of deep space, he felt a sting on his skin
"Shit! What the…"
Having pulled back his arm from the sudden pain, Mark saw his skin had turned ashy white in a large spot, as he watched this strange wound that was quickly closing Mark felt another sting on his leg and found the source of his pain after he pulled his leg in
"light?"
A beam of radiant light shone for a few moments before it disappeared again, it had left the same kind of wound on his leg as on his arm, feeling a sudden dread Mark looked towards the asteroid he had awoken on and saw it slowly illuminate as light reflected around its imperfect ice crystalline structure, some light was stopped by impurities in the ice, but it wouldn't be long before the light made it through
"Shit!"
Mark quickly jumped off the asteroid and after floating through the void for a few moments he took off with his arms against another ice asteroid and looked back, from there he saw hundreds of thousands of icy asteroids all illuminated by blinding starlight that slowly crept closer towards him across the void
"Fuck!"
Quickly getting moving, Mark pulled himself forwards over the surface of the ice asteroid around it before he set off and leapt to the next one before quickly continuing on
'Shit… Shit…'
His mind burned with panic as he leapt from asteroid to asteroid as the burning light followed after him, illuminating the asteroids where had fled over
'I can't outrun it, I got to find somewhere to hide!'
Looking around at the endless expanse of icy asteroids, Mark spotted it, far off in the distance there was something that stood out amount the sea of pale white
'There!'
Mark immediately leapt the asteroid again towards his target, in a mad dash against the light that followed quickly behind him, reaching the shelter he saw it was some sort of metallic wreck however he didn't have time to look it over in detail as he found a hole he could squeeze himself though
"ARGH!"
Feeling the burning light, Mark finally found something to grab onto on the inside and finally managed to pull himself though and away from the light as he hid in the shadow of his newfound shelter
"Fuck..! It fucking burns..!"
After the pain of the light faded enough for him to see straight again he first confirmed that his shelter was enclosed and let out a sigh of relief as he only found the one opening he had entered from, after having calmed himself down he looked around his newfound shelter
"A room?"
Even though it was cramped with a low ceiling, this was definitely some sort of living quarters on the wall where he had entered he found some sort of sleeping contraption that looked like a sleeping bag stabbed to the side of the wall. Other than that, a few smaller enclosed containers floated around the room but what caught Mark's attention was a closet next to the sleeping contraption
'Maybe there's something in there that will tell me where the fuck I am?'
Mark pulled himself along the metal wall and after examining the closet for a few moments he found a latch at the top he loosened before he could roll down the door like a roll curtain, inside were around a dozen closed and secured containers but what caught Mark's attention was an unexpected collection of color in the gray sterile looking closet
"A picture?"
Mark reached out and grabbed the picture, the material it was printed on was some sort of crystal and displayed on it was a man and a woman dressed in what looked like dark blue mechanic overalls floating in a room that looked like the one he was in, they were smiling at the camera holding onto each other by a linked hand
'...They look happy… Well, at least there's other people somewhere out there… What else is in here…'
Rummaging through the other containers, Mark found a few sets of dark blue overalls like the ones in the picture along with that there were some polished metal cubes which meaning and use escaped him and in the last container Mark found a stash of what he eventually discovered were ration packs with dense dried biscuits which he tasted on a whim
'...Tastes like some sort of synthetic fruit'
Crewing on the biscuits, Mark continued looking around the room and discovered a single door, however it was covered in the light from the hole he had entered through
'There's an even smaller hole on that wall too… looks like it lines up with the hole I entered through… Wait a moment…'
Mark looked back at the hole he had squeezed though again and did some mental measurements
"How did I..?"
The hole he had entered though was about ¾ as wide as his shoulder width, and logically speaking, there was no way he should have been able to squeeze through it no matter how panicked he was
'...'
Mark looked down at his hands for a few moments before he looked at the closet again and grabbed a lid from one of the containers and used it to cover the hole he had entered though before looking around again
'Hmm…'
There wasn't any difference in his vision despite the lack of light, and having stopped the light from bleeding into the room even made him slightly more relaxed
'...'
Looking down at his hands again, Mark began focusing, now that he had done it once even though it had been in panic he could still feel it, it was on the edge of his consciousness and after focusing enough he managed to do it consciously
'Well this is freaky…'
Mark looked at the length of his fingers stretch before he made his hand morph back, then he widened his palms outwards to double their width before morphing his body back, then he looked down at himself and felt the fabric of his t-shirt
'...Shit, well I definitely am not human anymore… Well I did just leap across an asteroid belt without a space suit but somehow this feels even more freaky…'
Mark could feel his hands on the fabric of the t-shirt because it wasn't a piece of clothing, it was his own body… After a fair bit of focus, he transformed the t-shirt, and it quickly molded itself back onto his body. In a few minutes his t-shirt and boxers had become one with him again, it hadn't been clothing, it had been part of him, just like his arms and legs
'...I don't like that… Not one bit…'
Mark grabbed one of the dark blue overalls and put them on before he hugged his own knees and curled up in a ball before he muttered
"What the fuck is going on…"