Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 2020complete | Page 595

Greater Bay Area Project
Delia School of Canada, Wong, Siu Ki Martin - 16
Mendez heaved a ragged, wheezing breath as he flailed relentlessly through the vast abyss.
Squinting through the slits of his bruised, swollen eyes, he stared into the infinite darkness before snapping
back to attention. Desperate to regain some sort of composure while stuck within his splintered spacesuit,
Mendez adjusted his ashen helmet, the sound of silence resonating within him like a beacon of hope.
With the remaining vision he had left, Mendez inhaled the oxygen from his tank, and the oxygen
did its magic. In an instant, the dark fog of confusion clawing at his brain scattered and everything was
crystal clear. Filing the last traces of doubt and paranoia into the ‘unimportant’ category in his back drawer,
Mendez calmly scanned the environment around him. The ruins of the space station drifted lifelessly around
him while the larger pieces of debris came crashing down upon what remained - like asteroids from the
apocalypse. The rescue ships were blasting off in the distance, undoubtedly carrying clusters of survivors
back to the safety of Earth.
Mendez laughed as a scornful, disdained chuckle escaped his parched throat. These men had a job,
and the needs of the many outweigh the lives of a few. But nowhere in that quote said that Mendez had to
lay down and accept. If no one was coming for him, Mendez would carve a path with his bare hands.
Before the grim realisation pierced his heart, the oxygen display within his helmet began to flash a
dangerous, crimson red; in its dying protest, it gave Mendez a warning that potentially saved his life before
powering down and returning back to its cold, dead silence. Mendez did not comprehend what it warned in
time, but knew immediately when he took his next breath, and then the next, more jagged than the last.
Within seconds, Mendez felt as if he were breathing in the toxic haze he once thought he had escaped.
In a last desperate effort to reach out for life, Mendez extended his arm in futility. Ready to accept
his demise, he reached out into the unknown… and something reached out in response.
Mendez squinted through his cracked visor, only to be met with an unknown, floating metal
object. Mendez did not know what it was, but he felt a familiar energy from it.
Life.
The man could not comprehend what it was, but in his dazed and confused state, Mendez only felt
a sense of irrational relief. He knew it could not be anything but a mirage, a shallow visualization of some
form of divine hope that had come down to rescue him. But his emotions repressed the ugly truth and clung
onto the last trace of hope.
The object flickered. Mendez reached out and, in that moment, the two existences formed their
paradoxical connection.
Mendez stood in the middle of a familiar site; his old living room. He looked around, viewing the
Chinese vases decorated around the house. A miniature statue of the Buddha stood in the corner, incense
still burning beneath it. Mendez could not remember why he was here, but he felt an odd sense of calm, as
if he knew precisely what he needed to do. Scanning his own apartment block, Mendez strode over to the
balcony, overlooking the grey skies of an indistinguishable area formerly known as the Financial Area.
Macau had long become different then the gambling utopia it used to be. The Western-styled streets lined
under his field of view, with high-class businessmen and construction workers alike hustling and bustling to
wherever they needed to be.
Mendez missed the sight. He kept this day close to his heart, knowing that today would be the day
he would be transferred to the Chinese sect of the International Space Coalition.
Packing his bags, Mendez took one last look around the room and paused. The antique china that
his mother had bought, the smell of incense, and the varied amounts of memorabilia scattered around the