by Libby Morgan

Created on: January 07, 2011

Vision was the first sense that returned-or rather, an awareness of the lack of vision.  I was surrounded by blackness.  Deep, tactile, blackness-like velvet, only not nearly as warm and comforting.  Feeling came next; I was frigid.  The cold was bone-numbing, it added a brittleness to the black, like skeletal ice over a still lake. 

 I wasn't panicked, not yet, but I could feel it rising in my throat, swelling until it seemed like I was about to burst. 

My hand jerked forward, a quick movement, and it collided with an arced wall.  A wall like a casket, smooth and rounded.  A gasp caught in my throat, then quenched when memory crashed down. 

Oh.  Right.  The sensory deprivation chamber.  It must have been...what, a couple of years...the whole voyage?  But why was it so cold?  It was supposed to be re-heated before they woke us up.

The lid of the chamber was only inches from my face.  I couldn't see it, but I could feel my fast breaths collecting against it-trapping my own heat against my lips. Claustrophobia nestled around me, wrapped me like a lover's embrace, in the tight chamber.  The vapor of my breath seemed to wind around my head, masking me.  My hands scrabbled for the button that would lift the lid.  They slipped along a surface that felt like it had been coated with grease-tefloning my fingers past the little release button.  I caught it with my little finger and depressed it with a flick of my hand. 

With a sucking noise, the lid lifted on hydraulics and slid off of the tank.  The pressure released and suddenly I was panting for air, sucking it in, swallowing it like I'd been smothered before.  My vision flared, fireworks pinwheeling in front of eyes that hadn't seen in years.  Time passed, and I realized that the flashing wasn't all in my mind.  The wall between the passenger area and the command room was a flare of flame. 

Probably a good sign that the trip wasn't over.  I leapt out of my chamber and bolted towards the nearest other tank, desperate to wake the next person over.

Or at least, I meant to.  I actually just twitched.

My muscles were kept in shape over the sleep-saving me from atrophy and a long recovery-but I wasn't used to controlling my legs by myself.  One more twitch, and I managed to jerk myself into a sitting position.  I convulsed my legs over the edge of the tank and levered myself

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