Hypnagogic

Word of the Day Wednesday, February 17, 2010

hypnagogic

\hip-nuh-GOJ-ik; -GOH-jik\ , adjective;

1. Of, pertaining to, or occurring in the state of drowsiness preceding sleep.

Eric scratched at the back of his neck and squished a small insect between his fingernails. He could smell his own dirty, stale smell. He couldn't remember the last time hie had bathed, his whiskers had long ago turned into a beard that was now matted against his throat. The only thing that stood out on him were the whites of his eyes and he tried to keep those down-turned as much as possible. Although he was sure that by now they were probably blood shot and no longer stood out in the dark.

It had mostly been luck that he had survived this long. At first he thought it had been fantastic bad luck that their ore extraction mission had been so grievously miscalculated. The planet actually being occupied and all. No one had seen that coming apparently. All life on the planet lived under ground off of sulfur vents just like in the very deepest depths of the ocean on Earth. Only they had full-fledged societies living here.

But the more he thought about it, the more he decided that it could't have been a mistake. The commission put together to advise the project had spent years researching the planet. How could they have missed a very sophisticated, well-armed population? The only answer he could come up with was that they didn't miss anything, he just couldn't figure out what the motivation for continuing their own, very poorly defended, mission.

They had stood no chance against the weapons the native population wielded. They had been designed to enact damage on the unbelievably tough shell that the local populations grew. The slightest graze from their weapons caused unbelievable damage to human tissue. The teammates that Eric had found alive after the first attacks he had ended up killing himself purely to put them out of their misery. If he hadn't already known the fate that was waiting for him at the end of one of those weapons he would have stopped running and hiding a long time ago.

But he also had no reason to keep running. He had seen the space dock leave orbit the day after the initial attack. Leaving twenty-three surface teams stranded. It wasn't surprising though. The odium on board the dock was worth a thousand times over the worth of the lives of the 230 people they had stranded.

And so he dug in. And had survived. For now.

He felt his eyelids close and struggled to hold onto the last shreds of hypnagogic consciousness. This was always the most dangerous time.