Gemotions

It was the quiet that got to her first. The complete, utter, unnatural quiet. No traffic, no distant chatter, just the mechanical hum of the machine and the pounding of her own heart. She felt like she was drowning.

Her coworker, Tom, was attempting to whistle, his attempt feeble and quickly abandoned. "Don't," she pleaded, but the word came out as a strangled whisper. She had to escape this space.

She pressed her hands against the cold metal walls, testing, pushing, desperately searching for a weakness. She saw the emergency hatch overhead, but couldn't reach it. She paced, her steps becoming wilder and more erratic.

Her vision blurred. Colors seemed to intensify, and then fade. Then she sat down, curled into a ball, and started crying, her body shaking with a force she couldn't control.