The Haunted Traveler Vol 1 Issue 2

46
The Brightness of an EXIT
Sign That Leads to—
J.J. Steinfeld
The strapped-down male being who had been
encased inside the spacecraft hurtling through the
universe for a decade woke from suspended animation,
painfully forcing his eyes to open and seeing the
brightness of an EXIT sign above a portal that leads
to—
To what? To where? He attempts to remember
why he is traveling through space, memory stabbing
like an indefinable torment caused by an unseen
weapon. “Exit” is their language, he thinks. Exit, exit,
exit… He recalls learning that word, and many other
words, in secret, sitting inside their spacecraft unlike
the one he finds himself in now. His teacher was
lovely, lovelier than any woman on his planet, and he
loved her. Loved her more than anything. He told her
that in his language of high-pitched staccato sounds,
a language she knew perfectly, as did many of her
people, the courageous soldiers, she called them in her
language, but the expression on her face told him