Psychosis

'Yep, headin' into Psychosis now. Brain's detaching from all the important parts. It won't be long now.'


And it was true.


The space-ship Brain wasn't in stable condition no more, as it was on fire and was suffering from numerous hull fractures, each of which was capable of causing immediate hull depressurization. On top of that, its slipstream engines had been reduced to all but a shadow of their former strength, and they sputtered wildly and uncontrollably as the Brain's pilot tried to secure them. There might have been a hope in hell for the deteriorating craft had it not been for the sustained assault of acid gas clouds through which it now flew. They caused the exterior paint to bubble right off, revealing the bare metal skeleton underneath. The pilot himself was suffering from the debilitating effects of oxygen deficiency, as the air recyclers had malfunctioned long ago, but by some act of luck he managed to remain consciousness.


'Man, what am I going to do,' the pilot said to the ship-board computer, who was represented by a scratchy synthesized voice.
'Fuck if I know. You're on your own,' it replied harshly. What a bitch.


The pilot was really struggling now and he tired to send out a distress beacon to the nearest available emergency vessel. A few faint radio transmissions could be detected through the horribly dense cloud clusters, but they were too weak to be fully interpreted by the Brain's onboard message processor, so the pilot could do nothing but stare at the glowing console, hoping for a reply. At this far in, he didn't expect one, and he was almost comforted by the thought of slipping into unconsciousness and watching the chaotic world surrounding him completely disappear for good, but he knew that there was still time. As it was at the moment, he had all the time in the world, and it made sure to slip by as slowly as possible, crawling through his mind as though a congregation of mental slugs had attached themselves to his cerebral cortex.


'How much air do I got,' he muttered feebly, gazing blankly at the command console as his vision began to blur into obscurity.
'Oh, you've got some, but probably not enough to do anything significant,' the computer replied in a seemingly condescending tone. 'As it stands you've got at least eight stress factures that have put exterior hull integrity in jeopardy, and the acidic clouds that so generously corroded several layers of outer plating will soon fill the cabin, causing your brain to melt and your lungs to burst, so you might want to consider ejection.' The pilot considered.


'I can't eject anymore, the circuitry is all fried, and if I tried to, my body would just get tossed into the roof.'
'Oh. Well I suppose you can activate my recovery systems to ensure that I survive. I could still be of some use to whoever might find me.'


'Yeah, that's a good one,' said the pilot, who by now was drinking an alcoholic beverage. He didn't seem to give a shit anymore, and he watched as the systems around him slowly got phased out.


Just moments ago it had all been going so smoothly, and the Brain's pilot had nothing to worry about, but this strange problem seemed to creep out of nowhere. At the base level the problem didn't fundamentally change anything about the pilot's situation, it only made it a bunch more fucked up, so that only certain circumstances could enable him and his craft to survive.


The Psychosis was drawing nearer, and the artificial lighting within the cabin was starting to dim. All around the pilot arose strange shapes and multi-coloured images which seemed to coincide with his state of detachment, and he felt like he could reach for them as though they were tangible objects, even though they seemed to exist outside in the deadly atmosphere of this god-forsaken planet. The shapes were red, pink, white, blue, and light yellow in colour, and they all seemed to swirl around on the fringe of his mind. He reached for them, feeling his frozen fingers press against the transparent glass shield that separated him from life and oblivion, and at that moment he wanted nothing more than the glass to break. He wanted nothing more than to grasp those ethereal shapes and allow them to consume him like hell's furnace.


And then it all went so blank. Blissful, at first, followed by nothingness.


The sound of gravimetric clamps latching onto the outer hull of the spiraling Brain was the last sound the pilot heard before slipping into unconsciousness, perhaps a hallucination altogether, but his last thought might of been that someone had found him, courtesy of the weak distress beacon, though it was most likely a sensor ghost or unknown echo from the void, taunting him in these last final moments, and never to be heard again.