The Dark Side of the Moon

       Joe was very scared. All he had wanted to do was to go out quickly and fix the broken pipe. But it had not been that simple. There was more than one pipe busted, so it took him 3 hours instead of 1. He glanced down at the oxygen meter. It was rapidly going red. He had about 15 minutes to get back to the base, but was stuck between two boulders. His radio had gone out, and there was no way to get back to the base.

       Blaise was upset. He had not seen Joe since he left. He was Joe's partner, but Joe insisted that this particular project was only going to take an hour, so no help was necessary. But now that Joe had been gone for too long, he was cursing himself. Joe should never have gone by himself. Blaise paced the entrance to the airlock.

Made by Theta: Theta's Art

   

      Joe was now panicking. He was in no hurry to die, but it appeared it was going to happen sooner rather than later. He reconciled himself to his fate and sighed. This was life. As soon as you met a nice girl you would like to marry, you were handed your life back to you on a plate. Joe leaned against a boulder. Ah yes, the girl. He contemplated about her. Her name was Anna Marie. He had met her on the Underground while travelling back from work. She had not minded that he was wearing worker's clothes, and instead of snubbing him like everyone else, she smiled and chatted with him. That had lead to a nice dinner with coffee afterwards. He sighed and thought to himself, "That relationship had so much potential, but now there is nothing. But at least I was able to spend my last night on this moon happy as a... a... worker on break!" (Being from the Moon, Joe did not have a good comparison...)
       Meanwhile, Blaise had found an unused moon car and suit. He had established a weak signal from Joe’s radio. Even though it wasn’t working for Joe, the radio’s had a built in weak distress signal. Blaise followed it out to where Joe was. Or rather, where he should have been. Because the radio wasn’t working, Joe had left it near the pipe he originally was supposed to fix. Blaise snarled with anger. That was just like Joe, to forget that the radio had a built in distress signal. Blaise got out of the moon car and went over to the pipe. It had been fixed. Perplexed, Blaise glanced around. Nothing. He looked again, slower this time. Nothing… Oh wait! There was a flash of red coming between two rocks. Blaise quickly went over there. There was Joe!

       Blaise reached down to check if Joe was ok. He shook him a little bit. Joe did not move at all. Trembling a little, Blaise checked his life support system. The oxygen was yellow, there was hardly any left. Blaise lifted up Joe’s head. His face was tinged blue Restraining his tears, Blaise picked Joe up and put him in the car and hurried back to the base.

       In the hospital, Joe woke up to Anna Marie next to him.