Four hours had gone by – much more time than Richard had planned on waiting – but no one had come. He had spent much more time on the little details of his project than he had initially planned, and he had even given himself time for two fifteen-minute breaks. It wasn’t often that he didn’t follow his plans to a “T”, so finding himself departing from his pre-set schedule (even as quickly as it was formed) was rather disconcerting. He comforted himself in the fact that he was on the moon, and that would mess up anyone’s plans, just with its strange environment alone.
The absolute silence was rather disturbing, despite all the noise Richard was making. He decided to light the fireplace. He wasn’t really cold, but he hoped the noise and movement generated by the flames would help ease the unnatural silence. He realized that the fireplace, along with the placement of the windows, was the only difference between this cabin and his room back at home.
Looking around, he found matches, logs, and a full fireplace tending kit right next to the fireplace. He hadn’t noticed those there before. He hadn’t really needed them before, so it didn’t really matter. He didn’t want to think about it too much – as much as he liked solving problems, he really didn’t feel like tackling another one – the whole being on the moon situation was problem enough.
After setting up some logs and some kindling, Richard took a match out of the matchbox and struck it on the bricks in front of the fireplace. It immediately lit without any hassle, so he placed it to the kindling, which quickly flared up and began to spread to the firewood. He blew on it a bit, although he wasn’t sure what the exact method to igniting a fire was. He just a knew a bit from the few group campouts he had been on, which he never really enjoyed anyway.
Within minutes, a full fire was crackling comfortably in the brick fireplace. Richard got up and looked out the windows again. No sign of anyone coming. He looked out the other window. Nothing there, either. He sat back down on the bed and shivered – again, he wasn’t cold, but rather, “freaked out” – another phrase he didn’t use much.
He realized that no one would come. He was on the moon, for goodness sakes – no one had set foot here for at least two decades!
This left everything up to him – if he was going to figure out what was going on – wait, back up – he should start with a more basic goal. If he was ever going to get off the moon and get back home, he would have to do it himself. No one was going to rescue him – his manager wasn’t going to step out from somewhere and take over the unmanageable problem – he had to take matters into his own hands.
Richard had a sudden urge to go outside the cabin. As dangerous at that seemed to him, he couldn’t make the feeling go away. Even without the urge, he somehow knew that going outside was the only way to get anywhere other than this cabin. Surely whatever was keeping him alive in the cabin would keep him alive outside – it wasn’t like there was a special air supply in the cabin – there weren’t even any vents in the walls or ceiling.
Despite all this knowledge, the thought of opening that door scared Richard. A lot. More than anything ever before, in fact. This was understandable, considering he was on the moon, but he still didn’t know what to do with this fear. If there was no atmosphere outside, the difference between the pressure inside and the pressure outside would irresistibly pull him away from the cabin and into the depths of space. He could just open a window – it was a smaller space, and therefore less of a risk.
No, Richard knew that he had to go out that door. Everything in him called and pulled at him to do it.
He stood up. He didn’t have any shoes on, but he didn’t care. The fireplace was still going, but he didn’t care about that either. He walked straight over to the door, reached out his hand, took a deep breath, and opened it.
