Sharon watched the teenagers approach, knowing the helmet screen was a 2-way mirror. She screamed and banged the metal with her fists and stomped her feet, but cushioning absorbed the sounds. The girl jumped back, startled. The girl asked the boy a question, but he shook his head. The girl blinked a couple times and laughed when the boy poked her and thrust his hands at her to scare her.
Hope died like a candle extinguished. She recalled when she and her boyfriend had come out to the deserted shack deep in the forest, where the inexplicable astronaut suit stood. Rumors held that it came from a defunct amusement park. It had no real functionality, made from metal and heavily solid, as evidenced by the girl tapping on it and pushing it.
Sharon’s boyfriend had gone into the shack while she had investigated the suit. A hand had clamped over her mouth, holding her head tight to someone’s chest as another hand reached around to open the astronaut with a little key that had not been obvious to her. The hands shoved her into the astronaut so quickly that she’d not even thought to fight back yet. She was positioned in a flash and the astronaut suit closed. She didn’t hear the snick of the key, but once she recognized her situation, she found that the suit was securely closed.
Her boyfriend wandered out of the shack, shrugging as though there were nothing to worry about inside. She’d been looking forward to this new adventure—outdoor sex in a forbidden area. Now she witnessed her own disappearance through her boyfriend’s behavior. He called her name for hours, beat the hood of his car, and drove away. Returning with him were her parents and police officers, who searched the premises with flashlights, had a head-hanging conversation with her parents, and also drove off well before morning.
Sharon watched volunteers meet in front of the shack to search for her. When the search party was clearly over, she slumped in the suit waiting to die, wondering if she would succumb to thirst first, as she’d always read. She didn’t know how long she’d been in the suit when she saw the teenagers, who now were fucking in the shack, oblivious to her distress.
She cried without tears.