A Stranger in the Stratosphere
There was a deep thrum that shook all the way through Makai's bones, giving her a sense of pure anticipation. She looked down at a brilliant blue marble with tiny continents poking through. Up here, at ninety thousand feet, the curvature of the planet was a tangible, breathtaking arc.
Beside her, Tristian gave her a thumbs-up.
"Ready for the big one, Sky-Angel?" he asked through the radio.
"Born ready," she affirmed.
She stretched out the intricate webbing of her wingsuit, a state-of-the-art item made from recycled polymers and solar-powered sensors. It was incredibly light while having the capability to withstand the intense wind speeds of the stratosphere.
The two of them had carefully planned this route for several months to chase the setting sun across two hundred miles of open sky.
A green light appeared over the door. They locked hands as the magnetic rails underneath unlocked. The door opened and they launched.
For a few seconds, they were simply falling. The rush of air roared all around them, overpowering the sound they could hear on the radio.
Then, Makai spread her limbs and the fabric caught the atmosphere despite how thin it was. The freefall turned into a glorious glide. The world expanded in front of her. A dizzying panorama of cerulean faded to an inky black dotted with stars that seemed impossibly bright. Beside her, Tristian mirrored her movements.
This was freedom. The air was crisp, almost painfully cold, but it made her feel alive. Their suits would regulate their core temperatures to stay within a nominal range. Over the radio they let out whoops of pure joy, sounds only the two of them could hear. The entire experience felt like they were dancing in the air, a metaphorical ballet through the sky.
Then, through her visor, she saw a small speck of something shimmering. She dismissed it as a simple ice crystal, or perhaps a bio-aerosol released by atmospheric scrubbers. She didn't care. The world was theirs and nothing could touch them.
The sun, a sliver of light on the horizon, painted the clouds around them in fiery oranges and deep purples.
As Tristian turned, Makai noticed something unusual.
"Hey," she radioed, "You've got something on your suit."
Tristian glanced around, then twisted his body to get a better look at his own limbs.
"I was just going to say the same thing. Looks like dust?"
He tried to brush it off his thigh with a gloved hand, but it didn't budge. Instead, it smeared further on his suit.
Makai tried to scrape a fingernail across her forearm. A slight film gave way, but a faint residue remained. She looked at it closer, something pale and silver. It wasn't ice. If it was, it would've sublimated in the thin air or flake off.
"Weird," she murmured. "I guess it's an atmospheric particulate. But I've never seen it this high up."
As they descended, the dust continued to accumulate. Beyond their suits, it seemed like it was suspended in the air all around them. The shimmering, ghostly haze caught the fading light in an unsettling way. It had a certain ethereal beauty to it, but it made her feel uneasy.
As she maneuvered to turn, she felt a subtle stickiness that felt unnatural. It felt like the air had grown thicker.
"Do you feel that? Like we're in a milkshake," Tristian grunted.
"Yeah," she nodded.
She wiped the visor, as things were looking murky, and then she saw a small chunk of mold nearby.
A new panic raised her adrenaline to a new level. This wasn't dust or ice. It was growing.
"Tristian, look at your suit," she whispered. "Really look at it. It's not normal."
"Oh god. What is this?" Tristian's voice sounded scared.
A warning popped up in Makai's visor. The solar-powered sensors were reporting low voltage. In low-power mode, they'd report less frequently, giving them less information in order navigate safely.
With the increased weight, they were beginning to fall much faster and that led even more of this mold to build up on their suits. Makai watched as a patch attached to her left wing, once a speck, had spiderwebbed across the fabric and was starting to eat into the material.
That warning had turned into a red alert. The sensors went completely offline.
"My wingsuit is dissolving," Tristian said, his voice full of terror.
The fabric of the wingsuits began fraying as small holes formed where the fungus had eaten through. The wind took advantage of this opportunity to tear at the rest of the weakened material.
"It's on my skin now," Makai choked out.
She felt a strange, numbing chill creeping up her forearms, followed by an unbearable inch that quickly turned into a burning sensation. She tried to move her fingers, but they felt oddly heavy.
Tristian's movements became increasingly uncoordinated and his limbs started twitching.
"I can't feel my legs," he gasped, his voice sounding tight as raspy.
Makai's vision blurred as the visor became completely opaque. The burning sensation continued growing more intense until she was struck by a sudden, chilling, numbness. She could no longer feel the wind rushing past her, only the all-encompassing embrace of the fungus. Her life flashed before her eyes.
She tried a final time to fight back, to take a ragged breath and reach out to Tristian. But her limbs wouldn't obey. His form had turned into a shapeless silhouette dissolving into the hazy air.
When the sun finally dipped below the horizon, there was nothing left in the stratosphere aside from pieces of wingsuits drifting lazily and a scattering of invisible airborne spores continuing their silent, endless journey through the sky.
I recently learned that fungal spores are present in the stratosphere. It’s a bit creepy to think about that.