Rotten Grain

Jax could faintly hear a pair of voices start coming in his direction and knew he was out of time. He would have to take a chance and hide in the container right next to him.

Quickly, Jax opened the pressurized door, creating more noise than he would like, and shutting it almost immediately. The first thing that he noticed was that the container smelled horrible, enough so that he consciously had to keep vomit from coming up. Looking behind him Jax noticed the entire container was filled with loose grain. It must have either been close to rotting before shipping or stored incorrectly during transit, because the entire container seemed to be filled with rotten grain of some sort.

Outside the container, Jax began hearing muffled voices drawing near.

"You hear one of these containers open?" a scruffy man's voice said.

"Maybe a little rat got away, heuheuheuh" a fatter man's voice questioned.

Jax began to ignore the smell and hide his body under the grain, making sure to turn off the container lights before almost fully submerging. Just as he managed to hide, the door began to open.

"I think it was this one. Let's see, here fishy fishy fis- augh" the fat man cried. "This container smells fuckin awful"

The scruffy man came closer while smelling "Shit you're right! This container's probably worthless."

Jax began to thank his luck as the men began to exit the container, perhaps too early since what the men said next terrified him.

"Let's get the boss, they'll know what to do with this junk" said the scruffy man.

"Good idea, you wait here and I'll go get 'em" said the fat man.

The next sound Jax heard was loud stomping reminiscent of his now corpse supervisor running away earlier. But aside from the humorous comparison, Jax was wishing that the men just left the container alone until he had a better chance to escape. Who knows, maybe their boss would tell them to leave the container alone!

After 10 minutes passed, the fat man returned along with another voice, one that Jax would never forget, a suave feminine voice, the kind that he could hear being in major galactic movies. He could imagine a true beauty behind this voice.

"What's the deal with this box fatty? And why did you drag me over here? I was busy counting my loot." spoke the beautiful-sounding woman.

"You see boss, we were searching to see if there were any good loot or rats left behind, and this container smelled horrible. We don't know what to do with it since it seems like a waste of space" said the scruffy man.

"Wait what?" Jax thought to himself. "Waste of space? That doesn't sound good".

The beauty loudly scoffed and Jax could hear the sound of someone being slapped, before the beauty ordered off "You're wasting my time with this, just throw it out of the airlock and be done with it. And don't waste my time with this shit again".

Jax's eyes widened. The container might be pressurized, but it could only survive in space for a few minutes. Just as he made this realization, he could hear the containers' grav-kit turn on, allowing it to float about a foot off the ground. He could feel that he was slowly moving, moving to his death. Jax couldn't even attempt an escape, the doors seal shut once the grav-kit is active. After 5 minutes, the grav-kit disabled, giving a metallic slam on the ground.

This had to be the trash chute airlock. Once he was jettisoned out he would only be able to survive for a few minutes in space. Jax was going to die, surrounded by rotting grain, in a cold empty expanse of outer space.