Lunar Showdown with Dr. Tickles

"You know what I hate about the moon?"

"What?" I asked, my voice hoarse and tired.

"There's no water."

"I could go for a drink right about now," I said, spitting out a bit of dust from my lips.

"I mean, for real. No water. There's all this space, but no water."

"Makes you wonder why we even went there in the first place."

"Yeah, that's just crazy," he replied. "I mean, if there was water on the moon, I could really use a bath. This is just disgusting."

\\//

"Since when do you hate baths?" I asked with confusion while we were going inside the Space Station. "You're always in the shower..."

"You know what I mean," he responded, still gazing outside as he was walking. "I'm talking about real baths. You know, like in a tub? Or hot springs? Or lake? There's no lakes here either... Just... Not worth it..." He trailed off and entered the airlock, which closed behind him. I entered and waited for the lock to open again to let me through. When it did, I saw him walk towards his room without turning around.

\\//

"Hey man," I called out at him after breakfast as he walked towards his room again. "Me and some of the guys are hitting up some bowling alley tonight and wanted to see if you wanted to join us." He stopped at his door and turned around to face me with a look of exhaustion on his face. "No thanks man," he said slowly, opening his door and closing it behind him with a thud. Confused, I returned to my room and gave him some time to himself before heading down to the docking bay where my shuttle was waiting for me. That night after work on another shuttle back home I found myself once more standing in front of his door half hoping he'd be more responsive than yesterday; otherwise I'd have nothing else to do except watch bad sitcoms until he went to sleep so we could head out the next morning together again. After knocking several times and getting no response, I decided to enter his room with my master key card; opening the door revealed a room dark except for a small light glowing from behind one of his drawers where he had apparently fallen asleep on top of them while waiting for me - or someone else - to arrive so we could go back home together again as usual every week since we started working here six years ago. Seeing that he wasn't moving anymore, I decided to check on him by simply touching his forehead with my hand; immediately feeling that something was very wrong with him caused me to quickly run over to his bedside table where his phone lay so i could call emergency services but discovered that the battery had died... Or rather been drained completely empty; having worked with electronic devices for years before joining our current station project made me feel confident enough to remove it from its port and connect it directly to one of the energy cells inside my suit as well as charging it up again in record time while placing it beside him again so they could call us as soon as they arrived in their shuttle tomorrow morning. As this was happening though i noticed something unusual: while going through his phone's settings i found an application buried inside one of its folders which had been hidden from view by default; opening it revealed a text file entitled 'The Experiment' which i began reading out loud: "This is my first test subject who will be staying here for three days only without any sort of entertainment whatsoever..." At this point i flipped through some other menu options which revealed things like 'Tickling', 'Extreme Tickling' and 'Painful Tickling' along with some other options including 'Dessert', 'Sleep' and 'Exercise'. After flipping through these menus once more i came across an option labeled 'End Experiment' which i promptly clicked on; immediately afterwards i saw a message appear saying: "Experiment ended successfully", followed by another saying: "Please return subject #1 back into its storage container before returning subject #2 into its own storage container", followed by yet another saying: "Please insert subject #3 into its respective storage container." Knowing that this strange experiment must have something to do with the fact that this guy hadn't moved for hours without any apparent reason made me realize that perhaps he wasn't in a sleepwalking-like state but rather had fainted due to a medical condition or something similar... Well anyways whatever it had been caused by would soon be fixed by tomorrow morning when emergency services would arrive alongside Dr Mary Jane who'd probably figure all this out during her weekly checkup after docking our shuttle at our Space Station later today; until then though i figured he should be placed back into his bed properly instead of lying there motionless on top of these drawers... Which is exactly what i did before then walking outside onto our service platform which overlooked Earth below us while looking up at Earth rotating around itself before eventually shoving myself back into my shuttle which then docked aboard ours before preparing myself for entry into Space Station Alpha's docking bay so i could go home once more... For now anyway...