Why Are You Standing There?
An ex-contractor, free from obligation, discovers they're not as alone as they thought on a desolate world. But their mysterious savior may doom them both.
You’re free of their tyranny, but you’re waiting for their permission to live. Still, and it's been a year since your contract ended.
In that unfamiliar world, the hollow whistling wind travels through tubular grass stems. You haven't heard anything else for months.
Is this the future you want? Powerless to control anything except the tattoos you inked on your skin? Don’t you understand? You spent your life wasting blood for someone else’s dream. Now it's your turn.
“Get up.” Again, more urgently. “You need to get out of here!”
You see nothing but the surrounding landscape through your failing helmet.
“Leave!”
So you do. You’re so used to taking orders, you’ve forgotten how to speak for yourself.
“That’s it, keep going!” The voice urges you.
The sun never moves as you walk for hours. You’re dizzy, but you push on. There's something in the distance, a structure rising from the horizon. What? You ran scans a few days ago, and it didn’t pick up anything artificial. It should’ve, considering how its vastness dwarfs you.
Aliens are an impossible dream after centuries of space exploration, turning up nothing but the occasional six-legged animal or reptile.
It’s a spaceship! But... not one you recognize.
“Get on the ship!”
So you run towards it, jumping up the entrance ramp like a fool. The circular entranceway, not tall enough to accommodate your lanky frame, opens out into a large room of beeping machines.
Something's strapped to a table, unconscious and convulsing in pain. They have deep blue skin, six spindly limbs and a bulbous head. What you assume are their closed eyelids are rimmed with black. There’s something so familiar...
"Help me!”
What to do? You’re an engineer, not a medic. You fumble with the unyielding straps, and your fingers slip. No! At last, they snap open and the person falls into your arms. They’re too heavy.
“It’s set to explode!”
What? The ship shakes, and you hear a deep rumble. So you seize the creature, dragging them as you sprint towards the exit.
You can only watch as the ship explodes around you, engulfing you in searing heat and light. Everything goes black.
When you wake up, you’re on a planet with steaming volcanic vents and an endless mesa plateau of varying shades of gray. There are no buildings, no space ships. What now?
"Please, keep going. Shelter isn't far away."
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Statistics → Word Count: 438 | Reading Time: 1:35 mins