Silently, like prisoners leaving their cells for the execution chamber, we leave our makeshift camp and head out into the endless desert. We follow the smoke rising above the horizon, the only light in our crushing darkness. We make our way to the remnants of our ship, hoping without hope that there may be shelter and maybe even salvation somewhere beyond the horizon.
The pounding in my head intensifies as we walk. It's like a drumbeat inside my skull, pounding and pounding and pounding without rest. I hear the voice again, the smallest of whispers. Perhaps I am tired, and this is what I tell myself, over and over again. I am tired, and stressed, and terrified, and the voice is the extension of my exhaustion, nothing more.
There are seven of us left, journeying through the endless sands. Despite the horror I know I am inviting, I wonder what became of those dragged beneath the sands. Were they smothered alive by the planet? Were they turned to the walking dead like the rest of our people, or were they simply devoured by them? I have heard many stories in my time, and I know that the Universe is an unmapped and terrifying place. This planet, and whatever foul demons haunt it, are far beyond the understanding of humans; we are, I think, fragile little things, and even more breakable in the face of such horrors.
Stars twinkle overhead. I wonder, if we walk far enough will we see a sun? I don't think so. I miss the woman's company now, already sick of the alienation we remaining few feel for each other. The voice inside my head insists that she sleeps beneath the earth, and that I will be joining her soon.
Dark-blue veins are scattered along the skin of the planet, feeding back into the earth. I look at them, my mind ablaze with ideas. Are they the remnants of a long-dead race? Are they the wires of some machine, powering the dead back to life? I stop walking, and bend down. Maybe, if I could only touch -
A man near the back of our procession screams. I turn around, heart racing, just in time to see his face and outstretched hands disappear beneath the surface. A single cry escapes his lips before he is gone forever
Run.
And we obey, sprinting away and leaving our companion to die. There is no hope for him now, and we may be fooling ourselves to think there is hope us. I run, faster than I know I can, away from the man, away from the dead lurking beneath the skin of this world. I keep my eyes fixed on the smoke rising in the distance. It's strange. I always thought that when I faced death, I would think of my friends, my family. But none of that now. The only coherent thought racing through my brain, the sole motivation that tells me to put one foot in front of the other, is that of survival. Loved ones mean nothing to me now. There is only me, bound together by such tangible, flimsy flesh.
And I run. Faster than I ever have. The others drop around me in the periphery of my vision, and I am terrified. Am I the only one left? I run faster, faster still, the screams of my companions echoing in my ears as the voice mocks me.
I see the ship up ahead, a hazy, unfocused mass of fire and metal in the distance. But it is there, and God help me, I need shelter now! My head is throbbing, harder and harder. The voice is louder now, and though I am not sure what it says, I get the sick feeling that the tone is one of fondness, of love. My stomach turns over at the thought. Is it the voice that drives the dead? Does it speak only to me, or did the other survivors hear it as well?
My breath comes in gasps, and my lungs pulse with agony. The ship is coming into focus now. I can see the makeup of the wreckage, the twist and turns of the flames. It's like a light at the end of the tunnel, calling me home out of the fiery inferno. The blue veins have spread across its face, as if it is being absorbed into the planet itself.
The voice is almost completely audible now. It's likes a signal, and my mind is its receiver. It tells me how much it loves me, how much it wants me for its own. I feel appreciated, almost like I am an extension of the voice, a part of it. It is a part of me, and I am a part of it. The voice, or the voice's mouth, will soon consume me and take back what belongs to it.
No, I tell myself. Shake it off. It's all in your head. All in your head, there's nothing to be afraid of here. Nothing but the dead and my own creeping insanity.
I stumble into the an exposed orifice of the ship, leaning against the metal walls for support. The metal is cool, and feels the same as it did when I last saw it. Its form has been shifted and morphed by the flames that engulfed it as it crashed into this hell, but it is still the Samaritan. And for that, I thank every God in this hopeless, pathetic Universe.
I hear the screams of my comrades outside. There is nothing I can do to help them now, not without a gun. I crawl, deeper and deeper into the frame of the crippled ship.
I feel around, my eyes adjusting to the darkness of the ruins. There is no light here, no stars to show the way. There are only instincts and wits, and even those are decaying rapidly. I crouch into a crawlspace, crawling through debris. My hand touches something that feels like flesh, and for a second, I fear it is the dead. Yes, I tell myself. It is the dead. But the quiet dead, the sleeping dead. I continue to crawl, the cries of my fellow survivors becoming muffled and silent.
Now I'm in an area with an exposed roof, allowing the light of the stars to light my way, however vaguely. I see the blue veins pulsing next to me. I look at it closely, feeling it with my hands. It feels...warm, like there's something alive inside it, growing and thriving and –
I see something moving inside it. I look closely. It's a small ring, a golden band just like –
It's Loraine's ring. I realize now, watching the jewel flow steadily through the tube, that this vein is exactly that: a tunnel of life, carrying blood and nutrients to something nowhere, feeding back to some creature somewhere on this planet. And the ring's presence can only mean...
I gag, my bile spilling out of me onto the cold metal. Jesus Christ, God Almighty... I crawl forward, trying hold in the rest of my vomit, even as I crawl in it –
A sudden drop, and I crash into the floor. I stumble, half blind, about the ground. My hand finds an object, and I grab hold of it as –
a burst of green light illuminates the room, and I jump uncontrollably. The object on the floor is a plasma gun, still intact despite the horrors that its cell has gone through. It even managed to fire a shot. Its shot has hit a wall, and the room is illuminated with emerald flame.
I pick up the gun, the vomit making it slippery in my hand. I check the energy reserve of the gun. Barely any left, maybe not even enough to fire another shot. That last one was probably a fluke, but who knows? It wouldn't be much help against the dead. Perhaps there are more guns, or perhaps...
Perhaps I end it all right here. Maybe I just put the gun to my head and pull the trigger and that will be the end of it. Goodbye, sadistic universe. Good miserable, hellish planet of the lost.
But wait – there are words. Bloody, misshapen words scrawled across the wall. They are written in dried, brown blood, brightened by the light of the fire and now...
Now I remember.
I remember being here. Being imprisoned, locked in this room like an animal in a cage. The captain said I was raving mad, said I was whisperings, crying, being violent. I don't remember any of that. I remember the words, though. I remember writing them, I remember using the blade to carve into my skin and write the words that my voice could not proclaim.
These are not human words, not the mere symbols and dashes of we simian. They are the ravings of a madman trying to make sense out of his own delusions.
We were in proximity of the planet, floating towards it as our power began to fail. Robert Brown came in, holding a tray of food, asking me if I was hungry. When he sees the wall, sees my blood stained hands, he drops the food, his blue eyes wide with shock and disgust. I smile, the voice in my head goading me on like a ringmaster to its lion.
Kill him, it said. Break him. Make him bleed
I beat him to near-death with my fists, grabbing his gun and tossing it aside as he reached for it. And then I left the room, leaving him alone to die there, and then I...I...
I see it now! The voice, the thing in my head, whispering and humming to me! It has been here, all this time, sleeping beneath the surface of this world. It was the voice that drove me here, the voice that haunted my mind as we passed over the planet, as our engines failed us and the ship began to drift above the planet.
Bring it down, the voice told me, and I did. Oh, God, I did! I started the fire! I burned the Samaritan out of the sky! I brought us here, the living and the dead! And the Devil in my ear, the thing driving me to do it was the planet itself, yanking and pulling me along like a puppet to its will!
This is not a planet. This is not even Hell. This is a thing, a horrible, monstrous thing, feeding on the passerby and weary travelers of the universe for sustenance. And I am alone here, on its surface, the last of the living and the next of the dead.
They will feed me to it, like they did Loraine. The dead rise to take the living as sacrifice. Now, the vomit comes, my guttural sounds filling the room.
I stumble away from my former prison, my mind reeling as I begin to hyperventilate. I have to get out of here, I have to do something anything, but, oh, but there it is! One of the dead, its rotting corpse illuminated in the light of the fire. Its eyes are insane, controlled by the thing beneath the surface.
I hear them. God, I can hear them, and smell them, and they're all around me! I grip the gun, shaking as I raise it, but I am too slow, and the creatures are upon me, surrounding me on all sides. Once upon a time, they were the crewmen of the Samaritan. Now, they are my executioners, coming to take me for the planet's own. They grab me, pulling and yanking at me! They're dragging me outside, every muscle in my body flailing. I fight it, but we're outside now and oh, God, they're dragging me beneath! It's like quicksand, consuming us into its mouth. I can feel slimy, wet things under the sand, licking at my feet. Oh, God , please forgive me! Please forgive me! I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry! My body is almost consumed by the earth, please don't let me die like this! I can't, I can't! Oh, God forgive me! I close my eyes and scream, wrenching the gun's barrel to my temple as I pull the trigg-
==============================================================================
END TRANSMISSION
It's an excellent piece, very well written I think, and it grabbed me quickly and made me breathless, unable to wait until the end. And that is very good indeed.
Gender:
Points: 1413
Reviews: 56