Silence

A quick short story about a journey through space to a planet near the Cat's Eye Nebula.

Silence

By: Samuel Collier

My foot catches on a root. I slam to the ground. My body aching I push myself up, the double gravity of this cursed alien planet crushing me. I finally get to my feet, a loud screech echoes from the surrounding “forest.” I ran as fast as I could, but it felt as if I was running through water. The thick atmosphere pinned me as I fell again, I felt a snap in my lower back. I strained to get up but I couldn’t feel my legs. How could this have happened? It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

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Half a day (100 Earth years)Prior

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Our ship speeds through space traveling about 99.99999999999999% the speed of light (299,792,458 m/s.) Each second closer to our destination, the Cat’s Eye Nebula. A couple of years ago NASA discovered a jumbled radio wave emanating from the leftmost arm of the cloud. Our ship, the Bebop, was sent out about 100 earth years ago, taking into account special relativity, that was around a year ago for the crew aboard the ship. This crew consisting of four people: John Strips, the pilot; Lily Waters, the mechanic; Tom Greene, the doctor; and me, the biochemist.

For the first part of the journey everything was great, but as soon as we got within a few hundred miles of the planet we were sent to, Cantis 2-B, when things went wrong.

As we descended towards the planet our engines suddenly cut. The planet quickly started pulling us down. We accelerated at an astounding pace, it took only about a minute to reach the planet’s surface… and let’s just say it was not a cheerful welcome.

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To say we crashed on the planet would be an understatement. I think a more appropriate word would be smashed… yes, we smashed into that planet. Luckily John, Lily, and I were able to eject before we hit the surface, but sadly Tom wasn’t able to eject. The three of us descended towards the surface. Each of us silent as we fell towards the ruined Bebop.

As soon as we touched the ground we all ran to the destroyed ship. But we didn’t run, the atmosphere was thick. It was almost like we were running through water. Nevertheless, we scrambled towards the ship, moving as if in slow motion till without warning the ship exploded.

The sound was muffled by the thick air but it was still enough to blow out my left ear drum. The shock wave sent us flying backward, the heightened gravity pulling us firmly back towards the surface. I only fell a few feet but the impact was enough to knock me out.

Darkness

* * *

Slowly I woke up, I heard the voices of my friends coming from my left. I struggled to listen in, but my fatigue and the dense atmosphere stopped me. I again fell backward into sleep.

I woke up again, this time regaining my senses. My body ached everywhere, but with some extreme effort, I was able to push myself to my feet. I looked around and spotted John and Lily near the ruined ship with some sort of object in front of them.

I hobbled over to them, pushing my way through the thick air. I listened in to their garbled conversation as I walked over.

“If I could just get it working we might be able to send a signal for a rescue,” Lily said, as she surveyed the object, which I now recognized as the Bebop control panel.

John placed his hand on the side of the dashboard, “Are you sure you can get this working? It looks pretty beat up, I doubt it will even turn on.”

Lily poked her head under it and started to fiddle around with some wires. A whir came from the side of the machine, as it turned on, buttons flashing with color. She stood up looking at John, “I’m pretty sure you’re not the mechanic, now stop talking about stuff you don’t understand and find something we can eat like I told you too.” She turned around and spotted me. “And you help him.”

Both John and I walked off talking and trying to forget about Tom.

At the end of the day, we had scavenged so rations from the ship and had found a plant that was edible. We had a small dinner of beans and that alien plant, which John started calling Audrey the second. It was a bad meal, but it did its job and after a bit,, we all went to sleep.

“Lily!”

I woke up to see John standing looking wild-eyed towards the strange forest next to us.

“Lily!”

With a sudden jolt of horror, I realized that Lily wasn’t with us.

I struggled to my feet, battling the gravity. As I straightened up John ‘ran’ into the woods. I struggled with him, my body aching from the fall. I stopped before I entered the forest, it scared me. I hadn’t been close enough to realize it but the trees weren’t like that you would find in your backyard, no they were strange. Instead of having a smooth shape that one associates with a tree they were more of just conjoined spikes of wood. They had no leaves and possibly the oddest thing was that they were all the same. I didn’t get much time to inspect them, but they all looked eerily similar.

I noticed all of this in a fraction of a second, and it scared me, something about the forest seemed harsh. It gave off a feeling a hate and contempt, but despite my terror I had to venture into them. I swallowed my fear and stepped in.

The first thing I noticed was the darkness, it was incredibly dark and it only took a few feet before the light behind me could not pierce the tremendous blackness. As I continued walking I noticed something else, it was cold, extremely cold. The outside behind me had been extremely warm, but the temperature in here had dropped to a frigid degree.

But nevertheless, I continued on searching for my friends. I walked for a long time, the deafening silence blinding my sense of time. The darkness was like nothing I had ever seen, and I use the word seen very lightly, as I couldn’t see my hand an inch from my face. It was terrifying to not be able to… what was that?!

I heard it again, “Snap, snap.” Then silence.

A bit freaked out I continued on, it must've just been the wind. I tried to convince myself of dozens of things but they all seemed far-fetched at the least.

“Snap, snap.”

My blood ran cold, a shiver passed down my back as I felt something touch my ear. It must’ve just been a branch. But despite my defiance, I found it impossible to move. Really I was just being silly there was nothing… I was wrong. I felt it again a long, wet, raspy, but still soft, and quiet breath fell across the back of my neck. I felt a tear slid down my cheek… I was going to die… No, I wasn’t. Something in my mind clicked. I needed to escape, I needed to save my friends. So I ran, I ran as fast as I could through this soupy atmosphere.

I kept running, I no longer felt the thing behind me, I was going to live. Suddenly my foot catches on a root. I slam to the ground. I struggle to get up, the double gravity of this cursed alien planet crushing me. I finally get to my feet, a loud screech echoes from the surrounding “forest.” I ran as fast as I could, but it felt as if I was running through water. The thick atmosphere pinned me as I fell again, I felt a snap in my lower back. I strained to get up but I couldn’t feel my legs. How could this have happened? It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

I laid there on the ground, tears rolling down my face. Suddenly I felt the breath on my head. A claw touches my forehead, I sob. This is the end. But it wasn’t, for some reason the creature didn’t kill me. No, the creature did something immeasurably worse, it didn’t kill me, but it didn’t let me go. I sat there for weeks, incapable of moving, the creature standing above me. After a very long time I heard a sort of laugh come from the beast, then it left. It was seconds later that I starved to death.

The End

Author's Note

Short little story, there's probably a lot of mistakes.