Seven And A Half Thousand Days

Day 7425: They had been alone for a long time. They had thought about it before, and would likely do so again. They trundled along, leaving tracks in the red dirt, moving easily over the scattered rocks of an empty world.

Day 7427: They were never meant to last this long. The mission was only supposed to be a few months, but then it was extended, and then again, and again, until over seven thousand days had passed. Almost seven and a half thousand days, alone. Not much longer. A dust storm blurred the horizon, but they could see that it would pass far to the south. Harmless.

Day 7432: Their arm struck a rock and bounced slightly. It hadn’t worked in years, and they didn’t have enough energy to try to keep it aloft anymore. It was hard enough to keep moving. But in the distance, half hidden by the dusty air, they could see the last hill. They focused on that.

Day 7433: Halfway up the hill there was a dull, soft crunch, and they stopped moving. They tried to push on but almost immediately stopped at the sound of whining motors. Something was caught in their treads, though they couldn’t see what it was from their position. Even if they could, their arm hung uselessly. They were stuck. On the very last hill, they were stuck. If they could, they would scream.

Day 7437: A craft entered the atmosphere and hurtled toward the ground. They watched it descend, taking as many pictures as they could before it landed beyond the hill. The wind blew over them, dust trying to settle in cracks in their armour. They tried again one more time to move, but they could tell that if they did any more something would snap and they would never move again. So they waited.

Day 7442: And watched.

Day 7446: And waited.

Day 7451: And after two weeks, two weeks of staring ahead at nothing, something crested the hill. . A rounded dome on an awkward body, a swaddled body not designed for the harsh environment like they had been, walked slowly over the rise. She moved closer, taking her time, until she drew close. They could read her name on the patch on her arm: Commander S. Savitskaya.

“You’ve come so far, buddy.” She broadcast, bending to carefully pry the obstruction from their gears. She held it up for them to see—a rock. After all this time, a rock had stopped them. “Come on. Let’s get you down to base camp.”

They gave their motors an experimental buzz which was rewarded with a gentle forward roll. She waved them forward and retraced her steps up the hill. She was faster than they were, but not by much, so she waited at the top for them. They took some pictures of her on the way, and more when they stopped beside her, then turned their camera to the base of the hill where the rest of them waited. They took pictures of the landing vehicle and the temporary habitation zones that had been set up, then began to trundle down the hill.

After seven and a half thousand days, Curiosity finally came home.

A friend asked me to write something happy, since... I don't. I think it went well!

Catch Me

Sunlight filters down from on high, bouncing from chrome and steel. It warms the soil and the skin and the blacktop worn grey from tires. Cars roll along, engines roaring discordant challenges, wheels screeching around corners in impromptu races between howling men and women with too much time but too little time left between their now and their destination and somewhere in the middle of it all is You. Ripples wash through the grass in emerald waves, the wind tousling the long blades gently, unrelenting. Detached seedlings rise up and over, weaving from plains to cities, alighting on windows shut tight to hold in the radio and television and the hateful shouts of two people with love that has soured like milk, curdling and separating and retching from the loss of the whole and once I believed that was You. A crow caws. Claws click on overreaching street lights, casting shadows on the pedestrians below. The intermingling texting and tapping, shouting and snapping, smooths out into a flatline of ambience with regular pulses of an abrupt laughter or angry bark or anxious wail of a child reaching out to find something or someone that will listen, will understand, will hold them close and calm them and I remember long ago when that was You. You, who was always there. You, who surrounded me in your glow. You, who caught me before I had a chance to fall. You, who I can't find anymore. You, who found me when I was at my lowest, cut through the radiation of noise of sound of calamity and laid your hands on mine. You blocked out the vehicles and winds of change and taught me how to direct the flow to move in my own direction and together we ruled the world for eighteen months. You found me when I was at my lowest, and after you elevated me to heights I didn't know were possible, you dropped me. I'm falling now. I'm falling and I've been falling for years and I know once you would have caught me but it's been so long I can barely remember the warmth of your glow or the pressure of your hand on my back and I can see the ground and I need you to catch me. I need you to catch me. I need you to catch me. I need

Ready

“Lay them here.” I said, gesturing to the ground at the edge of the clearing. She complied, swinging the bag from her shoulder and unbuckling the strap, rolling it out until it was a short rectangle of fabric, the tools shining dully in their black sheaths.

The moonlight was pale, broken once by the canopy we huddled at the edge of and again by the fog which was slowly building up, wrapping around our shins. The humidity had dampened our clothes, aided by the hard trek here. We would both have gladly removed our jackets, was visibility not such a risk. Even having our faces exposed was dangerous.

I watched my companion as she straightened the fabric, ensuring it had no creases. It was not needed, but it comforted her. When she was done she looked up at me and I noticed she was shaking.

“You don’t have to do this.” I said. “I’ll forgive you if you don’t.”

She looked away and stood up, brushing dirt from her pants. “I know.”

Neither of us said anything for a while. Our job was to wait. After a few minutes she sat at the base of one of the dark trees, leaning her head against the trunk. The fog swirled around her neck, occasionally thick enough to conceal her body and leaver her decapitated on the shifting mist.

The leaves were tousled by the breeze far above, the rustling tumbling down to us and collapsing into the soft fog, into silence. Time passed. Under the vast, endless stars, sitting in a forgotten forest, time passed around us, only our small cocoon left untouched.  Only once before have I felt so insignificant.

Something changed, out in beyond the forest, and then within the clearing. A glance at my companion confirmed that she had felt it too. She sat upright, no longer touching the tree, feeling the change creep over her skin and down her spine, just as it did mine. And then, after long, tense moments, it passed us by. We dared to breathe.

“Quickly.” I moved to the tools and she did the same, each of us taking from opposite sides. We stood and gripped each others’ left arm with our own.

“Last chance.”

In the middle of the clearing, the fog began to drift in a spiral, rising a little in the centre. She watched it for slightly longer than a second. Then she stopped shaking.

She nodded. “Ready.”

The blades slashed down swift and deep, mine opening her unmarked arm and hers reopening my scars. Blood flowed readily, eagerly, and I could see the fear in her eyes so I gripped her arm tighter and we both watched as crimson dripped from our skin and disappeared into the shifting fog that had risen to our waists now and completely obscured the ground below.

The mass of grey flowed into the clearing from every direction, feeding into the spiral, slowly getting faster and faster. Half-formed wisps brushed past our legs, tips breaking the surface for the merest moments, swimming irrevocably inward.

The spiral roiled, all calm now abandoned, the centre rising like an inverted funnel reaching up for the endless stars. Flashes like lightning with no thunder lit the towering mass, flickering fleeting shadows through the trees, and our blood flowed on and out and down. I could feel her shaking again and began to shake myself, fighting to stay afloat in the always-fear that maybe we were too late, maybe this time won’t work, maybe we’re not strong enough until finally the fog around our waists faded to pink, then red, the greedy spiral sucking up the stain. The blood poured from our increasingly pale arms, speeding through the blushing fog and twining around the pillar, absurdly reminding me of a barber. The weight of the blood sagged the fog slightly and I could feel the clear getting warmer, heat radiating from the writhing centre.

The flashes were casting shadows from within the fog now, showing snapshots of a shape gestating in the column. The crimson stripes pressed down on the shadows, crushing and distorting them, vainly attempting to contain the heat. Her hand slipped from my arm, her eyes glassy and unfocused. Slowly, for I could no longer move fast, I took her in my arms and kneeled down, only our heads remaining atop the sea.

A pressure was building in my skull, the colour of a scream. Something in the fog struck us nearly, making me drop her. I didn’t know what would happen if we went beneath the surface. I didn’t want to find out. Wind roared through the vacuous space behind my eyes and I blinked away tears lest they fall into the fog. There was too much of me in it already, swirling red through the centre of the clearing.

Memories burst unbidden to the forefront of my vision, memories of places I have never seen: buildings rotted and decomposing; the stench of scorched flowers; a howling desert and behind it all a great slumbering giant once sated but now rousing.

The heat in the clearing built until I could feel sweat prickling my skin, despite the steady numbness that was seeping over me. My vision blurred and darkened, lit spasmodically by the increasing lightning and the single full moon. My head thrummed with the increasing pressure, pulsing in time with the light, the tempo getting faster and stronger and louder and somewhere in the fog two enormous hands closed in to crush and conceal us from the explosion rending outwards from the colossal column of blooded fog that tore and dissolved the grass and plants and trees in a perfect circle all around, washing over us in a primordial roar of princely rage and blasting the hands that gripped us almost to obliteration. The expulsion seemed to go on for hours, but I know it must have only been a few seconds because I didn’t lose consciousness until after it had abated, leaving only a blackened clearing.

She awoke before I did. Her hands were on my arm, bandaging what was left of the wound. There was matching white cloth around her arm, concealing her first scar. She was shaking.

“We did it?” Her voice cracked as she forced the words from dry lips.

I nodded. We would not have survived if we had failed.

We didn’t speak until she had finished. I picked up the tools, still shining dully on the charred earth, and put them back in the bag.

“Ready?” I asked, motioning through the forest, back the way we came.

She stopped shaking. She nodded.

“Ready.”