Home (weekend freewrite)

_{Photo by Robson Hatsukami Morgan on Unsplash}
The entire village was outside, waiting for the expected sign in the sky. It came every 6 months, without fail, but this time it was different. This time, the system failed. They had always known this could happen really, so it didn't necessarily come as a surprise, but still, it was strange, to know that those on the outside had failed you. That the people in charge of the reins had lost their grip.
The men rattled while the women began to wail and the children to cover their ears, staring at their mothers in abject terror. What was going on?
They were far too young to understand, but once their home had not been here. And how do you tell a child that their parents knew other worlds? The only place they know is this and anything other would be foreign, regardless if it was six miles away or sixty thousand.
There would have to be a meeting, the man called X knew and he walked through the fretting crowds. And he whistled. It was an old sound, older than the woods of his childhood, a call to arms as much as a lullaby. One by one, the villagers stopped and looked up at the tall man. And they hoped, because X always seemed like a man who knew what was to be done, so just maybe...all wasn't lost.

'We have not been abandoned.'
His voice rose clear above the murmuring crowd. There were many 'but's and 'why's but he silenced them all with one finger. 'We always knew the time would come, that at some point we would be left on our own out here . We all agreed, when we left our old houses that we would be ready for this when it happened. And we are. We have been growing our own food for two years now, no? We have over three dozen supplies of clear drinkable water and that's only around the village. And the aqras haven't attacked in what? Ten months? We will be fine.'

The voices trembled, but said nothing, how could they risk the wrath of their only leader? The Earthlings had abandoned them, despite what X said, there would be no outside justice or mercy, so they all kept quiet and ignored their worries, like the fact that he'd said houses instead of homes. Suddenly, they didn't feel at home on this strange new planet and would've paid anything to be back in their old houses.

'Look at that,' she would tell each busload of tourists, pointing at the strange green light always somehow up north. That's where my dad went.'
And she waited for him to come get her back, though with each year, she grew less certain that he was ever coming back. This whole staying back on Earth had been a temporary thing, or at least, that's the way it was supposed to be, but it had been six years and she'd had no word from her dad, so all that kept her from going insane was pointing up at the sky, at the green little planet and telling strangers about her glorious father.

_{Photo by NASA on Unsplash}

She was never allowed to mention his name, of course. For the past ten years, ever since he began training, he'd been the elusive X, the brave man who would lead the first settlement on Akyria. No one had called him anything else, not his parents, not his wife, not even his child, though she sometimes sat up late at night and whispered his name into her pillow, as if that might somehow bring him back to her. But it never would.
Carmen was at work when she heard the news, she was just telling the story of her brave old dad who went out amid the stars, for their planet, to save Earth.
'What a load of shit,' a man with a baseball cap muttered and she stopped, somewhat shocked. Carmen's little speech was never one to provoke such a strong reaction. Admiration, certainly, pity, sometimes, but never this. 'He ain't up there to save us, he's only up there to save himself.'
'They will send for more recruitment ships once the settlement is...settled.'
She knew the words she was looking for, but they somehow managed to escape quietly, into the embarrassed faces of the other tourists.
'That ain't happening, sweetheart,' the man spat, 'not one ship in six years? They ain't coming back for us. They ain't coming back for anyone.'

Her stomach hurt at the cruelty in his voice, the bitterness, the hate.
'And you know what? I'm fucking glad. 'Cause those critters are gonna eat your daddy alive up there.'
'No,' the girl shook her head, because yes, in this moment, she was no longer a grown woman, but a little girl waiting in vain for her daddy to come back.

But it was true, she could see it in the eyes of the others. What she'd mistaken for embarrassment – it was pity but most of all, contempt. That's how she found out that headquarters had cut off all contact with Akyria, her father's little green planet. And that's how she realized her father was never coming back for her. And what hurt most was that he'd known from the start. He'd never intended to come back for his girl.

X, who'd sometimes think of Carmen fondly, certain that his girl had made a good life for herself back on Earth, looked on as the stain on the horizon got bigger. The aqras were coming. He thought he could even make out all their little legs scurrying down towards their village. No matter, he told himself, we will be ready. We're always ready.
The man sat in wait, but there was not much to wait for. They'd been careful to set traps, all over around the village, for many miles to come and through his little telescope, X watched as the arrows shot out, as the ground gave way to reveal hidden blades that pierced through their disgusting little heads.
And he smiled, because there was nothing he hated more on this adopted planet of his then those fucking monsters. He enjoyed seeing them die, hearing their screams as they fell and got impaled on the spikes his men had planted. Of course, not all died in the traps set by the humans, some even made it as far as the settlement, only to be shot down by a straight arrow, shot clear through the air, for X had been careful, when assembling his band of merry men, to only pack the very best. The cleverest, the ones who would serve him most in this experiment.

_{Original by Larkin Art on DeviantArt}

He'd picked them out based on two things – skills and good genes. He wouldn't want any failures in his brave new world. But before that world could actually exist, they had to get rid of this old one, to kill all these filthy beasts, make sure the planet was safe for the humans who would come. Not the old ones, certainly not Carmen, much as it pained him. That had not been the deal. Their old planet was doomed and if they started littering this new one with all of humanity, it would fail also, sooner rather than later.
So, their job was to start building their new home planet, they would be the first, the Elders, the forefathers, remembered forever in the history that was just being written. But for that, they needed to cleanse the planet of its old inhabitants, get rid of these undesirables who'd only endanger their success.

What X didn't know was that on the other side of the battlefield, someone was having much the same thoughts. Ama, the leader of the aqras sat on his hill and worried. They would rather die, down to the very last, than see their planet invaded by these monsters. They'd watched as the humans settled here, they'd even watched the light signals in the sky and the strange little object that docked every six months, when more humans came out to talk to the invaders.
And they'd tried to make peace, the first ten aqras that he'd sent had been in good faith, wishing to talk to the human general, reach an agreement of some kind, politely ask them to leave. It was on this very same hill that Ama watched as his people were butchered, as the humans hacked their way through his welcoming committee and there had been no more welcomes after that, just war. A war they would not win, Ama felt certain. Still, he went down to speak to his people.
'We are not defeated. We will make it, even if it might seem that the humans have an advantage. But that could never happen, for they can never be the true masters of this land. We would die protecting our land, while they are fleeing from theirs. They're cowards. We will fight to the death before giving up on this place.'

And Ama was right in many respects, but particularly one. They would.

This is a freewrite written in response to @mariannewest's 3 prompts for this weekend. Check her out, she is awesome. The last image is actually a depiction of the mythical monster Aqrabuamelu, originating in Sumerian mythology, who were believed to stand guard at the temple of the sun god named Shamash. Hence some of the names and inspiration of this story.

Thank you for reading,