Earth Bound - A 24 hour short story challenge
The following is my entry into the 24 hour short story challenge. Thank you to @mctiller for putting on this contest. A word of warning, My fiction writing is rusty. I have been writing non-fiction for a while now and well it took me a while to get going so I hope this story dose not make you cringe. I'll get better I promise. I plan on getting back onto the fiction train thanks to contests such as this one and over at @freewritehouse.
Thanks for taking the time to read and i hope you enjoy reading this. I had a good time writing it. :-)
Topic: People on another planet discover Earth holds life.
Earth Bound
“But Elder, we’ve been lost for over Seventy-six years now-floating around open space on a ship not even large enough to stand up in.”
“Really James, are you quite sure we are still lost? Are you? I only ask because you feel the need to remind me every hour on the hour! I though I might have sipped to many drinks and blackout in the wash bin again and this all is one long hallucination.”
“I only… I don’t mean to complain so much” James struggled to shift his body inside the small escape pod. “I guess I thought the mother ship would locate us by now, ya know? You think there’s still hope?”
“I don’t know.” Elder said “ Hell, we don’t even know where we are. The emergency boosters shot this damn escape pod in the wrong direction, I would guess we are more then a few hundred thousand miles off course. Hope is as lost as we are I’m afraid.”
James flipped on the GPS tracker. A rush of static fills the pod.
“What are you turning that on for? We need to save to remaining energy for the essential functions, it’s bad enough we can’t even steer this thing.” Elder said
“But can’t we leave it on for a few moments… you never know if the rescue ship is near.”
“Fine fine fine, but only for a few moments and then off again. Honestly I don’t know what your thinki….”
An indistinguishable noise broke through the static. A voice perhaps or music.
“Did you hear that?” James twisted the volume up. “I heard something, I know I did.”
Again the unknown sound mixed with the static.
“There there, I know I heard something… is it the rescue ship? Could it be?”
“Nooo,” Elder stretched the word as if still deciding if it was the correct answer. “No, I don’t think so, This is something different.”
Jame’s eyes lit up. He searched the openness of space for something, anything other then lifeless rocks and burning gases. The sounds more clear now. A voice yes, then music, changing music then something unclear…
“Quick now” Elder said “ Turn on the screen and link it to the GPS tracker. “Maybe we can see who the voices belong too, what they represent.
James turned on the screen making adjustments until the visual static cleared and the blurry images came into view. The screen filled with life: A webcam recording wildlife, A mob of people with pitchforks and flames, words that oozed hate and moments that showed love. Waterfalls and rocks, greed and loathing and caring and fear. Wars and smoke and sun and smiles and miles and miles of open waters, and frozen pure white snow…. And millions and millions of humans everywhere.
And then Earth came into view. Elder and James fell silent as the blue planet grew in the window. Finally Elder broke the silence.
“What live these creatures live. Their packed into such a small space and yet they live and stretch their abilities across countless activities.”
James leaned forward. His jaw dropped as he rested a hand against the window as if the jester would bring him closer to the mysterious blue planet. “Have you even known another life Elder?”
“Variations form of life sure, microscopic insects and eye-less organisms” Elder said, his own jaw parted as he struggled for words “but… nothing that compares to this.”
The screen continued to scan Earths images and sounds. Earth’s entire history laid out before their eyes. A show so memorizing that they failed to notice their pod picking up speed as if the Earth its self wanted the show them life. By the time their felt the pull their pod had increase in speed. It hurtled through space past other soundless planets. Neither of them spoke. .- the crash would kill them, that much they knew. After Seventy-Six days lost in space they blindly accepted their fate.
“They will fear us won’t they? They will never know how peaceful our kind can be and how much knowledge we would have willingly offered in exchange for friendship.” James said- for his final words.
“Yes James, fear and maybe even hate us,. The crash either unite them or divide them.”
The pod now in Earth clutches. The walls and flood begin to breakup as the heat makes melts the knobs and dials.
Elder takes one last glace at the screen as it too breaks up. A final close up glance at Earth. A wide open desert looking area. He thinks for a moment to record a message of peace, but decides not too. Instead he takes one last look around their home for the past Seventy-six days - safety pod number 51.