Page 11 of His to Worship
Overall happy with my finds, I throw one of the blankets around my shoulders and start building up my shelter. When I’m done, I have several poles tied haphazardly by cords to metal bars on the outside of the crate with one of the blankets draped over everything. It…covers things. It also shakes and makes clanking sounds every time the wind blows.
I try not to feel dejected as I stare at the lopsided structure, but it's hard not to. This will barely protect me from the elements. Plus, I can’t help but think about what kind of crazy predators would appear on an alien planet with red mountains and three damn suns. What will this monstrosity do against real monsters? I shiver, but this time it isn’t from the cold. I glance back at the shipping container and remind myself that the others are relying on me, so if this is what I have, I need to make do.
Quickly double-wrapping myself in my blanket, I go back to the wreckage, now a tad warmer. The blanket is surprisingly heat-insulating, probably made of some kind of special alien material. But what it can’t save me from is the cold on my face. After all of the searching and building, my skin is already chapped, my lips peeling, and my feet are suffering. But wins have to be appreciated when we get them, and the majority of me is warm, so that will do for now.
My mind turns towards finding anything I can use to make a fire, but I pull up short when I pass what looks like a peculiar-looking gun. Cautiously, I pick it up and inspect it. It’s all black and small, with blue lines zig-zagging along the edges. The muzzle of the gun is slightly flared at the end, which makes me wonder how big the bullets have to be.
I hold it out in front of me, point it away from myself and the shipping crate, and consider shooting it. It doesn’t look like the ray guns the mantis guys had, but who knows what this gun could do. It might be a good idea to have something to protect me in case I meet any natives. I pause and frown. That is if the aliens on this planet aren’t kind. They could all be perfectly nice. But, then a scary thought filters into my brain.
Is there anyone else on this planet at all?
With that thought surging me forward, I hold the gun slightly upward and pull the trigger.
***
- kuvier -
The journey forward is a difficult one, and I am tiring under the weight of the rations I packed to sustain me for many hands of days. However, I refuse to stop moving or slow down. If I saw that which crashed through the sky, someone else may have as well. I cannot be late getting there.
I cannot.
As I think this, it is as if the Great Mother wishes to communicate to me alone. She sends me a sign, the clearest that could be, high enough in the sky for me to see, but I know it is low enough that it can not be seen from the village. The message is unmistakably just for my eyes.
Up ahead, over the crest of the mountain where the valley lies, there comes a loud pop, followed by an extraordinarily bright light, like the glowing blue of foso rocks, that bursts across the sky. It shows what appears to be a simple lined icon that points straight down. I get the message from this simple illustration. It tells me where to go. It tells me I am on the right path.
It tells me that what I will discover must be meant for me and me alone.
SIX
- sedona -
It’s a flare gun.
So much for protection. I toss the thing to the side with disgust and jump away squealing when that triggers it and it starts sparking off. When it stops and seems relatively safe, I creep back over and pick it up carefully. It must have had only one flair loaded, but I wonder if the residual sparks could be used to start a fire.
For the next several minutes I scavenge and scrounge, looking for something flammable enough to be used as a kindling. And I come up with absolutely nothing. Not a random manual, or piece of clothing besides the ones on my body, or even a fucking roll of toilet paper. Everything in my vicinity is metal, glass, stone, and snow.
I look up above me and see that the second sun is creeping slowly lower. Soon there’ll only be one sun left and I know that complete darkness will have to come quickly after that, and I don’t want to be outside when it does.
Feeling absolutely defeated, I sulk back over to the shipping container and slip through the blanket door. The temperature difference is minute, but what is very different is the lack of wind and excessive snow. A few flakes steadily creep in at the very front due to the hole in the ceiling, but in the back closest to the pods, it's clear of snow. I suspect that’s where I’ll sleep tonight.
I collapse onto the ground against my pod, tears pricking in my eyes. I immediately wipe them away. As cold as it is, they’ll probably freeze on my face. Sniffling, I curl my arms around myself and pull the blanket taut around my body, ensuring every possible inch of me's covered. Then, I settle against the pod and wait for night.
***
Don’t ask how I managed to fall asleep, but when I wake up the next morning, it’s incredibly bright again. I sit up from my fetal position on the floor and clutch my blanket tight to me. While I was asleep, a mini hill of snow formed where the crate’s ceiling is missing. It takes some maneuvering and stamping down to get over it, but when I cautiously exit my pseudo-shelter, I notice that there are two suns in the sky again. I’d fallen asleep before sunset yesterday for sure because there was still one sun hanging on for dear life and casting a minor light when I finally closed my eyes.
I grimace as I look at the blanket of white around me. The snow only got thicker through the night, and the air only got colder. Even with my blanket, I’m shivering against the wind. I can’t help but look out at the horizon hoping to see someone. I don’t at first, but there’s a big ass stone not too far from us that could be blocking my view, so I walk a few feet and move around it. Still nothing but white and red.
I set off the flare hours ago, and it was a pretty obvious sign to come to this spot because aliens can’t do anything half-assed. The flare gun had shot off a small metal ball, and when it was about a hundred feet away from me, the thing shot straight up and exploded into a blue holographic image of an arrow pointing directly down at us.
But, unfortunately, or fortunately I guess, depending on who the aliens could be, no one has shown up.
The thought of waking the other girls flits across my mind, but I quickly push it aside. I can't, in good conscience, subject them to the same uncertain fate that awaits me. Either we are too far from civilization to be rescued, or there is the very great possibility this planet is uninhabited by any sentient, intelligent life forms. I look at all of the snow around me and frown. For all I know, I could be stuck in the middle of another planet’s ice age. Civilization might be thousands of years in the future. I remember seeing in a cartoon show once that a dude in a stasis pod slept in it for a thousand years. Maybe the other girls can sleep through the evolution of this world and they’ll eventually be saved by some reformed utopian alien race. It’s a long shot for them, but what isn’t hard to imagine is the fact that I’m probably going to die out here.
Before I have a chance to scold myself for my negative thoughts, I catch sight of movement in my peripheral. My gaze snaps to the right, following the movement to see a silhouette approaching in the distance. The figure is definitely walking upright—I notice that immediately. My heart soars to my throat in hope and fear, but as the figure gets closer, it drops right back down to my stomach.
What had first looked like a man wearing head gear, turns out to be a large, lumpy figure with a distinctly inhuman shape and gait. Who—or what—ever it is, is moving fast, already only two football field’s length away from me and getting rapidly closer. It’s hard to distinguish much through the glare of the suns off the snow.