The Fall of Anthropire
By: Bradley J Nordell
Tags: Aliens, Short Story, Terraform, Fiction, Science Fiction

I see the skeleton of plants and seeds cocooned in ice. I feel the whimper of poisoned air sweep across the tundra of our nightmare. We still have enough oxygen to breathe, but in the coming months, that will change.

My boots crunch against the ammonia ice as I begin my trek across hell. It’s been three months since the incident. Months away from my fellow humans. And it feels like years since I’ve felt safe and hopefully.

My husband is somewhere in an underground facility. I have to get within range of them to send them the code to unlock our secondary comm devices. We need to warn those coming. Sadly, the XCOMM is down, allowing us infinite range. But I couldn’t get them the codes to warn the coming ships before the attack. This is my mission now.

Yet I’m being hunted.

How many of us humans are left? I don’t know. Since the dome fell and the tripedal creatures inherited our planet, all I do is hide and walk. At times, in the darkness of night, I hear screams. Other times, I see their shadows. I see the squid-like appendages and armor scales, with their six eyes and poisoned pinchers, stalking my nightmares. I can’t tell what a dream is and what reality is. It’s all the same here.

I watch the smoke swirl in a blue haze across my perception as I stare out into the desolate landscape before me. It’s my last cigarette before the long trek across this barren world. It makes the thinning moons disappear for a slight second.

I walk. Days. Weeks. Flashes of intermittent screams. I watch as the three moons of this planet circle me. I watch the binary stars come and go. And then the crackle of static comes through my comms. All the while, the shadows grow closer.

“Leiron, are you there?” My husband's voice trembles.

I throw my head up, feeling my heart pound, knowing that I’m finally within range. I also know I can’t let those who hunt me know where they are located. This was never a return mission. I made no promises of happy endings. Because humanity is more than just one mind and one love, it is all of ours and none. Humanity is the future. And that is what each of our choices must save.

“Yeah. I’m here.”

“The radar…they’re coming. You need to run. You can make it. I love you.”

I love him, too. But I can’t tell him. I should, but I know that my fear and cowardice may overtake me if I speak those words. For it is love that washes away blind-honor and perilous duty. Because I know the truth, these creatures hunt by sound and heat. If I go to him, to that haven, they find us all. I know, duty must come before the heart. I know that one man is not greater than the Galactic Empire. And it is that knowledge that gives me strength. It gives me the valor I need, all the while destroying what is lost sacred inside me.

Since the Fall — when they came — I have watched and learned their ways. They are intellectual predators. In packs, they work as one. Alone in the dark, they feed. They move at twice the speed of cheetahs and hunt with the power of a grizzly. They communicate through some form of sonar and possible nanotech telepathy.

I don’t stand a chance.

But they do. And we must survive. We must send information to the StellarCommand. They must know not to send ships this way. This is a dead world. A marked world. The world of bloodthirsty Varroa.

“Mateo, I love you. And you know what you must do. The passcode is 137c2h-bar91z42f. You have to leave. You have to warn the…”

My connection goes dead. They are here.

The Varroa hunters surround me. I pull out my Plasma Rifle and press the button. A faint zoompf resonates, marking its capacitors are charged.

“Well…we meet at last. You broke my world. And now, I break you.”

The first of them comes from the dark, extending outwards with its tail and tentacles of daggers, ready to decapitate me. I pull the trigger of the Plasma Rifles; the slug, traveling at the speed of sound, disintegrates the creature’s head into a bluish cloud of atoms.

The second comes from the side; I turn and fire.

“Too slow…” I whisper sardonically.

Those are my final words.

The third creature hits me from behind, sending me flying forwards—the fourth pounces out of the ground. And before I know it, I can’t feel my legs and arms.

I am cold. A strange numbness washes over me. My heart rate decays. And time stops.

I watch the snowflakes drop. They dance like leaves in fall. Within the strange spire of frozen plants, I see an array of greens and purples, flicking within the triple moonlight of this world. I see eternity in that color. I feel love and hope and perseverance for the plants that still rage on and fight — even when the world and biosphere around them dies.

I’m wondering if the others found worlds more hospitable than this one. I feel a strange sense of oneness and comradery, pondering our endless drift into the deep regions of space. The great oblivion, the maddening of Promethean fires, and a whirlwind of magnificent unknowns. Are there just monsters waiting in the dark, or is there more, like love and harmony? Were we ever meant to leave our first home, those eons ago? Was this world ever ours or just a loose strand of a hopeful delusion?

I don’t know anymore. I only hope one day we find a place to call home. That we will find hope in the endless drift of space. Maybe, a way to find peace amongst the stars for all sentient beings. Because as the ancient proverb goes:

For with every fall, comes a new rise to tomorrow’s endless skies.

The End.