S1, 08 Escape From Earth (FB) (June 2, 2014)

Corresponding text underneath each picture.

**3rd January 2094 – 9 hours after The Shift**

Jarred: “Come on Tank!”

Frank: “Will you stop calling me that!”

Jarred: “No! There’s no way I’m not calling you that from now on! It was brilliant!”

Frank: “No it wasn’t…” I muttered to myself.

Jarred and I were staggering through the desert. We had no idea where we were or how we’d got there.

Our ship had crashed a way back and we’d been wandering through the scorching heat for about an hour now – I was getting worn out.

Jarred: “It was! The way you blew it up! Just like that!” He sounded so excited.

Frank: “It was easy really.”

Jarred: “Yeah, like f\*\*\* it was easy! Nobody else could have done that!”

Frank: “I’m pretty sure they could.”

Jarred: “Stop being so modest! You blew up a *TANK* for Christ’s sake!”

I didn’t respond. Instead I just kept trudging on through the sand, following him.

It was true though, I had blown up a tank. Although truth be told, I’m not entirely sure *how* I’d done it; but it hadn’t been difficult.

We’d been in prison when all of a sudden there was a massive power loss. I along with most of the other prisoners decided to chance it and there was a mass breakout. However, as we started to leave, we realised something bigger was happening. The ground was shaking like there was an earthquake but the sky was glowing red like fire and then walls starting collapsing. Hundreds of us escaped in the chaos.

That’s when I met Jarred. GI forces had moved in to try and stop everyone escaping and had opened fire on us. We took shelter behind a crumbling wall – the ground was still shaking violently. We had to get out of there and Jarred had pointed out a security ship close by. We needed a distraction to get there though and that’s when I’d spotted the tank. It rolled into the prison’s courtyard – where we were – and was attempting to threaten prisoners back inside.

It was only a short distance away so I ran for it. I opened the maintenance panel on the back and did some tinkering, then pegged it back to where Jarred was crouching. The tank exploded and Jarred was so shocked that it took him a moment to realise that it was our chance to make it to the ship.

But we both got there alive and he piloted the craft as we took off. Without the tank, they couldn’t shoot us down and we were free…

Or so we thought.

I had no idea where Jarred was going to take us; somewhere remote hopefully, Africa or something, but the sky was still red and then all of a sudden something happened.

The world seemed to move; to *shift*.

Suddenly we were jolted and the craft became out of control. We hurtled towards the edge of the atmosphere and I became terrified that we would burn up. However, the GI ship was designed for space travel and so as we burst into the inky blackness, we were safe.

But it wasn’t over yet.

We looked back at the planet and were relieved to see that it had stopped moving unnaturally. But we could now see that whatever had happened in America, had also happened worldwide. We could see massive fires, not a single light on on the entire planet. Earth was in chaos.

Jarred: “Oh my……”

I turned to look at what he was looking at and my mouth dropped open.

Planets. Lots of planets. But not the normal ones. No Jupiter, no Saturn, no Mars. No, these were new.

*NEW PLANETS!*

Jarred: “What the hell happened?”

Frank: “I don’t know.”

These planets had come from nowhere. Somehow they had appeared in the galaxy.

We sat there staring for several minutes, wondering what had happened before we realised that the ship’s instruments were going haywire and we were heading further out into space.

Frank: “Turn us back around! We have to go back!”

Jarred: “I can’t!”

Frank: “You have to!”

Jarred: “I’m trying! It’s not working!”

We wrestled with the controls for another quarter of an hour but by that time, Earth was in the distance and new planets were growing closer. We realised that it was hopeless; the new planets’ appearance had done something to the ship and we could do nothing to fix it. I dared not tinker with any of the electronics in case something even worse happened.

So we were left to sit there and wait.

Jarred: "I guess there's nothing we can do then. I'm Jarred by the way. Jarred Zeal."

Frank: "Nice to meet you. I'm..."

I didn't know why, but I was reluctant to use my real name. Racking my brains, I quickly came up with a new name for myself.

Frank: "Chain Rockwell." I introduced myself.

If Jarred had noticed my pause then he didn't say anything.

Jarred: "Pleasure." he replied and we shook hands. "So now we wait, I guess."

Frank: "Yes, now we wait.

9 hours later, and after a lot of sitting around, we began to appreciate that we were headed straight for a small, cream-coloured planet close to the sun. We could do nothing and so simply sat and waited for our impending doom.

However, we survived entering the atmosphere and we survived crashing in the middle of a desert.

One of my first thoughts had been, ‘I wonder if we’ll be able to breathe?’ But that question was answered by Jarred who unthinkingly opened the door. I gasped in horror but was relaxed to find that I could still breathe.

And so now, here we were, staggering though an uncharted desert planet with no idea where we were going or what we would do if we ever got anywhere.

After several hours of walking through wilderness and Jarred alternating between talking about how I’d managed to blow up a tank and trying to work out what had happened and how numerous brand new planets had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, we spotted something in the distance. We headed towards it and upon getting closer discovered that it was just a hill. However, at that time, a hill was better than flat, sandy emptiness.

We reached it and began to explore.

There was not much to see, it was just a rocky, sandy hill.

We decided to pause for a rest – and that’s when I spotted it…

Frank: “LOOK!” I cried out excitedly and pointed back down to the base of the hill.

Jarred: “What?” Jarred leapt up and stood beside me, looking to where I was indicating.

Frank: “Is that…?” I dared not finished the question for fear of it not being.

Jarred: “I think it is.” He decided and began to rush back down the hill.

It was.

A cave.

Now a cave might not seem like much, but to us, it was shelter. It was somewhere we could rest and work out a plan of what to do next.

Jarred entered first, cautiously, in the fear that it was an alien’s home or the lair of some wild monster or animal. But upon entry we discovered that it was abandoned and there were no traces of animal waste anywhere.

Jarred: “Let’s rest here.”

Frank: “Agreed.”

We slumped down to the floor, exhausted and leant back against the cave wall. I looked back outside at the baking sun and exhaled loudly. It had been a confusing and hard day.

Jarred: “So what do you think happened?”

Frank: “I have no idea. They just sprung up out of nowhere!”

Jarred nodded.

Jarred: “It’s crazy. How can a bunch of *planets* appear in midair?”

I shook my head but then a thought occurred to me; a horrifying, terrible thought.

Frank: “What if they didn’t?”

Jarred: “What?”

Frank: “What if they didn’t appear. What if they never moved?”

Jarred looked at me as though I was mad.

Jarred: “But you saw them! They’re there! And they certainly weren’t there before!”

Frank: “No, but what I’m saying is; we’re assuming that they came to us, right?”

Jarred: “...yeeeah?...”

Frank: “But did you see any of the normal planets out there? Mars? Uranus?”

Jarred thought for a moment before replying in the negative, sounding slightly confused.

Frank: “So what if these planets never moved. What if we went to them?”

Jarred: “Whoa whoa, hold on a second.” He pointed at me accusingly. “You’re saying that the *Earth* moved?”

Frank: “Well what other explanation can you think of? Our planets have vanished, new ones have sprung up out of nowhere and we’re now stuck on a foreign world!”

Jarred shook his head as he stood up and began pacing the cave.

Jarred: “This is crazy.” He muttered and I nodded in agreement. “But there’s nothing we can do about it right now.” He stopped pacing and looked down at me. “I say we stay here for the night and carry on in the morning.”

Frank: “What are we going to do?”

Jarred: “We’ll use this cave as a base and we’ll search the nearby area. We’ll keep coming back here and then searching further out until we find something.”

Frank: “What are we searching for?”

Jarred: “Anything. Food, water, civilisation.”

It hadn’t even occurred to me that we had no supplies with us but now that Jarred had mentioned it, I realised that my mouth was bone dry and my stomach was feeling rather empty.

Frank: “But that could take ages! We don’t even know if there is anything other than sand on this planet!”

Jarred: “Well have you got a different suggestion?” he snapped.

Frank: “No. No.” I repeated submissively.

Jarred: “Let’s get some rest. Tomorrow we’ll start searching.”

And so with that, we each settled down at opposite sides of the cave and waited for night to come;

But it never arrived.

Time stretched and yet still it didn’t get dark. I lay awake, far too many thoughts in my mind for me to be able to sleep. I knew I needed rest but still I was unable to doze off. The realisation that the sun hadn’t moved in the sky even though it should probably be virtually midnight now was an unpleasant one.

Several hours of restless laying on the cold, hard ground later, Jarred got up and I turned to look at him.

Frank: “Sleep well?” I asked and he scowled back in reply as though I’d asked a stupid question. He didn’t reply and stormed out of the cave entrance.

Frank: “I’ll take that as a no.” I muttered to myself and I too, got up.

I followed Jarred outside and found him looking up at the sun, squinting to protect his eyes as best he could.

Jarred: “It hasn’t moved a single flamin’ inch.” He growled.

Frank: “Maybe this planet doesn’t rotate.” I suggested.

Jarred: “Of course it does. Every planet rotates.”

Frank: “Maybe this one doesn’t. If we are in a different galaxy, the rules might be different here.”

That didn’t go down well with Jarred as he stormed off cursing and muttering under his breath. I watched him go a short way and then he yelled back at me;

Jarred: “Well?! Start searching!”

He continued storming away from me and I shook my head slightly but then headed off away from him, beginning to search our new-found world for any signs of life.

**BONUS IMAGES:**

The prison set from one side.

The prison wall from the other side.

The cave. (More detailed pictures to come in a later episode.)

N.B. Now, there is actually a mistake in this episode and that is that I have shown aliens being in the prison on Earth in the breakout. But of course that is wrong because the Shift is only just occurring. So that is a mistake on my part which I hope you can forgive.

--R.K. Blast--

As my series is going to be jumping around though time, I will include a date on each episode and add it to the timeline at the end of each episode so that you can follow it.

TIMELINE