Faldom Haze

3

His ship sat quietly at the edge of a kind of forest as giant alien trunks towered over it. Faldom lay stretched out with his hands behind his head, watching the smoke from the fire blot the stars. His fingers were cold and the ring around his middle digit was like an icicle. He looked up at the tiny spec in the sky and back down at the dirt at his feet. If he tried he could pretend he was back on earth, the dirt looked and felt so familiar except for the little occasional blue specs that shimmered when moved. With the deep night around him it made the spec look like a twinkling star within a dirt sky. He looked up and could see the majestic mountain ahead towering over the twinkling lights of the mining operation and wondered if the dig was going ok before he stopped himself. Not my problem, he told himself. The push for materials over safety reminded him of the gold rushes in early America. The same rush that made people very rich and also very dead. Faldom reasoned that he was now an obstacle to this new mandate, a rock in the river instead of the guide he once was. He leaned back into the chair as the stone in his pocket silently vibrated it's own unique frequency.

Faldom closed his eyes and listened to the familiar sounds of a breeze flowing through leaves. Deep clouds roamed above him and he could hear the trees swaying along with the crackle of its fallen brethren keeping himself warm. The amount of warm patches Faldom could feel slowly began to space out and as the fire died, Faldom slipped dreams.

Faldom looked proudly on as the water crashed upon the dome. The town cheered while Maya took my hand and squeezed.

"You did it," She said while nudging me. The town gazed all around them at the unique water show the dome was providing. Faldom watched as his family hugged one another and gleefully embraced each other. Faldom could see the press and camera crews rushing towards him looking for a comment. He shook hands with the town mayor and state governor while continually glancing at his watch which was spitting a flow of data and keeping an ever present eye upon the dome and how the electrical nodes were handling the load. The data was in the green, all the numbers were well within operational integrity. Suddenly a low rumble began to touch the crowd. Heads began to turn towards the sound as a crack bloomed through the ground. Faldom heard a scream before pulling himself out of the nightmare.

There was a pervasive stillness in the air. The life all around him had settled, the breeze had stopped, even the trees seemed like they were holding their breath.

He looked toward the mountain not knowing why, as if waiting for what it had to say, but the night remained still. Faldom haze listened carefully as a low vibrating hum reached his senses. He looked down to see all the specs of blue in the dirt had begun to pulsate and glow. He spun around and it was like standing in a star field with a heart beat. The deep black of the cloudy night broken up by a new canvas of twinkling lights from below. Faldom immediately reached inside and began looking at his data pad. There was nothing out of the ordinary besides the still present transmission from tunnel 13, except it was now around 30% more intense. It was a mystery unfolding before him.