starpeople

1- Crash and Bang

My breathing was heavy, but Alexander told me not to worry. He was five years older than me and a master at space navigation. I wasn't, in fact, it was my first time flying alone. My hands were sweaty against the control lever, and my arms were so cramped I wanted to cry. I didn't dare thinking of moving even a pinkie for fear of crashing. I'd read stories about kids that had crashed in deep space and I'd been to lots of funerals for fallen comrades. 

Alexander was sitting beside me and basically telling me exactly what to do. Not that he was helping my out of control nerves. My teeth were clenched, sweat dribbling feebly down my face. My entire life I'd dreamed of flying a spacecraft and my first time flying I was making an absolute fool of myself.  I was beyond caring at that point to be honest.

"Ease into it, don't freak out," he sighed. As if I could not freak out. Alexander was the hot shot in flying school, he was good-looking and terrible at coaching. He'd never crashed before I guessed, so hell why not listen to him.

"I'm trying," I whispered, relaxing my sore fingers on the lever. I could barely think about anything, I was just praying for the flight to be over so that I could go throw up from the stress. Why hadn't I chosen a normal job? I could have been typing an essay about overpopulation of humans throughout the universe. Right, because that sounded so fun. This was an interesting predicament; I was bored easily but too much excitement scared the living shit out of me.  

Bang.

That wasn't a good sound. My entire body froze, my mind made up a million possibilities of what the sound could have been.  Aliens, explosion, attack, bomb, poison, stowaway... I counted them off in my head as we neared a pink colored planet.  

"Shit!" he swore. He was really starting to freak me out, I made a mental note to complain to the board as soon as we made it back. He was supposed to be supportive. He was supposed to be showing me how to fly this stupid spacecraft. 

"What was that?" I exclaimed. Alexander clenched his teeth and sighed loudly. I prayed that he was trying to prank me and shifted the engine a gear. Nothing happened. 

"The engine." Suddenly I was on the floor and he had taken over all of the controls. "Shit. Shit. Shit!" 

"What's happening?" I sat up and rubbed my head where it had been slammed onto the floor. He could have given me brain damage! Okay, maybe I was a little bit too sheltered. I'd read all the safety manuals at our training school in my spare time. 

He ignored me and turned on his radio, "Mission Control, requesting immediate crash landing on the nearest inhabitable planet. Engine malfunction." I closed my eyes and gave up my hopes of it all being a prank. Mission Control hated being contacted for any reason that didn't involve someone dying or a planetary invasion. 

The radio blared to life. "This is Mission Control, the nearest planet is Exion and it's hardly inhabitable."

Alexander swore a few more times before speaking. "Guess it'll have to be." I wanted to scream, if Mission Control was saying this planet wasn't safe, why were we-

He pressed a few more buttons and suddenly the pink before us was coming closer and closer from what I could see through the window. "Alex-"

"Shut up Lara! This is my mission now, be quiet and let me think." I didn't say anything and tried not to cry. My first time flying and this had happened! Of course, of course. Was it me? Had I made some grave mistake? Wouldn't Alexander have noticed?

Alexander had never screamed at me before. He'd held my hand and helped me learn how to fly, even when his parents had died he'd been nothing but kind. I sighed and thought hard, if he was screaming under this pressure he'd never make a good captain. He'd never been the best flyer anyways, he was more of a flight technician that anything. 

When I looked up again we were flying into the planet's atmosphere, before I knew it we were staring at green and blue trees and flying past a turquoise ocean. 

"We're going to crash," I whispered. I didn't even have time for a flashback of my feeble life, I hadn't even accomplished anything yet. 

"I know!" he screamed.

"For God's sake stop screaming at me," I ordered.

"You're right, I'm sorry. Get into a chair." I scrambled up onto a chair and fastened my seatbelt.

"Three, two-" we hit the ground with a blinding impact and skidded for what seemed like forever before grinding to a stop. I held my breath and slowly opened my eyes. Beside me Alexander hung from his chair, staring at me smiling.

"We're alive," I exclaimed. 

"Indeed we are."

"Did you do an engine check before we left?" I asked.

"Guess I forgot." What an idiot! We could have died! We still could die! We were on Exion, a planet I'd never heard of. I'd studied almost all of the inhabitable planets in this area and Exion was no where in my memory.  

We unbuckled our seatbelts and slumped to the floor. My head was bleeding, and it hurt like I'd just been punched. I was beyond pissed at Alexander. It would take weeks for my injuries to fully heal, weeks of flight practice I'd be missing.

Alexander stood and opened the emergency door, I followed him outside. I stuck next to the exit, there was no silly business on this planet. Exion. Exion. I felt around my brain for any memories I might have had about the planet. Exion. The planet of death. There were stories, like how no one had ever come out of here alive. It was one of the planets no one had explored, and for good reason.

He walked forwards like he'd never heard of death and ran right to the ocean. We were on a beach, and the sand was so pink it looked like bubble gum. I leaned down and picked some up, it felt like silk between my fingers. I didn't think straying from the ship was a good idea and I said so. Alexander ignored me of course.

"Lara, look at-" Alexander stopped mid-sentence. I looked up and saw him, blood was dripping from his mouth. He stood knee-deep in the ocean and beside him stood a monster. It's eyes were pink like the sand, it stood tall and thin. It was even towering over our ship. 

Before I knew it the monster was taking a bite out of my team mate, Alexander's arm was torn off in one swoop, then his leg, then his head. Until there was nothing left but a monster covered in his blood. 

Staring at me.