The Flip Side #1: Heaven Falls Down

by J.L. Stephens

The Flip Side: Heaven Falls Down

  Joel Stephens

  Copyright 2011 Joel Stephens

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One – The Sudden Stop

  Chapter Two – Did You Say Gods?

  Chapter Three – Why Do We Fall?

  Chapter Four – To Scream or Not to Scream…

  Chapter Five – Anyone Out There?

  About the Author

  Connect with Me Online

  Chapter One: The Sudden Stop

  Rain.

  It tasted sweet for a moment, as it dripped down her forehead and touched her lips. She leaned to her left slightly and the sweet rain suddenly became bitter with the taste of blood. The icy feeling that the water had brought also faded to a lukewarm pulse. When she tried to open her mouth, her lip seared with pain. Instinctively, she reached up and felt it, only to be terrified by the horrible gash she felt running across her face.

  Her hand fell to her lap and she tried not to move as more raindrops came down on her head. A quiet beep and a loud sparking sound filled her ears while the continual pounding of heavy raindrops echoed all around her. In the air around her, a clap of thunder made everything vibrate. The woman was trying to think of something... of anything. The more she tried; the further her mind tried to retreat. She couldn’t remember a name, her name, or how she had ended up where she was. Of course, where she was remained a mystery as she was still holding her eyes closed. She was comfortable in the darkness, unwilling to open herself to the reality that waited just beyond her eyelid. The gash, the sparking sound, she knew it wasn't good. If she could just keep her eyes closed...

  “Starla?” asked a voice behind her. “Starla, are you awake?”

  Starla. That was a name... her name. “I..." she mumbled. "Yes, I'm awake.”

  “Good," said the voice firmly. "Can you move?”

  Finding the courage within, the woman, Starla, opened her eyes. In front of her she saw a large broken window with shards of thick glass still clinging to the edges of the original seal. The rain was so thick just beyond that she could not see more than five feet in front of her. Through the broken glass, the rain was seeping in, dripping down on her forehead and across the dozens of broken computers that lined the dashboard underneath. She tried to move her leg but found that it was pinned. She wiggled slightly and it started to come loose. When she looked to her left, she found the source of the sparking sound. It was a severed wire, swinging back and forth, occasionally coming into contact with a metal surface that caused it to jerk around with a loud pop. The rainwater was building, pooled around her legs, and the waterline was getting closer to the sparking cable than Starla felt comfortable with.

  She was strapped into her seat so she should not move her torso. She reached down an unlocked it, not quite sure how she knew what button to press, and she then reached over her shoulder to release the upper harness. As she did this, another hand grabbed hers in the air and she screamed loudly before a cool sense of control gripped her and made her fall silent.

  “Starla,” said the voice from before, “it's me. It's Alicia.”

  Starla twisted around as much as she comfortably could and saw a woman who appeared to be pinned down under some debris. She was wearing a strangely familiar uniform but Starla couldn’t think of where it was from.

  "Alicia?"

  “Starla, are you okay?” asked the woman.

  “I don't know,” she replied.

  “You don’t know?”

  “No, I can't remember.”

  "Okay," said Alicia. "That's okay. Do you remember me?”

  Starla shook her head as she looked to the woman again. The one that called herself Alicia had brown hair that ran to her shoulders and it had been held up in some kind of bun before they had ended up in this mess. She looked young, very young, and Starla suddenly felt a large amount of guilt. She didn't know where it was coming from, but she knew that Alicia had triggered it.

  “My name is Alicia,” she said. “Starla, I can't go into details about it right now, but I promise you that as soon as we're out of this transport I'll be able to help you out. Short term, we need to get out of the transport. Do you think you can move for me?”

  Starla lifted her legs carefully, now free from the upper harness she was able to slide herself backward and pull them free. She grinned at her small accomplishment and tried not to notice where her pants were torn and another deep wound was seeping blood.

  "Are you hurt?" asked Alicia.

  "I can move my legs," replied Starla. "That's good."

  “I’m glad to hear it. Now, I’m going to need your help with a few things.”

  “Okay,” Starla replied as she turned toward the woman in the back. “What should I do?”

  “Under your seat is an emergency mechanical repair kit. I need you to pull it out for me so I can have a certain tool. Go ahead and see if you can find it.”

  Starla slid forward in her seat and reached down so that she could pull out a red box that had the word emergency written across it in bold black letters. When she picked it up, Alicia gave her a nod of approval.

  “Good job,” she said. “Now Starla, I want you to go ahead and take out that tool that looks like a blowtorch. Do you remember what a blowtorch is?”

  Starla looked at the tools; strangely enough she knew all of them. She reached down and picked up what some might consider a micro-torch, a tool commonly used to reseal bulkheads. Bulkheads... her mind suddenly pulled together a small fraction of a memory. She had been flying. They had been in a crash.

  “You got it alright?" asked Alicia.

  "Yes," Starla said as she snapped back to reality. "It's this one, right?"

  “That’s it,” replied Alicia. “Go ahead and hand it back to me.”

  Starla passed it over to the woman and then watched while Alicia lowered it down to a metal rod and used her lighter to ignite the flame. With a few passes the metal bar started to bend until Alicia pulled it apart at the red-hot point. It was at this moment that Starla realized what the woman was doing. The metal rod had impaled Alicia’s leg before becoming twisted at the top. Alicia had just used the blowtorch to cut the metal rod so that the red-hot end was inches from her leg. The smell, a familiar smell, touched Alicia's nose.It was the smell of burnt flesh.

  “Now Starla," Alicia mumbled as she took a few deep breaths, "this is the hard part, okay? I need you to pull me out.”

  “Pull you out?”

  “Yeah, as hard as you can; just get a good grip and pull me straight out. We'll both go right out the broken window.”

  "Alicia, I don't..."

  "Starla, I don't want to put any pressure on you, but time is short. Can you help me?"

  Starla thought about Alicia's statement and saw that the metal bar was losing its glow. “I...I think so.”

  “Okay great,” she said. “Let’s get ready.”

  Starla pushed her legs back and out of the seat. She climbed to Alicia’s position and then looked over toward the broken glass. There was no way she would be able to pull Alicia through that without them both being sliced apart on the thick chunks of broken glass. Instead, she turned and started smashing on the side of the ship. If, and only if, she remembered correctly, there was a door here. A moment later the metal panel gave and Starla was looking out into the rain. She then turned to Alicia and smiled a little.

  "You ready?"

  Alicia nodded. “Yeah, on the count of three, okay?”

  “Okay.”“One...two...three!”

  Starla jerked with all her might and Alicia screamed out in pain as her leg slid off the burning rod. They both fell backward into the mud and Alicia let out one last growl of rag
e and pain before quieting to a loud breathing.

  “I’m sorry. Did I do it wrong?” asked Starla.

  “No, you did great,” replied Alicia. “You did exactly like I said.”

  Starla waited there with Alicia resting on top of her until the brown haired woman finally started to move. The rain was coming down all around them and the thunder that smashed in the skies above didn't seem to be fading. It didn't take long for them to agree that the transport wasn't a safe place to stay. Starla knew that they would need to find shelter to stay warm. The air was cold outside, probably cold enough for hypothermia to set in if they weren't careful.

  “I think I saw some rocks to the north of here when we were falling. Maybe you can find something that way,” said Alicia.

  “Yeah,” replied Starla. “I’ll go see what I can find. Will you be okay here?”

  Alicia nodded and then motioned for Starla to help lift. They moved over to a nearby tree where the rainfall was less intense and Alicia pulled a small metallic looking blanket from a pack that she had been wearing.

  "This should keep me warm while you're gone," she said. "I'm sorry you have to look alone."

  “I’ll be back soon,” said Starla when she finished up. “Stay here.”

  “I won’t be going...oh no.”

  “What?” asked Starla.

  “Robert...”

  Starla turned in the direction Alicia was staring and saw a body in the mud.“He was on the transport with us?” asked Starla.

  “He was our commanding officer.”

  “Officer? We’re soldiers?” She asked. Of course we're soldiers, she though. Why else would we be dressed in these military garbs?

  Alicia nodded.

  Soldiers... they had been on a mission. Something had happened though, something had gone wrong.“So, we crashed here," said Starla aloud.

  “Yes.”

  “How many of us were there?”

  “Six total,” said Alicia.“Where are the other three?”

  “They... fell out.”

  “Oh.”

  A bolt of lightning flashed overhead and the thunder followed without delay. It reminded Starla what she was looking for so she helped Alicia get bundled in the emergency blanket, and then headed out toward the north.Her search didn’t take long to uncover a small cave that they could easily fit in. After she checked it for other animals, she headed back to Alicia and carried the young woman to the rocky area that they would now call home. By the time they reached the cover of the cave, Alicia’s wound was bleeding again.

  “Is that going to be okay?” asked Starla.

  “Not unless someone rescues us,” replied Alicia. “I’ve got a few days tops.”

  “Rescue. Can they rescue us?”

  “Can’t say. We were pretty far out and we’d turned off our Galactic Positioning Systems for the mission we were on. They probably have no idea we’re even out here.”

  “What about a medical kit?” asked Starla. “Would that help your leg?”

  “It could. I’m just not sure where a medical kit is.”

  "The transport had one," said Starla. It did?

  “If it's still in there," replied Alicia. “I think it fell out. We’d used it just before the trouble started. Don’t you remember your shoulder? It got burned bad.”

  “My shoulder?” Asked Starla. “It seems fine.”

  “Let me see.”

  Starla pulled up her sleeve and found a large white bandage stained with blood. When she tore it away, she and Alicia were shocked to see that the wound was gone.

  “That’s impossible,” said Alicia. “You had a nasty burn from some conduit.”

  “I don’t know what happened.”

  “Well, consider yourself lucky.”

  Starla looked out in the rain and saw only large trees and sheets of water that continued to blanket the area.“You said our positioning system was off?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can I turn it back on?”

  “It’s possible," admitted Alicia. "It’ll depend on if the rain shorts out any systems.”

  “I could go now,” said Starla. "Get it activated before the rain can do any more damage. We need to get a signal out."

  “No, I don’t think...”

  A sudden and terrible shriek ripped through the woods outside the cave. It was a twisted and menacing scream that caused both Alicia and Starla to slide backwards in terror. It echoed through the rain for a moment but then silenced with absolutely no echo.

  “What was that?” asked Alicia, clearly in a panic.

  “I have no idea.”

  “We better check our weapons.”

  Starla turned and saw Alicia pulling her pistol. She slid out a clip of ammunition and made sure her bullets were still dry before slipping them back into the weapon.

  “Where’s yours?” asked Alicia.

  Starla shrugged. “I don’t have one.”

  “Here, take this one.”

  “What? Why?”

  “You’ll be able to defend us better. Not to mention you’ll need it if you’re going back out to get the GPS working. Do you even know where it is?”

  “No.”

  “Okay," replied Alicia with a sigh. "We’ll wait for this rainstorm to let up and I’ll draw a sketch of the cabin.”

  While the rain continued to pour, Alicia gave several pointers to Starla about where the GPS would be located and even explained how the positioning device worked. Starla assumed she was doing that to try and jog her memory, but the attempts were fruitless. She also described the medical kit’s shape and size so that Starla could take a look around and see if it was there.When the rain finally stopped, Starla was ready to get moving. Her mind had finally had a chance to clear after the chaos of waking in the crash. Alicia had not focused on what Starla could not remember but instead on what they could do to better their chances of rescue. Since Starla couldn’t remember anything about herself, she liked being able to focus on a goal that she could see. Turning on the positioning system would be her primary goal.

  "Starla," Alicia added just as she went to leave the cave. "Be safe."

  The entire way back to the ship, Starla could only really focus on one thing. The terrorizing scream that they had both heard while they were in the cave. What kind of animal could have created such a terrible sound? It sounded almost like it had come from another terran.Terran, she thought; I’m a terran.She reached the crash site after only ten minutes of walking and she slipped into the side door that she had opened when she pulled Alicia free from the bar. She slipped back into her seat and looked over the controls until she saw the one that Alicia was talking about. Just as she had been told, the console was easily disconnected and she was able to pull it free from the ship's dashboard.

  When she got it outside, she took a few moments to hit some switches but it didn’t come on. There didn’t appear to be any physical damage done to it so she decided it could be fixed somehow. She didn't know how to do it, but she felt like she needed to hold onto that hope, so she carried it over to the tree where she had left Alicia before and then headed back into the wreckage for another look. She tore off the seat cushions, looked under the harnesses, and even in the overhead storage. Just as Alicia had predicted, the medical kit seemed to have vanished.She climbed out from the wreckage again and then picked up the GPS and looked around once final time. She caught sight of the dead man in the mud that Alicia had called Robert. She couldn’t remember him at all, but apparently they had known each other at least a little.

  “Goodbye Robert,” she said aloud. “I’m sorry I can’t remember you.”

  She took a few steps away before something whizzed by her head and hit a nearby tree. She turned and saw what looked like an arrow stuck in the tree next to her face.She spun around and saw several people with spears and bows aiming at her.

  “Speak woman!” shouted a man standing in the front of the group. “Why shouldn’t I kill you?”

  “I mean you no ha
rm!"

  “Lies of a she devil,” the man shouted.

  “Look," Starla shouted back, "I don’t know if you see that transport behind me or not, but I just crashed here and I need to get back to my friend and help her. So I would like to be left alone.”

  The man looked over at the transport and his eyes grew wide.“Take her now,” he said.

  The other men started moving forward and Starla realized they were going to try to capture her. She didn’t know where it came from but suddenly she decked the first man, then grabbed the second man’s arm and twisted it around until she heard a pop at his shoulder. As he fell to the ground she pulled her pistol and fired at the man who had ordered her capture. She hit him in the arm and when he fell to the ground, the others started to fall back in a state of confusion. For all they knew, she had just used magic. There had been no bow, yet their leader was now wounded.She started to run and a third man cut her off but she leapt up and kicked him in the chest, sending him back nearly ten feet. She hit the ground running and the other men chased after her but she was lost in the moment. Her mind had switched over to a survival mode, a trained machine no doubt from all her military training. She was half afraid of herself as she rushed along. It was terrifying, and yet it was exhilarating.She knew she couldn’t lead them to the cave but at the same time she just had a deep need to get back to Alicia. When she arrived at the rocks she decided to hang a left and started climbing the big boulders. She reached a high point and turned back to see the men looking up at her.

  “Go away!” She shouted.

  A sharp prick in her neck caused her to cringe and she reached up and pulled out what appeared to a hollow point dart. She started to stumble and she saw the men running for her so she tried to turn but it didn’t take long for her to lose her grip. She fell backward and right into the arms of one of the men.

  “Careful!” said another one of them. “We don’t know what powers she retains.”

  “Powers?” Asked Starla. “What powers?”

  “Do not fear Vorda, we will take care of you. You will be safe.”

  “Vorda? My name isn’t Vorda. At least... I didn’t think so.”

  A moment later her world turned upside down and she slipped into a dark haze. Her last thoughts were spent dwelling on her own identity and Alicia’s safety.