by Andrew Gates
As time went on, more and more of the group began to stir. The young girls were the last to awaken. Grey carefully watched them like a Navy guard monitoring a crowd in the black zone.
Jallah could relate to Grey’s worry. Often he found himself worrying about Margery. But she was always okay.
“Everyone has eaten?” Grey asked as he walked through the group. There were nods all around, except from Iris, who appeared not to have heard, which was becoming normal for her.
“Iris has eaten too,” Dan said, answering Grey’s next question before he even asked it.
Jallah stood up, though his legs felt like steel beams. He knew it was time to get moving. Margery and Ophelia stood up too. He could only imagine they felt just as pained.
“Since we’re all ready, let’s get going!” Dan continued.
Even Iris seemed to understand this time. She stood up with the rest and picked up one of the food boxes, ready to carry it along. Not wanting to seem weak, Jallah figured he should grab one too. He picked up one of the heavier ones and hoisted it up above his shoulders. His arm muscles felt like they were on fire as he lifted it up.
“You got it?” Grey asked as he walked by.
Jallah simply nodded back, hoping Margery was watching.
Oh Lord, this is heavy.
The group headed south. That was their goal right now: head south until they could head west again. Out there somewhere in the west, that’s where they would find their new home. At least, that was the plan.
Jallah was still tired and did not want to speak. With everything on his mind, he felt it was best to be alone. Hoping to get away, he walked up to the front of the pack and led them forward. None of the adults seemed to care. Leading the group was kind of fun. He felt like Alpheus, Explorer of the Depths, discovering brand new lands before anyone else.
Each step revealed a new surprise. They passed massive rocks, looming trees, hidden bodies of water and so much more that Jallah did not even know how to describe. Every now and then, animals would scurry away as he led the group through the forest.
But one surprise was a little too much to handle.
After what seemed like an hour, Jallah stopped and stood still. He slowly brought the box of food down to the ground and set it on the dirt. He looked around, taking in the sight. The others all stopped behind him, frozen in awe.
Another branchless tree was before them, but this one was not standing. It was broken near its base. Most of the tree now rested sideways across the forest floor. The break looked recent.
That was not all. Bushes and smaller trees were flattened all around them. Jallah had seen this kind of destruction before. The mech from yesterday left a similar trail.
But most disturbing of all were the small impacts in the mud. What appeared to be two sets of foot-like shapes dotted the area around them. It was almost as if other people had been here.
“Lord Beyond Both Seas,” Ophelia said, breaking the silence. Jallah had not even realized how quiet it was.
“Get back,” Dan ordered, stepping forward. Jallah moved aside to let him come through.
Dan inspected the area, taking it all in. He seemed disturbed.
“Those things that came for us, the mantises,” Margery started, “they came here too.”
“Yes,” Dan agreed, “and I’m starting to think they weren’t looking for us.”
“What do you mean?” Grey asked.
“These footprints are in sets of two and they look just like human prints. There are a lot of them here,” Dan explained. “I’m guessing the mantises were after them.”
“But who are they?” Jallah asked. “Are they survivors from the other escape pods?”
Dan shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “But there are a lot of prints here. We could barely fit nine of us in one pod.”
Jallah tried to count the number of prints. It was hard to tell how many people had walked around here, but it definitely looked like more than nine.
“It looks like they set up booby traps in that tree, just like they did to us!” Margery pointed out. Jallah was impressed. She was always so observant.
“She’s right. That had to have taken time. I doubt the mantises set that up just for us,” Grey added.
Jallah wondered if there were other animals that looked like humans. Maybe they left these prints. Maybe they also left the prints in that video Iris was talking about.
“The cut in the tree looks fresh. My guess is the mantises aren’t too far from here. The trail of destruction seems to be heading west,” Dan noted.
“So let’s keep going south,” Margery suggested.
Dan nodded in agreement.
“I concur. We can go west some other time,” Dan said, still not backing down on his idea to head west eventually. Jallah could not blame him. The idea made sense. “If it’s the other station survivors, hopefully they can find a way out of this like we did.”
“And if it’s not?” Jallah asked.
“Then I have no clue where the hell these footprints came from. Let’s hope that whoever it is, they’re friendly.” His voice was ominous.
The group was silent for a moment, but then Dan turned and started walking. Eventually the rest of them followed.
From then on, Jallah let someone else take the lead.
By mid-day, Jallah’s muscles were starting to come back to him. His mind was on fire with the haunting memories of mantises and mysterious footprints plaguing his thoughts like a virus. With all this time to think while he walked, he imagined the footprints belonging to other humanoid creatures, but bigger and meaner than anything he’d seen before. They worked with the mantises and ate human flesh like cannibals.
Stop thinking about that, he would tell himself. You’re just making things up. You’re scaring yourself. When things got really uncomfortable, Jallah simply closed his eyes and imagined himself back at his first day of school. Louis was there with his candy. The thought would always calm him down and bring him away from his fears.
But then he would hear a noise in a nearby bush, a rustling in the leaves or just a brush of wind. Jallah would immediately assume the worst. He half-expected his imaginary monsters to jump out at him.
Eventually the boy’s paranoia took a backseat as Dan raised his hand and halted dead in his tracks. Jallah stopped behind him. So did everyone else. Dan slowly turned toward the group.
“Do you hear that?” he asked.
Jallah tried to listen more carefully. Water, he realized. It sounds like water.
“We must be near the shore again,” Selena said, clearly hearing it too.
“The shore must curve westward as we go south,” Grey added.
Dan seemed upset. He placed his hands on his face and let out a deep sigh. Jallah knew how much Dan wanted to travel further inland. But despite his best efforts, it seemed they had made it to the beach once more.
Suddenly Jallah heard a voice. It sounded familiar, like a human shouting in the distance. But it did not belong to anyone in the group. The boy turned to look at his companions. Except for Iris, they all seemed to hear it too. Their heads perked up like a child receiving a gift.
“Voices,” Ophelia said, pointing out the obvious.
“Daddy, who’s that shouting?” Kaitlyn asked.
“Not sure,” Grey answered to his daughter.
“What should we do?” Margery asked. “Go the other way like last time?”
Dan shook his head.
“There were signs of mantises nearby last time. This time it looks clear. What do you guys think?” he asked.
“I agree,” said Jallah, not hesitating. The voice seemed human to him. If he was right, he could finally forget all about his imaginary monsters. More than anything, Jallah just wanted to put his mind at ease.
“Are you suggesting we investigate?” Selena asked. “What if it’s another trap?” It seemed she and Dan could almost never agree on anything.
“We won’t all
go. We’ll split up in small groups like we’ve done before,” Dan suggested.
“I’ll go with you,” Jallah volunteered.
“Me too,” Margery said.
Dan nodded.
“Alright, come with me.”
Jallah was surprised that Margery volunteered to come along, especially since she’d just suggested going the other way. The three of them all put down their boxes and made their way toward the noise. As they walked, Margery crept over to Jallah.
“You’ve been quiet,” she said to him.
Jallah nodded.
“I’m not trying to avoid you, if that’s what you think.”
“Then why have you been so distant?”
“I’m just scared, I guess. First I was worried about the mantises, now I’m worried about these footprints.”
“I understand. I was worried you were avoiding me,” she said.
“No, I wasn’t avoiding you. Is that why you volunteered to come along? Just so you could ask me that?” he asked.
Margery nodded her head.
That’s a dumb reason to come along. She could have asked me that anytime!
“Ssh, quiet down,” Dan whispered as they neared the sound of waves.
Jallah and Margery quieted down and crept forward. The trees began to thin out and the ground turned sandy. Jallah could hear more human voices coming from straight ahead. He could see the water through the trees now.
“Slow down,” Dan ordered.
They all slowed their pace. Jallah crouched down and continued forward, though it hurt to walk like this with his muscles the way they were. Within a few more seconds, Jallah could see the entire beach.
Another escape pod rested on the sand. A transparent HPE was already set up and attached to its exit door. Four humans stood inside, all wearing dirty Navy uniforms. They gathered around some sort of object in the center of the boxy room.
People! Jallah thought in excitement. He felt himself smile.
Dan seemed excited too. He stood tall and walked towards the HPE with his arms outstretched.
“Hello!” he called down to them. The white-coated men and women stood up and watched as he neared them. “Hello!” he said again.
Jallah and Margery decided to follow him.
There were two men and two women inside the HPE. They all seemed to be in good shape. Their faces were pale and not yet the darker red of the others. This group must have only recently arrived on land.
“Who are you?” one of the men shouted from inside the tarp. He looked surprised to see someone walking without a suit.
“My name is Daniel Georgopolis. I came from the Atlantic Station,” he said. Dan walked up against the wall of the HPE now.
“How are you alive?” the man asked. This man looked slightly younger than Dan. He was tall and in good shape. His brown hair was neatly cut, though a bit of scruff was starting to form around his chin.
“We discovered that you don’t need the HPE,” Dan explained. “The atmosphere is safe.”
The man inside turned and looked at his three companions. They all seemed worried. A blonde-haired woman moved up to the tarp wall with him.
“How many more are you?” she asked.
“There are nine of us total. We crammed the escape pod,” Dan answered. He turned his body towards Jallah and Margery. “These two are part of my group. This is Jallah Sane and Margery Ljung. We’ve been on the surface for a few days now.”
“We only just arrived,” the man answered. “My name is Lieutenant Ryan Stone. I’m the leader here. This is Ensign Sixtine Boudreaux.”
The woman waved.
“Behind me are Ensigns Felix Mannan and Rina Rassi. We also have two more in our group, out scouting for food right now.”
“Are you all military?” Dan asked.
“That’s correct,” Ryan answered, straight to the point.
“Aside from the two who are out right now, has anyone left the HPE?” Dan wondered.
Ryan shook his head.
“Negative. We’ve only just arrived a few hours ago.”
“Just arrived? How is that possible? We’ve been here for days.”
Ryan did not seem so surprised by this news.
“We watched your pod through the window. You were ahead of us from the start, but your escape pod really picked up speed once we broke the waterline. I guess you got caught in some sort of current.”
“What about the third pod?” Jallah asked. He remembered that three pods had left the station.
“We saw the third pod too,” Ryan replied. “It was drifting parallel to us most of the way. It probably landed around the same time we did. Last I saw, it was headed south of here.”
The escape pod just landed and it hit south. That’s not good, Jallah realized. That means we still don’t know who the footprints belong to.
Dan must have realized this too, because he looked towards Jallah and Margery with a worried expression.
“We spotted footprints in the dirt not too far from here. They looked like human prints. Do you know of any other pods that escaped?” Dan asked.
Ryan shook his head. The others appeared surprised to hear this news.
“Negative. We all saw three pods leave the station. You must be confused about what you saw. This many days on the surface… it could be playing with your mind.”
“We all saw it,” Dan responded without hesitation. “It’s not a hallucination.”
“Maybe he’s right, Lieutenant,” Sixtine added. “Maybe others made it up somehow. Perhaps they came in a submarine or something.”
Ryan turned to her and shook his head.
“The subs weren’t built to come up this high,” he answered.
“Look, if you come outside, we can talk about it,” Dan suggested.
“You want us to leave the HPE?”
“Or let us in. Either way, it’s difficult to speak through the tarp like this.”
Ryan looked at his fellow Navy. They took a few steps away from Dan and consulted each other. Then he took a step towards the wall again.
“We’ll wait until our others get back before we let you in. They have an atmosphere reader. I just want to make sure what you’re saying about the air is true.”
“I understand,” Dan replied. “In the meantime, I’ll go gather the rest of our group. We’ll meet here in just a few minutes.”
“Roger that,” Ryan said.
With those words, Dan turned and walked back. Jallah and Margery followed behind.
The others in the group were excited to learn about the escape pod. They were in such a rush to see the survivors that a few of them almost forgot to bring the boxes of food with them. When they finally arrived at the tarp, Ryan and the others were already pulling their supplies out of the pod and into the enclosure.
It did not take long for the two other survivors to return. The Navy men looked like silly spacemen in their bulky suits. When they first saw nine strangers standing outside the tarp, they jumped in astonishment. One of them looked so scared that Jallah wondered if he was going to have a heart attack. But they both calmed down and Dan explained everything. He encouraged them to examine the atmosphere. After a quick test, everyone seemed to be in agreement that the environment was safe. The two suited survivors removed their helmets and took their first ever breaths of fresh air.
Ryan seemed a lot more comfortable with the idea of going outside now that members of his own squad had removed their helmets right before his eyes. The other four survivors slowly made their way out of the HPE and joined the rest of the group outside the tarp.
“Well I’ll be damned,” the man named Felix said as he walked out of the airlock. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
The woman named Sixtine came through next, followed by Rina. The leader, Ryan, was the last one out. As he exited the HPE, he carried a piece of equipment with him, the same object they had all gathered around when Jallah first saw them in the enclosure. At closer glance, it seemed almos
t like three different objects fastened together.
“Good to see you, Lieutenant,” one of the suited survivors said. This man had dark skin like Jallah. He looked younger than all the rest, probably in his early 20s. Jallah did not catch his name.
“Likewise, Garren,” Ryan replied.
“I can’t believe it. The structural formula of the atmosphere seems to have reverted back to its pre-Descent state. The numbers line up exactly. It’s like a carbon copy, if you excuse the pun,” the other suited survivor explained. He held the atmosphere reader in his gloves. This man was one of the palest people Jallah had ever seen, even more than Iris. He had red hair and thin eyebrows. Jallah was not sure of this man’s name either.
“Yes, that’s what Dan explained to me,” Ryan replied. “You all had better be right, or we’re all dead.”
The red-haired man took a deep breath and then let it out.
“I’m sure, Lieutenant.”
Ryan nodded and looked up at the rest of the group. Now that everyone was here, there were a lot of introductions that needed to be made.
“Hello,” he said to them all. “For those of you just meeting me, my name is Ryan Stone. I’m in charge of these Navy ensigns.” Ryan motioned to the others as he said this. “This is Sixtine Boudreaux, Felix Mannan, Rina Rassi, Garren Cruz and Tobias Everett.”
“Are any of you military?” Felix asked.
Everyone in Jallah’s group shook their heads.
“We are all civilians,” Grey answered. “I’m not sure how we fit into your chain of command.”
“In the event of an emergency, civilians are to follow the directive of military personnel,” Ryan explained. “I’m a lieutenant, so I have the highest rank here. That means I have authority over you all.”
Dan stepped forward. He seemed worried by this news.
“Those may be your military rules, but I can’t guarantee my compliance,” Dan protested. “Neither should anyone in my group.”
Jallah expected Ryan to fight back, but to his surprise, the man simply shrugged.
“You asked how civilians fit into our command structure. That’s the policy. You all seem to have been doing well on your own, so I won’t force anything,” he replied.
