Your Story #137

Prompt: Write a short story of 650 words or fewer based on the photo prompt above. You can be poignant, funny, witty, etc.; it is, after all, your story.

Email your submission to yourstorycontest@aimmedia.com with the subject line "Your Story 137."

No attachments, please. Include your name and mailing address. Entries without a name or mailing address with be disqualified.

Unfortunately, we cannot respond to every entry we receive, due to volume. No confirmation emails will be sent out to confirm receipt of submission. But be assured all submissions received before entry deadline are considered carefully. Official Rules

Entry Deadline: CLOSED

Out of nearly 100 entries, WD editors chose the following 5 finalists. Vote for your favorite by using the comments section at the bottom of this article.

Looking through their antenna cameras, the squad now saw the distant objects that the Einstein’s sensors had detected. They looked like four huge metallic barrels lying on their sides. Each was covered with a moss-like growth and measured twenty feet high. About 300 feet beyond them was a 40’ tall tree; its trunk looked like two thick intertwined vines supporting a green bushy top. Beyond it was a tree line, mostly conifers with yellow, green, and gold needles, and several more of the double-vined trees.

Lieutenant Sorenson said, “Giambi, go check these barrel things out. We’ll cover you.”

Sighing and muttering, Giambi ignited his jetpack and flew there while the others crawled to the top of the knoll and activated the range finders on their rifles’ telescopes. After circling twice, Giambi landed and said, “Wow, LT. Each one of these has a different creature trapped in it. I’m panning them now. Dr. Washington will be thrilled. They are fine-looking specimens.”

Sorenson picked up Giambi’s livestream in his heads-up display. Each barrel had a gleaming, transparent cover. In barrel #1 was a small pink, cooing, cat-like creature. Inside barrel #2 was a large purplish snake coiled in the back of the barrel, its half-veiled eyes watching. Barrel #3 had something like a yellow, giggling capybara. The last barrel had a gurgling plate-sized splotch of green protoplasm with warm yellow eyes and several antennae. There were no visible horns, claws, teeth, or anything else that could penetrate the marines’ armored suits.   

Sorenson ordered Gunny Bluefield and PFC Wong to stay and keep overwatch. Then he and the other two marines took off and joined Giambi.

The Marines found the barrels were heavy, impossible to move. Scanning the creatures and area revealed no toxic agents. The transparent covers could easily be pushed open, but would automatically shut. They could not be opened from the inside.  

He sent in a report, attaching Giambi’s video, and the Einstein ordered him to cage the creatures and bring them up. Sorenson wondered who (or what) would use huge barrels to trap relatively small animals, but orders were orders. Dutifully, the marines pulled specimen cages from their packs, assembled them, and entered the barrels (being careful to prop the transparent covers open). The creatures were meek and did not resist being captured.  

When the creatures were caged, however, large circular metallic doors emerged from the ground and closed over the transparent covers, entombing the marines inside. As this was happening,  Sorenson heard Gunny Bluefield yell, “Lieutenant, get out! That tree ain’t a tree. It just came out of the ground and is floating…” The transmission was then cut off, and Sorenson dimly heard the blasting of assault rifles and guided RPG explosions.

He turned on his helmet light and fired his assault rifle at the barrel’s cover. The power beam cut right through the clear cover, but when it reached the metallic door, it bounced off and ricocheted all around the interior until it cut the caged yellow capybara thing in half. Then he tried calling his marines, but apparently the barrel blocked their communications.

Suddenly, he lost his balance and fell as the barrel lifted and began moving. A hissing sound filled the barrel as streams of pink smoke came from numerous small interior holes. The smoke lazily oozed into the joints of his armor, and soon he smelled something like canned sardines. Then … blackness.

***

ChazorexOr47, aboard the Mareek#OlBan, looked over the scanner readings. Decontamination was complete, and the pacification compound was still effective. All four aliens had been stripped of their belongings and laid unconscious on beds of fronds in four separate barrels. 

JaborskinEX22 drifted into the lab, smacking her tentacles together loudly. She exclaimed, “A fine haul, Trapper Leader ChazorexOr47! I am thrilled. These are fine-looking specimens.”

We had escaped the dying city and set out into the dust, hoping to find refuge. But the drought spared no one, and we lost many of our caravan to the wasteland. After walking without end, on our last night, we collapsed without tent or blanket, wasted the last of our tears, and prayed for death to take us all together. The moon spared us her light so we did not see ourselves perish.

“That is how our story started,” the guide said solemnly. The more dramatic, the more they tipped. People loved a miracle.

“Some say they fell from the sky, others think they emerged from the ground, but these are the original pods of Seven. All we know is that one day they simply arrived to save our ancestors. Shiny, smooth, metallic, and mysterious. 

The small crowd nodded along and whispered to each other. 

“The travellers awoke that next morning on a carpet of green, in the shade of the Seven. This unbelievable splendor arrived in the dust and seemed to pull flora from the dirt.” He brushed one of the climbing vines, and it snapped back to the pod. “The plant life seems drawn to them like a life force.” One of the group raised their hand, but Sachi knew how to stop a question before it started. “Do we have unanswered questions? Yes, but it might be best to let the pods speak for themselves.” 

“Our ancestors explored the Seven in awe. At dusk that first day, a crack sounded and an opening appeared in one of the pods. Inside, our travellers found safe, comfortable shelter from the elements. Shortly after, two more pods cracked, and the miracles of freshwater and a food replenisher were inside. Let’s go take a look at these pods, so you can experience them for yourselves.” The onlookers followed along, hungry for the story. 

“Each pod has shared something over the years to build this wasteland into a land of plenty. Once our initial needs were met, next came the knowledge and implements to build and grow. The most recent pod has intriguing puzzles and games to occupy our curious minds.”

“What about the last Pod?”

This question was always exciting to answer. “That is something we are all looking forward to, and if calculations are correct, we expect it to open very soon. In fact—” Before he could finish, a man rushed his group.

“You need to get away from here! Do not wait for the final pod to open, I’ve seen this before!” he gasped.

“Sir—” Sachi began, but didn’t get any further. 

“The last pod will contain something so important that all of you will end up killing each other for it. I’ve seen it with my own eyes on other planets!”

“Other planets? Security! Get this guy out of here! Tour is over, folks. Please return to the gate, take as many recordings as you’d like, and please tip on your way out.”

Word spread like wildfire that night, and the arguments started. 

“What more could we want?” 

“The Pods have only been good to us!” 

“We should force it open!”

“That guy was crazy!”

No one could agree. Doubt was cast. And then the killing began. 

Panicked, Sachi stocked a bag and hid on the outskirts. Over eighty years of calm, safety, and enterprise gone in a moment. For two days, he hid until he heard silence. Then he ventured out and saw bodies strewn across the land. His community, dead.

Then the seventh pod cracked open. He watched cautiously and saw movement. The tour interrupter had slipped into seven. Sachi inched closer and could see he was talking to a visual communication device.

“The last has fallen. They will fertilize the land. It is time to come, our new world is ready.”

Sachi had nowhere to run.

DOTTYBACK blinked.

OK, it is impossible to blink without eyelids, but DOTTYBACK (EYEBOT DOTTYBACK-004 to be exact) cleared her cache, refreshing her visual sensors, which was close enough. Old images dematerialized, and she readied herself for otherworldly sights of a future human-colony world.

The whole process proved unnecessary, for the same landscape greeted her as the last time the auto-cycle brought her online. The same ruined buildings of downtown Memphis crawled with kudzu vines. A drooping launchpad dipped into the Mississippi River.

This wasn’t right.

The launchpad should stand upright, jutting over the river’s chocolate-milkshake waters. Long ago, a crew should’ve loaded her on a Falcon XII Slim rocket. It should have taken her far from Earth. DOTTYBACK’s systems should’ve remained dormant until touching down on exoplanet soil.

She rotated. She … ROTATED.

She did not move.

The connections existed for her mobility attachment, but no matter how she urged… No movement. Had a malevolent entity hacked her memory and loaded this scene?

DOTTYBACK squinted for a better view. Alright, she used her zoom function. The research team that trained her model included the experiences of living camera wizards. She wanted to think like them, and that meant sometimes employing creative renaming of her functions.

Her squinting (zooming!) allowed her to focus on one blocky building. A jagged corner of the building wrenched free, crashing into pavement striated with cracks and crushing a fanlike fern.

Not a static image! She rested firmly on Earth.

Her Bluetooth adapter allowed her to communicate with the dirtside satellite uplink to send her data back to Earth. Now, that was Useless… (Was she useless? No way!) She searched for an uplink anyway, but came up empty. However, the list of available connections surprised her:

SALMON-071

SALMON-079

DOTTYBACK-014

After a moment of elation at the recognition of three other EYEBOT units nearby, DOTTYBACK despaired at the meaning: All EYEBOTs slated for departure from the Memphis launchpad remained beached.

For how long? DOTTYBACK had a clock, but its only purpose was to add image timestamps for points-of-interest. Who would be interested in the same viewpoint of Memphis crumbling to dust? She hadn’t tagged any images and had no reference for how long she had lingered here.

What else could she do with the Bluetooth connection? She had no chat program (what would the immobile EYEBOTs discuss?). She could, however, send images. So, she did. The only image she could: rotting buildings, encroaching plant life, the tilting, half-submerged launchpad.

IMAGE RECEIVED (SALMON-071)

DOWNLOADING …

RENDERING …

If DOTTYBACK’s eye could pop, it would have. Rather, it only zoomed out slightly. Where DOTTYBACK’s image showed a moldering skyline, SALMON-071’s view turned northward, where a jungle of young pines had overtaken the city’s remains.

IMAGE RECEIVED (SALMON-079)

DOWNLOADING…

RENDERING…

SALMON-079’s view stretched in the opposite direction, revealing where the cracked pavement of an erstwhile road disappeared into an algae-ridden bog overflowing from the river’s banks. The crescent-moon outlines of two colorful spheroids sent DOTTYBACK’s spirits soaring (who needs a rocket?). One of them was her own indigo chassis! And SALMON-071’s brilliant pink! Observing her own form created a glorious feedback loop in DOTTYBACK. If only she could rotate and give SALMON-079 the same feeling.

IMAGE RECEIVED (DOTTYBACK-014)

DOWNLOADING…

RENDERING…

DOTTYBACK-014 had a clear line of sight, showing the other three EYEBOTs. They stared away eternally. The others’ mobility attachments were also absent, but they were not alone. Would they ever glance upon those alien landscapes they were designed to observe? Perhaps they’d be forced to bear witness to Memphis’s remains crumbling piece by piece.

DOTTYBACK couldn’t help feeling warm. Probably because she kept re-rendering that same image of the three camera units with their pastel shades and gaping, dark apertures over and over until her CPU screamed at her and she had to slide into sleep mode to cool off. 

When the next auto-cycle woke her again, she would, at least, not be alone.

Jessica looked up from the kitchen island counter, where she was slicing vegetables, as Jake burst through the doorway. "Mommy! Grandpa showed me a bunch of giant robot eyes today!"

"Really?" she said with an arched eyebrow.

Jake nodded almost vigorously enough to shake off his freckles. His blue eyes sparkled as he spun in a circle in the middle of the floor. 

"Yep! But there wasn't any real robots. Just their eyes."

Grandpa, wearing his tweed sport coat with leather elbow pads, shuffled into the kitchen like the tortoise following the hare. Jessica flicked her eyes up to her dad, and he shrugged his shoulders, grinning.

Wiping her hands on her apron, she came around the island and squatted on the floor.

"So, tell me about these scary giant robot eyes." 

Jake made one final spin, then flopped into his mom's arms, almost knocking her over. He screwed up his face in confusion. "Scary? No way. There wasn't any robots there, just the eyeballs, and they had plants and stuff growing all over them like in a jungle or something. 'Cept it wasn't a jungle. Right, Grandpa?"

Thomas lowered himself into a chair, setting his hat on the table. "Right, Jake. Not a jungle," he answered quietly.

Jessica rubbed her son's head. "OK. Sounds like you had a great time. Go wash up. Dinner's almost ready." Since losing Derek, her son's energy was the brightest light in her life. It moved the deepest part of her to see him so happy.

She squeezed tightly as the wriggly fish slipped down from between her arms onto the floor. He popped right back up, then raced down the hall towards his bedroom.

Jessica stood and smiled at her dad as she returned to preparing the dinner. "Thanks for taking him out today. He always has so much fun with you. So where did you go to find these giant robot eyes?"

Thomas looked down at the floor a moment before responding quietly. "We were at the old StarExplorer site."

Jessica stopped slicing the vegetables and closed her eyes—growing still, breathing deeply. 

"The robot eyes were the unused habitat modules," Thomas continued.

"You took him there? Why?" Her voice was quiet and shaky. 

Thomas stepped towards his daughter. "The city has made a memorial there now. And a park." His voice was soft.

Sensing him closer, Jessica opened her eyes. They glistened with tears.

"But Dad. That's where Derek..." She couldn't finish. It had been almost three years since the StarExplorer catastrophe that had rocked the entire community. StarExplorer was shut down now, but the wounds were still fresh.

Thomas was at her side now. "I know, Jess. Believe me, I know. I felt it every moment I was there." He cleared the lump from his throat. "But we have to move forward. Jake barely remembers and ... Well, isn't it better if he has happy memories of that place?"

He opened his arms to embrace her. She hesitated for a moment, then melted into him. She buried her face in his shoulder, hiding her tears while he shifted to pull her in more tightly. Her shoulders quivered as she allowed the pain of her memories to seep out of her heart and into his body. Her dad's arms weren't as strong as they had been when she had been a teenager, the years after mom had died, but they still brought her comfort. They always would.

After a few minutes, Thomas squeezed her gently. "It was good today, Jess. He had fun there."

Jessica pulled back to look at her dad's face. His eyes were also wet. She nodded. "I know. He always has fun with you." She sniffled. "You're right, Dad. And thank you." She smiled weakly. She would live with the pain the rest of her life, but with luck, Jake wouldn't have to.

“Good Lord,” Clotilda sighed. The vines had covered the eye-pods again and were about to crack the windows. She leaned on her splintered cane and glanced instinctively at her feet for Fido, for the comfort of his lopsided grin, momentarily forgetting that he was gone. Instead, she noticed dark, plummy veins girdling her calves below the ragged hem of her dress. So much, she realized, was gone.

She turned back to the eye-pods. How had the vines regrown so quickly? The last time, she and Mort had managed to extricate all but one pod, losing years of vital research when its glass broke. How could she possibly uproot this renewed scourge without him? And to what end? The vines would simply return. The experiments, even if successful—and oh, the promise they were finally showing!—would be ruined. There would be no antidote now to save her or the others, those who remained in even worse condition than herself. She thought of Mort, the passion and enthusiasm they had shared so long ago. Their conviction, hopefulness.

She staggered to the closest pod, so densely covered with growth, and peered at the window, gasping at what she saw: a woman staring back at her. The vines crept across the woman’s face, splitting it into bewildered fragments like the work of a mad scientist. Her eyes were dull and waxy. Violet scabs clung like crushed prunes to shriveled skin.

The woman, Clotilda recognized with a sob, was her own self, cruelly reflected. “Such fools we were,” she croaked, sagging in defeat. Tears slipped down her face, anointing her with newfound despair—a baptism of grief, more for their lost idealism and labor than for Mort himself. Poor Mort, always so positive. The glass not only half full, but overflowing. Always overflowing. Until it wasn’t.

“Listen to me, Tilda,” he’d said at the end, his voice crackling like dead leaves. “I need you to let go.”

She placed a hand lightly on her reflection. A fresh tendril curled towards her fingertips as if hunting blood, swiftly encircling her disfigured knuckles. The vine split. Offshoots wound around her turgid limbs and torso, binding tightly and tugging her downward.

“I don’t mean, let go of me,” Mort had rasped, smiling thinly and squeezing her hand. “Let go of the outcome, the need for success. That doesn’t mean give up. You must do what you were put here to do. Just let your passion be for the work itself, nothing more. Let go, Tilda. Otherwise, you will break.”

She had been so angry and confused by his words back then. But now, she let the strands cut into her flesh, cocooning her in a camphorated wreath. Perhaps this is what the vines were put here to do, she thought. A leaf tickled her throat, like Fido softly licking her chin. She sensed the warmth of the dog’s rhythmic panting by her cheek, of Mort’s hand in hers, his voice: “Let go, Tilda.”

“Okay,” she murmured.

“But Tilda? Don’t ever give up.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but a roar gurgled up from her gut instead, wide and reverberant. She bit down on a tendril, gnawing and tearing the coil, shaking her head like Fido with a bone. It ripped apart between her teeth, falling from her face. She grabbed another mouthful, frothing rabidly, dribbling spittle and disgorging bile into woody pith until her hands broke free. To her surprise, the vines began to blacken and wither, retreating into the earth. All of the vines, as far as she could see. 

Exhausted, she slumped against the window. A woman gazed back at her from the glass. The scabs were gone. Her eyes shone. Clotilda gently touched her face, flushed and full. The poison had left her body. Something else was ripening within her.