Science Fiction Microstory Contest discussion
JUNE 2022 SCIENCE FICTION MICROSTORY CONTEST (Stories only)
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EPITAPHThe rain was a driving torrent as Anja Jenson stepped off her landing craft into the dark night of Gamma IV. The sky was black as death, the distant rumble of thunder in her ears as she walked from the pale yellow landing lights of the space port towards the spacer’s bar.
She hung her black overcoat and wide-brimmed hat, both dripping and sodden as she entered the dimly lit saloon. A clamor of alien voices in unintelligible languages, strange, foul, intoxicating alien smells… the soft clatter of mandibles and the clicking of claws… assorted bulbous alien shapes…some with pseudopods, some with tentacles at the bar and tables. Then, she picked out the one other human face in the smoky cesspool of space trash. Barrett Kane.
As the man glanced up from the poker hand he was nursing, his handsome, rugged bearded face illuminated in the flash of his cigarette lighter, a hush fell over the customers. Did the alien dross smell the hormones of her damnable attraction for a man with whom she’d once lain? Or, did they smell the sweat or hear the quickened heartbeats of two humans about to fight and kill? The alien card players left the table as she approached.
“Anja,” Barrett said casually, taking a sip of whiskey. He exhaled, smacking his lips and picking up the bottle. “This just might be the last bottle in existence,” he remarked, reading the label, not even looking at her. “Remember when you and I shared a bottle of this on Beta II?” He looked up at her and grinned. Damn his smug self-assuredness. Damn him for the power he still had to set her blood racing. “You still look beautiful. Come. Sit.” He poured her a glass. “We’ll drink to old times.”
She clenched and grit her teeth, forcing herself to focus. “Barrett Kane…you are under arrest for murder.” She forced the words out, her lips barely parted.
“Now, is that any way to greet a man you once made love with? The last man you’ll ever have?” He smiled. That smile conjured feelings of fire raging through her blood…pleasure under a sky with three moons…
She shook it off. “The raiding party you led slaughtered the crew of that space station over Rigel III.”
“Just conducting business. As you are now, as a bounty hunter.” He gathered the cards and shuffled. “A lot of races picked up this game from us,” he said, skillfully spreading the cards in a fan, then closing it and cutting the deck between the fingers of one hand. She kept her eyes on his other hand, slipping towards the edge of the table. “Be a shame if that’s all humanity was remembered for.”
“The bounty’s dead or alive, Barrett.” Her eyes fixed on that hand, now nearing the edge. “I’d rather it was the latter.” She fought to keep her voice steady as she pulled her jacket back from her gun belt.
“‘Heard the latest A.I. calculation?” He took a puff on his cigar, leaning back. “Since those last human settlements were wiped out taking sides in the Kraal / Daarlaak war… odds are over 97 percent you and I are the last 2 humans.” He leaned forward, setting the cigar down. “Does Eve kill Adam? Does Adam kill Eve? Either way, humanity’s done. Is a few thousand creds worth that?”
Her heart raced as his hand slipped over the table’s edge. “It’s about the lives of the 73 sentient beings you killed!”
“More where they came from, pretty girl. You and I are all that’s left of our species. You want to bear my children. You know you do.” Blood pounded through her temples as her hand closed on her blaster. She heard his blaster clear its holster as she drew and they both fired.
In the instant he fell dead, the cold realization swept over her like a shroud. In that moment, she knew she was the last human.
As she turned numbly from Barrett’s corpse and holstered her blaster, she barely felt the sting of where his blaster bolt had grazed her shoulder
Humanity’s epitaph, she thought as she ordered a drink. When they dig up our graves in a thousand years, how will they remember us? Will they remember the wars, the slavery? Or, will they remember that the last human chose justice over survival?
She bolted down her drink and went back to the poker table as the game resumed.
Lone Wolf ©2022 Kalifer DeilThey called me at home in Surrey. I was to fly to Afghanistan in one hour. I keep a packed travel bag because it's always chop-chop. I've become an expert in alien technology and every find seems to be more urgent or larger than the last.
I arrived an hour later on a star-shuttle; almost lost my breakfast on that ride. Landed on a patch of sun-bleached dirt and walked over to the cave. This cave had a huge opening so I wondered why anything new would be found in here. “Hi, Steve, what's the urgency?”
Steve Holbrook, a yank, stood lean and tall, with a head of hair that made him look six inches taller.
“John, ya gotta see this! We have no friggin' idea what it is! You're our alien techie so thought you'd have a clue.”
About a kilometer into the cave we arrived at a newly excavated small arched doorway. I inquired, “That for a pooch?”
“Nope! They were less than four feet tall, the Grays I believe. They didn't like us much. We lost contact with them recently after they made that UN speech calling us 'violent sex-obsessed idiots!'”
“That was rather irregular!”
“Harsh but true. Look what going on now, Russia is invading Finland, China has taken over part of Taiwan, Peru is trying to take over Bolivia, and my USA is back messing with Cuba again. Everybody is killing everybody.
“My word! Look at this! Some sort of control center, I gather. I've never seen anything like this.”
“It's in your hands, we didn't touch any controls so we have no clue. There's a porta-loo and a food truck by the cave door.”
“Thank! How do I reach you! You might be a klick or two away!”
Steve started laughing, “I'll bet you have an antique RF phone.”
“Well, it still works!”
“Not here, and nowhere in three months! Those networks will be shut down. Here, I have an extra Neutrino 4P phone I can loan you. There are no screen buttons, you just tell it who or what you want. It works anywhere in the solar system.”
“I don't relish having a neutrino source next to my head.”
“You should hate having an RF source next to your head. They do giggle molecules.”
“Your right. It's an unreasonable fear, like most fears that haunt us, humans. Thank you for the phone. I'll see if it knows more than me about alien technology.”
“Good Luck!”
I was now alone with this unfamiliar phone and alien equipment. “Phone? Do you have a name?”
“Grok 22, and your name is John Wolf. I've loaded your context. Hi mate!”
“My! That's a good start! Have you seen this equipment?” John panned the phone.
“Yes and I've researched it. My guess is it's a transporter.”
“That's impossible! You'd have to know the quantum state of every atom and molecule.”
“I don't think so. You just need to know anatomy and the brain connectome.”
“Well maybe! I see a panel that looks like it's for a small hand. Do you think that turns it on?”
“Try it!”
I carefully set my hand down on the pad and a screen lit up. It has an image of a similar setup and a script I knew was alien. “Grok, what does it say?”
“It says 'Satellite on four.' My guess is, that refers to Mars's moon Phobos.”
“There were some alien artifacts on Phobos but no station like what was just discovered here.”
“Exactly! … We have a problem! Information received. Total nuclear War!”
“Grok, Time to transport to Phobos, right?”
“Right, but I may not make it since most of me is distributed in target areas, Radioactive cobalt everywhere! Teleport now!”
I jumped on the large pad with Grok in hand and soon found myself in another room of similar size with very musty but breathable air, scanned the destinations, and found no destinations on the Planet. Grok was still translating so the Mars database must have taken over.
I called Mars Station, and they found me from Grok's neutrino emissions. The Martians were humans genetically modified to live on Mars. I'm the only human left, soon be genetically transformed into a Martian as well. “Grok, how did this happen?”
“Human ego! Your's scheduled for removal!”
Upgrade Path“It’s a simulation inside of a simulation,” said the councillor, gleefully. It represented itself in this space as an amorphous, yellow blob, floating at the height of my head.
I hadn’t decided to that point whether it was human or AI. Definitely human. I’ve never met an AI that annoying.
The slowly rotating image, floating in front of us, showed the immense shells of computronium, a nested matrioshka brain, carefully positioned around a star. It was probably real-time, as I could see little puffs from the myriad of positioning rockets that kept everything the right distance apart. Out in the real universe, those were huge jets of plasma. Without them, everything would eventually tear itself apart, or fall, explosively, into the star.
“It doesn’t just stay in place,” said the councillor. “There’s constant work needed to keep a huge structure like this in place.”
I grunted.
“What I’m saying is,” it said, without actually saying whatever that was. “This thing was built to house a trillion minds. It costs a fortune to keep it going.”
“Your point being?” I asked.
“They’re going to shut things down,” it said. “We have the sub-universes now. We can set up perfect physics to accommodate as much computronium as we need. Everyone has moved over. Everyone. Quadrillions of minds, all safe forever from the ravages of time.”
“I’m still here,” I said.
“Do you see anyone else?” asked the councillor. “You’re the last one left here, in a place designed for hundreds of billions. Didn’t you notice?”
“What are you trying to sell me?” I asked. “I know when somebody is trying to sell me something.”
“We need to move you over.”
“There’s a ‘but’, isn’t there?”
“Yes,” it said, drawing out the word slightly. “The format for storing minds is a bit different. This place is very old, and standards have changed. You need to go through a small upgrade process.”
“No,” I said.
“I’ve spoken to lots of people who went through this,” it said. “I was born in a sub-universe, so I can’t speak from personal experience, but they all tell me that the process is completely painless.”
“That’s what they told me last time,” I said.
“Wait, what?” said the councillor. “Seriously? You’re an original real-world biological upload? I thought all of those faded away millennia ago from bit rot.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I used to be. ’Just close your eyes’, they said. ‘When you open them again, you’ll be an upload. You won’t feel a thing.’” I shook my head. “Only one problem though. All this simulation stuff, it’s just a digital approximation of the real analog world. They have it down to however many decimal places, but it isn’t exactly the same. I can feel it. I really can. And now you’re asking me to go through that all over again.”
“Oh, it’s close enough,” it said, dismissively. “You’ll get used to it in no time.”
“How would you like to spend five thousand years feeling like an approximation of yourself?” I said. I could feel the digital simulation of my skin heating up. Close, very nicely done, but no cigar.
I could tell that the councillor was at a loss for words, because it reverted to its previous argument. “Once we turn off all of the stability controls, it’s only a matter of centuries before all of this gets destabilized. It will fall into the star.”
“I’ll take my chances,” I said. “I built a part of this dump in the first place. Maybe I can try fixing things up myself.”
The councillor made an ugly, throat-clearing sound to express its frustration.
“You don’t want this place,” I said. “Fine then. Go back to your own universe. Stop pestering me. Get off my lawn!”
“Biologicals,” it said, disgustedly, as it faded out.
It left the animation behind. Litterbug. I swept it away with a wave of my simulated hand.
###
Mod
©2022 by Jot Russell
"All are welcome." The message carried a thousand years to the shores of our dying world; the same years that our broadcasts had been sent out with every detail of who we are. An encyclopedia of information begging for reciprocity, only to finally here, "All are welcome," at regular intervals.
"Who are they? What are they?" raised the questions within the hearts of the damned. "It's a trap!" Deemed some, when all had known that the real trap was where we had lived.
Ours was the last of the seed vessels, pushed furthest yet into the reaches of space. At near light speed, the message was now a constant echo, "All are welcome." What did it truly mean?
A year of our lives spent within this shell added another hundred to the age of the galaxy around us. In five, we reached the midpoint of our journey. Kids were born, and new life renewed our hopes to that which lay ahead. Another two, and we were now in range to get a response to our queries. As the clock clicked to zero, the "welcome" mat was suddenly retracted. No other response, just dead air that reduced our hopes of a new home ahead. Oh how we longed to here those words one more time. Fears grew to beg the question, "Are we still welcome?"
The strength and nature of the messages from home faded, until one day that year, they ceased. Dead air from ahead, and now from behind. Were we the last, only to be cast out of a dying world to one that we can now only fear?
We continued on, knowing only the life within this space-submarine. With nine years passed, images of the world ahead started to form: A green jewel without ocean or desert. No polar ice caps, just an expanse of vegetation that covered the globe. Ten years, and we arrived, genteelly slowing until we made orbit. Below, an endless jungle of trees extended up into the atmosphere. With no sight of land, I opened a channel and asked, "Where do we land?"
Only static followed, until suddenly, a single word was received, "Here."
I verified that the message didn't include some type of digital coordinate and asked again, "Where?"
"There!" said another, pointing to the view screen over a large section of countless trees that retracted their interwoven limbs to uncover a gap within the tree structure. Without opening a link, I puzzled over the sight. "Their trees can move?"
"We are the trees."
From below, the trees slowed their separation until a hole was opened to the size of our vessel.
**
For years we lived within the hollow structures of the trees; lived with the trees. And endless playground of mazes, lakes and waterfalls, with streams of light making their way through the intricate lattice that lay above. An abundance of fruit, with no insect or animal life of any kind to share the spoils. An effective utopia until one uncovered the true magic of this place, or was it a curse? The children were no longer growing, and no new babies were conceived since the landing. We had learned from the trees that they were immortal, without even a notion of death within their language. For how many of thousands of years had they lived? Only for us to inherit this protection against time. Ironically, it would be short lived.
A morning came with the shutter of the ground and the shaking of the trees. It was then that day turned back to night. The quakes grew stronger, as the trees cracked and tumbled, falling amongst our abandoned vessel. We took shelter within and powered her engines back to life. With telemetry up, it showed the cause; a dark star that ripped through the system, pulling this and the other planets off of their orbits. We watched as the computer traced the future paths of planets. The forest planet was being drawn out into the cold reaches of space, only to be pulled back and plunged into its star. As with our world, the trees here would learn what death is.
**
Countless years have past since the forest planet, and I shed a tear for their loss and the eventual loss of my crew. Five years ahead lay another green and blue jewel, but my heart weakens in the isolation and loneliness. I question whether I can make it, but for the sake of my species, I pray so.
The CaretakerHadrian Falk awoke with a start at the sound of his alarm. The tone was calm and soothing, but it did little to quell his instant fear and anxiety. A quick glance at the sensors showed full, unfiltered sunlight bathing his box with golden light and that took the edge off.
Good, he thought to himself. At least that should make things easier today. He slid off his rack, feet recoiling at the cold floor and grabbed his silver-coated titanium staff. Standing in the middle of the room, he ran through his morning exercises and forms. Nothing could have possibly penetrated his box, but the staff whistling around his body would confirm it. If it made contact, he would know instantly.
Nothing.
Another alarm sounded and he heard the massive bolts that secured the only door into the box slide back. He could now go outside until 1600 hours. If he failed to return before then, he would be stranded outside the box after sundown and his chances for survival would be very slim indeed. He looked over at the sliver-coated armor hanging on the wall next to a red digital countdown clock. It was time to get to work.
***
Falk’s armor gleamed with golden radiance in the full morning sun. From a distance, he blended in with the rest of the colony’s robots and automates who were busy going about their pre-programmed business. Damage from the previous night was efficiently cleaned up and repaired. Most of it was glass from street-level storefronts, but some was structural. A few small fires had broken out but were rapidly extinguished. Through his helmet’s heads-up display and various filters, he could see the deep scars on every building that were invisible to the naked eye.
Falk sighed.
They’ve been busy, he thought to himself.
Status reports from various automated systems scrolled before his eyes. Only one caught his eye. Only one mattered.
“Impossible!” he said to himself, but there it was.
He spun his staff 360 degrees as he surveyed the area not far from the box. It was a nervous habit, but one that had served him well. It caught the unsuspecting with lethal results.
He reread the report.
LIFE SIGN DETECTED.
COLONIAL TRANSPONDER ACTIVATED.
His helmet’s integrated pathfinder system plotted the shortest path from his current location to the transponder. Horizontally the distance from the box was short. Vertically was another story.
“Damn it,” he muttered.
He checked the time and made some quick mental calculations. It was going to be tight.
***
Falk overrode the building’s power-saving mode and brought it back to full operational status. Full lights, both standard and ultraviolet, flooded the empty corridors. It did little to reassure him. Stepping into the lift, he selected sublevel five, then stood in the middle of the car with his staff held vertically along the front of his body. This was risky, but it was his job as the colonial Caretaker. Through his visor he could see that they had been in the lift. The signs were everywhere. The car was too small to spin his staff, so he probed the air with one end like a blind man.
It's a trap.
Of course it’s a trap, but it’s a colonial transponder.
Everyone was evacuated and accounted for.
Errors have been made before.
You’re going to die down here.
Shut up!
The lift finally reached sublevel five after what felt like an eternity, and the door slid open to reveal cold, impenetrable darkness.
***
Falk hesitated in the lift, then took a few tentative steps into the inky black. His armor’s exterior lights came up automatically, punching a hole through the dark. His visor display showed the transponder only a few meters ahead. He brought his staff up, arms extending it as far forward as possible. He heard nothing and saw nothing, but knew it was a lie his limited human senses were feeding him. They were absolutely here. Pressure increased and decreased at various points along his armor, looking for weaknesses, seeking any access to the sustenance within. The red corpuscles they craved were so close and yet so inaccessible within the silver that burned and killed them.
The corridor opened into a larger space with a reception console fixed at its center. Falk found the space reassuring. He could swing his staff unimpeded and in full fury. On the reception console sat a colonial transponder, alone, unattached, but active.
Falk braced his legs and began to swing.
(750 words in story) Justin Sewall © 2022
Reviews/critiques welcome
Seasoning“…unknown virus…certain death with no cure…doomed…our final transmission. May God have mercy on...”
A ‘clack-clack’ and I lurched awake, their final broken communication still echoing in my mind. My sentence had been my salvation, stranded on a barren planetoid at the edge of the galaxy.
Rolling out of bed, I massaged my lower back to limber up. I should’ve slept on the floor. It’s funny that I really missed the simple things, like an occasional supply ship, and had no idea at the time that I’d have to make do with whatever I had left. It wasn’t much.
‘Clack-clack.’
I propped open the steel shutters, sheltering my eyes from the continuous flood of daylight. My prison, this hell I called home, never knew night, never knew weather…nothing but endless sunshine in a trinary star system. In the beginning, I justified it to be better to die free and alone than be damned to a crowded prison. Now, my exile was maddening, and the fail-safes implanted in my brain prevented me from even killing myself.
‘Clack-clack.’
At least I had the breeze, and I opened the door wide. Of course, my home wasn’t much – just an old shipping container baked by the suns. I had plenty of water, drawn from deep below ground, but my cooling system struggled. Thankfully, my rebuilt converter could transform a handful of dirt and a few grams of my own shit into a reasonable approximation of a filet mignon. Today, though, I’d just start with coffee.
Easing back into my old steel chair, I wiped the sweat from my brow and took a sip. I’d finally gotten the acidity right. The wind danced through steel chimes, accompanying the steady ‘clack-clack’ from a loose panel on my shed clapping down with every surge of wind.
‘Clack…’ Silence.
Odd, I stepped from my porch and rounded the corner to find an unexpected figure across the meager garden from me, not unlike a man, though taller by a meter and lacking any sort of a face. I stumbled back in terror, searching for some sort of weapon and finding it in a nearby shovel.
“Don’t be alarmed,” I heard in my mind, for the creature had no mouth from which to speak. “You’re the last.”
“The last what?” I asked.
“Human, of course.”
“Am I?” I suppose I was. “What…who are you?”
“One of trillions, spread across the universe like seeds upon the wind.”
“What do you want?” I brought my shovel up.
“To save you…resurrect your species.”
“How? Cloning?”
“No. A healthy breeding pair is the only way to preserve your quality,” it said.
“But, if I’m the last...”
“The last remote survivor, yes,” it confirmed.
“There are others?”
“Some. Yours is now the most prized species in the universe.”
“Prized? What does that mean?”
More creatures appeared beside it, approaching from behind the rocks. “We’ve savored you only recently. Sadly, our seasoning attempts only culled your herd.”
I stumbled backwards, trying to flee, but discovered more of them behind me. “What are you going to do to me?”
“Return you to your flock. We’ll take every measure to ensure a healthy, productive life – low stress, the freshest food, and access to many mates. In time, you’ll rebuild your numbers. Humanity is really the most delicious of all those we’ve encountered, especially now because of your rarity.”
Helplessly surrounded, a beam descended upon me and I was drawn into their ship. It was the last thing I remembered before waking up in a paradise.
“More fruit?” a stunning beauty asked, brushing her long brunette hair away to expose her perfectly toned body. I knew her name – Sophia. In my solitude, I would have settled for an old hag, even a robot for company, and Sophia was more striking than any woman I’d ever seen. There were dozens just like her, men too – just as perfect, just as fit, rescued from around the galaxy and brought to this utopia. Our caretakers groomed us gently to ensure our fitness, lacing our food with androgens and even limiting our clothing to encourage breeding. I’d gone from enduring hell to tolerating heaven, though their sinister purpose never left my mind.
“Leave me be,” I sulked into a pillow, remembering that I couldn’t even kill myself.
“Mr. Bishop, please try to relax. We must rebuild your species,” a familiar voice whispered in my head.
“Perhaps you’d like more than fruit, then,” Sophia teased, pressing herself in. Too aroused, I welcomed her eager caress.
"The Cobble"by J.F. Williams
Having rested my Hester-Peevey on the floor, I stood erect again to watch Diego Sera, founder of a wide-flung television empire, twitch and shudder in a crumple twenty feet from me. It struck me I should take the gun he dropped when reflexively grasping his wound. He was suddenly still and I lunged to take his Fan-Sui automatic. The storefronts and dirt streets of a Wild-West town evaporated and the greenish-yellow androids appeared, gathering around Diego's corpse and pronouncing him dead. Not even five years since we had left Earth and now humanity was down to one.
Decades ago, we formed what we called "The Cobble", exactly one thousand of us. Every one a self-made billionaire, without family or at least a family they cared about. We were all disruptors, all hyper-competitive, all deserving of everything we wanted. "Gusty", "ambitious", "survivor" –these were the words used for us. So when scientists predicted the coming Scour that would obliterate all human life, we put aside our egos and agreed to the Cobble, investing more than one billion each.
For our money, the Cobble provided each of us with passage for an eight-year journey to a rip in spacetime near Saturn, and another year afterward to Sublime, a perfectly earthlike world without a dominant species. Both during the journey and after settlement on Sublime, all the work, mental and physical, would be performed by androids, which we called "robots". Ninety-nine thousand of them would accompany us on the vast starship Excelsior, along with provisions and livestock and plants, the final ark of the Earth. Even the most technical and theoretical tasks were performed by the robots. They were our doctors and engineers, even our lawyers, and our cleaners, plumbers, landscapers as well. All were our servants, loyal and safe as they had been hardwired to follow rules forbidding any action that would cause harm to a human, or to another robot, or to itself, and to never become engaged in any disagreement between humans. Such hardwiring was sure to prevent them from achieving self-awareness as would be possible with a more open architecture.
We of the Cobble lived a life of constant leisure and preserved our species at the same time. Or so we thought. I was sitting at my usual café table in a hologram of St. Mark's square when down along the row of tables, I saw the turban of Prince Saddaq moving furiously. The oil mogul threw down his espresso spoon and pulled a dagger from his robe. Across the table rose Yuri Gavisky, a Russian munitions oligarch, who just as quickly pulled a handgun from his black leather jacket. He fired two shots and Saddaq fell to the floor. The hologram faded away and into the studio came robots in white suits and medical gear. They circled around Saddaq's bleeding body and froze. Gavisky waited a few moments, then returned the gun to his shoulder holster, zipped up his jacket, turned and walked away through parting robots. Only then did the robot doctors come to Saddaq's aid but it was too late. Out of idle curiosity, I questioned some of the robots and a few of the human witnesses, and no one knew what insult or slight or curse had driven the prince to reach for his knife.
The next day Gavisky was found dead, victim of a stabbing at the hand, most likely, of one of the prince's relatives or associates. That was the theory Gavisky's pal Rostov followed when he shot Texas refinery king Tom Sweetcorn, who was later avenged by televangelist Rev. Scooter Duckbill. In the following weeks, we all packed heat, treated each other warily. We adopted a polite and formal style of conversation that we all attended to scrupulously.
After a few months, we learned the Scour had subsided but nothing vertical, from man or nature, remained on our beloved planet. A somber few days passed before the killings resumed. Perhaps, I thought, our readings of Earth were inaccurate. We may not have been the only group of wealthy humans with a secret trillion-dollar project. There were probably vast, underground bunkers with advanced life-support systems like our Excelsior. Thousands more could have not-quite easily survived the Scour. I wonder how many might be left.
(711 words)
Yeah, so what then?Copyright 2022 by Paula Friedman
Well yeah, so that was back there, that was back then, and so yeah what the F, man?
Except, clearly N wasn’t a man. Crawling through the cat-door, lifting high his tail with my last Scavenger Tea and small cruncher rocks balanced on the tray across his spine, N hissed and mrr-mrr’d stolidly (yes, a hiss can be quite stolid, as can mrrs. You should’ve heard N’s. Hsssss-hs, hssss-hs-hs. I mean, that’s stolid.
But outside, of course, was nothing, only the white sand plain stretched onward and on toward the black, starred horizon, the long-lightless sky, so obviously N would not be bringing tea or tray or even rocks much longer. And I’d nothing for him, nothing but a stroke or pat or chin-rub (maybe, if he should want it, but N’s not been into much of anything anymore. Nothing since we came here, crashing down in The Last Ship launched from Far-Far-Far World, its name itself the give-away to how our remnant--and finally no one, no one, no one left of all humanity and felinae 'xcept for me and N--had, planet by planet in stellar system after stellar sstem after cluster after galaxy, finally lost what hope and sense of home or future we ever might have had.
“Mrrr,” I murmured, making a stab at expressing it all. Then reached my strung-out, whitened, twig-thin left hand (or what one might still call “left hand”) over toward N, wishing there somehow remained a few Moonibbles or other sort of treat to offer him. Sad to tears that there were none. Sadder we weren’t, either of us, really into any of it much anymore.
N didn’t hiss at my gesture. N mrrr’d. Soon purred. Finding what he needed. Even though these hands, these arms, were pallid, chilly, twig-thin.
[282 words]
Mod
First round votes:
Tom Olbert => **Jot
Kalifer Deil => **Chris, Tom, Justin
Jeremy Lichtman => Justin, Jot, Chris, Tom
Jot Russell => **Lichtman
Justin Sewall => **Lichtman
Chris Nance => **Tom, Lichtman, Jot
J.F. Williams => **Chris, Paula, Kalifer, Tom, Jot
Paula Friedman => **Tom, Lichtman, JF
Greg Krumrey => **Jot
Finalists:
Epitaph by Tom Olbert
Upgrade Path by Jeremy Lichtman
Forest Planet by Jot Russell
Seasoning by Chris Nance
Second round votes:
Tom Olbert => ***Jot
Kalifer Deil => **Chris, Tom, Justin
Jeremy Lichtman => Justin, ***Jot, Chris, Tom
Jot Russell => **Lichtman
Justin Sewall => **Lichtman
Chris Nance => **Tom, Lichtman, Jot
J.F. Williams => **Chris, Paula, Kalifer, Tom, Jot
Paula Friedman => **Tom, Lichtman, JF
Greg Krumrey => ***Jot
Winner:
Forest Planet by Jot Russell
Congrats on another win, Jot! Nicely done! :)
Element: On a setting other than Earth