JUST GONE
By: Jennifer Gregson
The mechanical voice echoed through the empty ship. I glanced out the window and saw the dark red planet growing bigger by the minute. I shut my eyes and swallowed hard. Please don’t crash, I said out loud to no one.
The past few years had taken it’s toll. I felt old. Too old to just be seventeen. The trip started fine. One happy family on their way to an exciting adventure. Until the sickness came. One by one I watched, helpless, as it started. Fever, chills, seeing the dead. The hardest was my sister, who died just a few days ago. She kept talking to my parents as if nothing had happened. One by one, they fell sick and saw people who weren’t there, and then they were just gone.
As soon as the door swooshed open I walked out expecting a welcome party, but was met only with silence and the faint smell of blood. My eyes burned and teared up. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and decided to follow the blinking light at the end of the hallway.
“Don’t move!” a female voice said. “Who are you?”
“My name is Michael, we were expected today.”
“How many in your party?” she asked.
“Just me.”
“But you said we,” she said as she pushed passed me. She was a young girl, possibly 15, with short brown hair, much like my sister’s.
“Some things happened on the way here,” I said.
“Well, some things happened here, too.”
“What?” I asked.
She walked away from me, muttering, “They might be back. We have to contact Earth.”
“That could take awhile,” I said.
“Well, what do you suggest?” she yelled.
I hugged myself with my arms and shook my head. The only person here and I already couldn’t stand her.
“Come on...let’s go. We need to keep moving.”
I followed her at a distance for her own safety.
We entered a command center, maps were displayed on a large wall with red blinking lights. Two men, or what was left of them, were lying on the floor, dried blood trailing from their bodies to a door on the other side of the room.
“What the hell happened here?” I asked again. Again, she ignored me.
She kicked the one guy out of the way and stepped over the other one. I noticed her glancing down ever so slightly, and I wondered if that was her father or brother, maybe.
I tiptoed over the bodies and walked over to the other door. It swooshed open with a cold breeze that made me shiver and I looked around. There on the ground was the body of a young girl. I blinked. I blinked again. The cloudy eyes of my new friend stared back at me. I ran into the command center, but it was empty. I shivered again and wiped the sweat from my eyes. She wasn’t there, she was just gone.
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