That Which Devours

The blaring siren echoed through my head as I fought to open my eyes. Red flashing lights blinked on the other side of the plastic tube I was still in. I couldn’t move as the sedative slowly worked its way out of my system, but I knew something was wrong.

The ship shook, and if it wasn’t for the straps holding my body in place, it would have hurt.

“Emergency! Pilot crew, man your stations. Emergency! Pilot crew, man your stations.”

The computer voice repeated the instructions several times as I tried to move my fingers. I wasn’t on the pilot crew and I shouldn’t be awake, even if there was an emergency. A dark shape stumbled past my tube, heading toward the doorway that was out of sight beyond the edge of my tube.

The ship shook again, rattling my brain.

I tried to turn my head so I could see the surrounding tubes. My family should be in tubes nearby, and I struggled to look, to see them, though the drugs still weren’t out of my system. All I could feel was my pinky move.

I was getting closer, at least I could move my pinky.

Then the siren cut off, along with the blinking red lights. Next to go was the light in my tube. Someone screamed nearby, clearly more with it than I was.

Pitch blackness surrounded us, then something exploded loudly in the distance. The ship rocked, and my head lightly smacked the side of the tube.

I bit my tongue. Blood filled my mouth.

The hum of the engines was gone.

Then it happened, the familiar loud click. Safety doors slammed shut, cutting us off from the spine. I recognized that click from the safety videos they’d made us watch repeatedly. Our section of the ship was decoupling. It only happened in the most extreme circumstances, or during landing. Gravity vanished, but the straps kept me in place.

This was it. We were going to die.

Travel across the universe, they said. Explore unknown worlds and create the first colony of humans after finding a suitable planet. Yeah, right. How about dying in a crash with no one to even recover our bodies?

[Warning, you are entering an integrated section of the universe.]

The message popped up in front of my eyes in a bright green color, almost like it had appeared on the inside of the tube.

What the ever-living…?

[Welcome to the System Universe.]

[Integration will begin shortly…]

The ship suddenly dropped as feeling came back into my body, just as my head slammed into the side of the tube and darkness took over.

***

Bright sunlight hit my face and my eyes fluttered open. I still lay in the cold tube, but gravity worked again. The tube sat horizontally with my head slightly elevated, tilted to one side. More of the green writing was back. Pain lanced through my head as I tried to focus on the words, even as everything felt fuzzy.

[Warning, you do not have the required skill categories available to unlock a class. You must explore your abilities before you can unlock class selection.]

[Skill Categories Unlocked: Survival Skills, Self-defense Skills]

The words faded as I dismissed them, unable to really think about what that even meant. My head pounded when I tried to figure out why the words sounded familiar. With the words gone, I could see what was beyond the clear plexiglass. Somehow, the tube I was in was outside and no longer inside the dropship. The sunlight clued me in. My stomach flipped a few times, but I focused on breathing softly to not throw up.

Something was wrong with me.

Everything came into focus for a few moments, and bright red blood greeted me on the tube. A small hole and crack sat right next to where my head would reach. Beyond that, my tube rested on a rock. I reached up and touched my head, thankful that I could move.

My fingers came away with blood.

I must have hit my head.

Everything spun for a moment, then the sunlight vanished as something moved near the tube.

The edges of my vision darkened as I spotted what looked like a triceratops, the giant horns forward from the huge, armored bone plate at the back of the horned snout, walking right next to my cold tube.

Then the darkness took me again.

***

The sound of rain greeted me when I next opened my eyes. It hit the clear tube, filling my space with the comforting sound. Yet, my dry mouth made me fight for awareness, clawing at clear thought. The harness held me in place, strapping running across my body in two different locations. Once across my upper chest, and then again across my waist. The straps were tight, clearly still held by the buckles attached to the back of the pod.

I needed to get out of the tube and find the others.

My head spun as I turned to study what was around me. Nausea washed through me and I resisted gagging. I didn’t know how long I’d been in the tube, but I knew I couldn’t lose any more fluids. I was quickly approaching dehydration, judging by the dryness of my lips and mouth. A quick touch to my head showed me that the wound there had stopped bleeding. That was the first bit of good news so far, besides being alive.

I assumed I was alive, and this wasn’t some weird dream in cold sleep.

Unlatching the first buckle across my chest was easy, same with the second. Thankfully, I already partially rested on the back of the tube and didn’t fall. Still, the movement it took to get the emergency releases to unlatch caused my head to spin and everything to go fuzzy again.

“Stay awake…” I whispered to myself. I couldn’t pass out again, not with the rain. The water, I needed that water.

Reaching up, I tried to push on the front of the tube. Based on my training, it should have released. Yet, despite my shoving, it didn’t move.

I needed to do something first to release it. Something I’d forgotten.

It hurt to think, to remember my training.

There was a button, a latch, a manual release in case of emergency power loss. My fingers searched the top of the tube, wrapping around a small handle before yanking it down.

Something clicked.

I could do this.

I pushed on the front of the tube, using more of my weight. It still didn’t move. My heart pounded in my chest as I tried again and again.

Nothing.

The outside of the tube grew darker as time passed, but at least the rain continued.

My fingers traced the crack in the tube until I found a small hole in the plexiglass. I let out a sigh of relief and pushed against the edges before stopping. Did I want to wander around in the dark, while dizzy?

I needed water.

A bandana held back my hair, and I dragged it off before stuffing the edge into the hole in the tube. I held it there as it soaked up the rain water falling down the side of the tube before pulling it back and sticking the end in my mouth.

It wasn’t a lot of water, but it was better than nothing. I repeated the action again and again until my mouth no longer felt dry.

Eventually, the rain lulled me back under.

***

Loud pounding on the tube reached me, but my eyelids felt too heavy to open.

“Alex! Oh, god, Alex! You have to be okay.” The voice was so close, yet so far away. “Dad! I found her!”

The tube suddenly rocked forward, and I finally forced my eyes open. It was dim, but the rain had stopped. Someone shoved on the outside of the tube, trying to roll it away from the rock. The man’s brown eyes were wide open with something that looked like fear on his face.

“Alex, we’ll get you out,” he called. “Just stay awake.” He turned to someone in the distance. “She’s awake, but has a head wound.”

“Thank god!”

“You found her, John, it’ll be okay.”

So many voices, talking and yelling, and I closed my eyes against the sound.

“Alex, you gotta stay awake for me,” said the man right outside the tube.

I opened my eyes again in time to see him jam a knife somewhere near the top. Then the plexiglass moved. Another man yanked on the plexiglass, pulling it back. Fresh air rushed in and hands reached in to pull me out of the tube. I could breathe, deeply.

“I got you, Sprout,” the second man whispered, pulling me close.

Sprout. I knew that nickname.

Images rushed through my mind. This was my Dad.

His short dark hair, cropped close to his head, still had the same look from when he’d served. The gray hairs in his beard stood out, but he was exactly like when we’d gone into cold sleep.

I glanced around, eyes wide, now seeing my brothers John and Benny. Before, they were just random people in the same outfit as me. Now, I remembered who they were, and that we looked the same. Dark hair and brown eyes, though they were all taller than me. They weren’t the only ones; I recognized several colony members from pre-departure training. Names and job descriptions raced through my mind.

Jas dashed into view with a sharp pointed stick in one hand. “We gotta move, that monster is nearby.” His face was covered in dirt, and I could barely see any skin showing on his body.

A roar and a scream echoed through the jungle surrounding us. Everyone went silent as I blinked.

“Everyone, we need to move down the cliff,” said my Dad, his arms still wrapped around me. “Keep quiet and move quickly.”

John and Benny didn’t move as the rest of the group headed off in one direction. “Benny, take Alex. I’m going with Jas.”

Jas nodded. “We can keep it distracted.”

“That’s the plan. We’ll meet you at the bottom of the waterfall. Search the wreckage down there for survivors.” Dad moved to let go of me, but my knees trembled.

Benny’s arm went under my shoulders. “Come on Sprout, we got this,” he whispered.

Dad nodded at me, then took a spear from John that I hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

Another roar shook the nearby trees, and everyone’s head snapped in that direction. Something moved within the trees.

“Go, now!” growled Dad.

An enormous head poked through the branches, looking at us from the distance. Long sharp teeth filled the giant mouth of what looked to be a T-Rex.

My knees collapsed and my head spun as everything went dark yet again.

***

I awoke as water brushed up against my lips.

“Easy, there,” said a soothing voice.

My eyes opened to find myself in a wet cavern with a bunch of people laying all over. An older woman with kind eyes held out a canteen to me.

My hands trembled as I took it from her.

“Nice and slow,” she said. “Remember your training.” Her bright blue eyes studied me. “What do you remember?” She wore the same uniform as I did, though the patch on her shoulder indicated that she was in management. Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she had a calm demeanor about her.

I sipped on the cool water and tried to think about training. Images of class after class flowed through my mind. What to do on the ship, what to do after landing. The various tasks I could be assigned as a laborer. Laughter, and others my age, wishing we all had actual jobs instead of the lowly title of laborer. Everyone else on the ship had degrees, or military training, sometimes both.

Then the tube with the alarms going off and… we must have crashed. That, and my family: Dad, John and Benny.

“We crashed, didn’t we?” I asked. “Things are a little blurry. I don’t remember your name, but I think I saw a dinosaur.” I reached up to touch my head and found a bandage wrapped around it.

“My name’s Abby, and don’t you worry dear, things will come back to you. You hit your head pretty hard.” She let out a sigh. “We crashed on a strange planet. It has dinosaurs.”

I tried to chuckle, but it turned into a dry cough that made my head hurt.

“Did you get a class?” she asked. “During the crash?”

“What’s that?”

She frowned, then patted my leg. “We can talk about that later.”

I took another sip of water, feeling exhausted. My stomach growled.

Abby pulled out a ration bar from a pocket on her shipsuit. “Eat a few bites of this, it will help.”

The ration bar was my favorite flavor, maple and brown sugar oatmeal. I took it with a smile and carefully opened the wrapper. I started with a small bite, but then chomped down until it was gone. It took only a moment.

“Well, getting your appetite back is good. Get some rest, it’s late.” She patted me on the shoulder. “I need to check on others.” With that, Abby climbed to her feet and moved toward a few people being quiet near the entrance.

Everyone else around me slept on the ground. They all wore the light blue cotton clothes that I had on, plus the rugged boots. Everyone looked pretty grungy to be honest, and I was glad I couldn’t see what I looked like. I sipped on the water, feeling a bit better but more confused than ever. Then I lay back, closing my eyes.

I froze, remembering where I had seen the word ‘Class’ before. That green writing that had appeared. Something about how I didn’t have enough Skill Categories. What the heck did that mean?