Natural Inhumation

September 24, 2025September 20, 2025 ~ Lee Andrew Forman ~ 4 Comments

The rolling landscape extended beyond sight in all directions. The emptiness engulfed me in insignificance. This dead world I found myself on was as lonely as I. The howl of the constant wind was my only companion, and this planet was accompanied by a dying star that would one day stop sharing its warmth.

Tumultuous rumbles shook the ground. My compass pinned it south, so I headed north, away from whatever force caused the terrifying shakes. My footprints were swiftly erased by the constant gusts of sandy air. I mentally weighed how I might find my way back to the ship if I went too far, but disregarded those thoughts when I remembered there would be no reason to go back. It was irreparably damaged. I was stranded with no hope of rescue.

I knew this place was where my journey ended. Somewhere on this barren world my corpse would lay with no one to bury it. The distress call would eventually reach home, but by the time it did, it wouldn’t matter—the flesh will have rotted from my bones.

I almost wished for a crack in my visor, a tear in my suit, then at least the scythe would greet me with haste. But I had plenty of oxygen, I’d waste away before I suffocated.

I looked behind me every time the ground quaked. Despite my walking in the opposite direction, the vibration grew stronger. I could feel a violent power in the distance, something I didn’t want to be near. I supposed it didn’t matter, I’d meet my end here one way or another. But fear is the great motivator, it pushes one to survive even when there is no hope to be had. So I walked on.

Soon, daylight receded and the vast abyss of unreachable stars yawned above. I’d never felt so desolate and alone, never so meaningless and fleeting. Madness crept into my skull and began wrapping its fingers around my fading mind. Logic and training would soon fail me, I’d watch them fall with relief. They served me no more, not in this cursed place.

The next quake hit with ferocious tremors, its origin no longer beyond sight. The ground opened in front of me, sand poured in as the hole grew larger. Terror struck and slunk behind by back like the coward I was, fear wouldn’t even allow me to run.

As the sand began to move beneath my feet, I welcomed the swifter ending it would bring. This world would consume me. At least my miserable corpse would be buried after all.

∼ Lee Andrew Forman

The Echo of Desolation

July 16, 2025July 6, 2025 ~ afstewart ~ 3 Comments

As I entered the town, I saw a flash of pink and a little girl ran in front of me, swirls of dust following her. I stopped, every sense alert. She paused too, turned around to stare at me. She showed no fear, only curiosity, a gap-toothed grin stretching across her grimy face.

My hand went to my gun, but she vanished. Only the empty street remained, the wind blowing grit across the paving. A knot in my gut, I kept walking.

The rumours are true.

For once, I hoped the intel was wrong. My job was tough enough in a place of strangers; coming to the town where I grew up made it infinitely worse.

Striding down the street, shadows emerged at the windows, whispers drifted in the wind. I felt their presence, the taint of death clinging to the world of the living; a town of lingering ghosts. One more miserable consequence of the plague.

What I was here to eliminate.

The town square felt like the best place to assemble the machine. Central, the location would give good dispersal, not likely to miss stragglers. I unslung my bag and built the machine, piece by piece, the metal snapping together with a sharp clang. The noise attracted phantoms, watching me, never afraid, but surrounding me with murmurs. Voices I once knew, familiar, agonizing.

Remember, it’s just another job. Don’t look at faces.

Yet, how could I ignore them? Friends I went to school with, neighbours, family, all stared at me. I wanted to spare them, walk away, but I couldn’t.

They didn’t know, but I did.

Ghosts went through stages. Initially harmless, fresh and confused, but when they rotted, they turned malicious, violent. I witnessed the remains of what savage ghosts did to the living, the butchery and bloody corpses they left. No one should die that way.

When I finished, I straightened, said, “I’m sorry,” then activated the machine. The air sizzled, heavy with the stink of ozone, blue energy enveloping this town of ghosts, slicing through its former citizens. I closed my eyes, afraid to watch their forms dissipate. It didn’t help.

Countless anguished screams lodged in my head, reverberating in the aftermath of silence.

I stood for a moment and said a fruitless prayer to ease my guilt. Then I packed up my gear.

As I left the empty town, I looked back down the main street, watching a wayward breeze swirling the dust along the road like a carefree child. For a moment, I lost myself in that flow of unrestrained nature and my memories, hoping for a whisper, a giggle, a shadow of what used to be. But nothing.

With a sigh, I walked on, headed back to my vehicle, with one more scar across my heart.

~ A. F. Stewart

Waking

August 10, 2022August 7, 2022 ~ afstewart ~ 3 Comments

Hollow.
This thought prickled at its burgeoning consciousness. An absence of something it once had, a realization of missing emotion. Broken memories lingering as scattered images, swirling strange concepts, and nothing more. Nothing more than tiny pinpricks tap dancing around its membranes.
Allison.
The word stirred on its tongue, with a face remembered, if not recognized. Like a reflection in a mirror, not real but still a representation the eye has seen. A human thing, vaguely important, it knew, but no longer cared why. It closed its eyes and settled back against its cocooned prison.
Pain.
Images of blood-red rain and bright stars shifted through its mind, biting like raw sharp teeth, devouring the broken thoughts and residual feelings in fiery nerve endings. Sulphur scented smoke choked its nose as its own shrieking howls filled its ears. It thrashed, until another fractured noise, a thousand decibels past human comprehension, permeated its prison, cracking around it in chaos. Comforted, it found it liked chaos. It never used to before… It wasn’t sure what had come before. Somehow that didn’t matter anymore. It fell asleep, softly moaning.
Hungry.
Waking, it stretched its spindly limbs, flexed its claws. Saliva dripped between multiple rows of fangs. It squirmed against the shreds of human skin flaking off its scales and three pairs of eyes opened. It blinked against the darkness, fingers tracing against the metal pod imprisoning it. Pushing gently, once, then again with force, the container flexed then snapped, and it was free. Alarms blared and scurrying creatures fled, but some were not fast enough. It fed, drinking salty blood and crunching tasty bones. It looked up, seeing a doorway and read the words etched in the glass.
Research Laboratory.
Quarantine Zone.

~ A. F. Stewart