Two astronauts are stranded somewhere far in outer space. They had to make an emergency landing and are now taking shelter in one of the broken bodies of their spaceship. The plane hit the ground, half of its body into the expanse like a reddish desert.
"I'm starting to feel hot in this armor, Fred," said one of the astronauts.
"Is the cooler broken, Rob?"
"That's not what I meant. The hotness I meant was only a metaphor. I was mentally hot. Oh my God, this place, I really hate this place," said the astronaut named Rob.
"You have to keep your sanity, Rob. Otherwise you will be swallowed up by this place," the astronaut named Fred moved away from Rob. He wanted to check something at the front of the plane. The wave catcher seemed to have caught something. It was the first since they'd been stranded there about two weeks ago.
"I don't know, Fred. I don't know how much longer I can hold out," Rob replied, but his friend didn't. Rob was busy even though he could hear what his friend was saying. He deliberately ignored it.
"Fred—" Rob spoke again to Fred, "Fred, come on guys. Come with me. Oh my God, look at this place."
As far as the eye could see, the place was just an endless expanse, meanwhile, the sky above them was like a giant black dome. There are no stars, just a giant multicolored sphere with strange patterns that surround it asymmetrically. If it's a planet, it's probably the weirdest thing ever. Every half hour or so, there would be a sound like a sound wave moving in a straight line and thin, like a laser shot, but quite soft.
Just then, from the cockpit room, robotic sounds were heard. Fred looked like he was trying to tinker with their receiver.
"Fred," Rob sounded urgent.
Fred still didn't answer.
"Fred!"
Feeling unable to hear the call anymore, Fred answered with a bit of annoyance.
"Oh my God, can't you not bother me, Rob? I'm busy right now."
"It's not like that, Fred. I think I just saw someone on the other end."
"—please." Looks like Rob's starting to hallucinate, he thought.
Fred didn't pay any more attention to what Rob said, and again busied himself with the buttons in front of him. He repeatedly turned a dial that zoomed in and out of the signal receptor, but picked up nothing.
"Fred—" this time, there was something odd in Rob's voice.
The man seemed a little scared, but Fred felt it didn't really matter.
"Fred—" Rob called his friend again, but this time he called out in tears.
Fred was a bit surprised too, but he immediately calmed himself first. As an experienced astronaut, he must protect his junior astronaut friends in such situations.
"Rob, my friend, are you all right?" he asked.
"Fred, I'm going crazy. I really need to take this shirt off. Fred, tell me where the automatic switch is."
Hearing a statement from his friend, Fred began to get worried.
"Hey-hey, calm down Rob. Don't act rashly. I'll be right there," Fred quickly finished his work and started moving downstairs.
"Please don't press or pull anything on the back of your costume," said Fred as he started to float down towards his friend.
"Fred—?!" Suddenly there was a sound just like the sound of an air bag expanding very quickly.
"Oh no," Fred didn't want to imagine what was going on outside and quickly quickened his movements as best he could.
"You idiot, why did I even give him a hint. Oh my God," Fred cursed himself.
"Rob?!, Oh my God?!" but, no more Rob in that place. It's possible that the astronaut had just been lifted into the air, and disappeared from the ceiling due to microgravity.
At least Fred still believed that Rob had just taken off his protective suit until he saw something on the horizon over there.
"Damn it, is that a human?!" Fred began to doubt that his friend had been hallucinating.
"No, no, please, I can't be hallucinating—"
It was just a mirage effect, he had convinced himself time and time again, but he was still in a state of panic. The creature was getting closer and slowly continued to grow.
After a while Fred was able to see the creature's face in fairly clear detail. Every curve of his face was human, but his eyes were fiery red.
The ugly creature's mouth began to gape wide. Fred's body wasn't even bigger than his child's throat, and now he was starting to get sucked into it, down the creature's throat.
"Damn it, I have to get out of this crazy place," and again came the sound like an inflated air bag.
It was like a very fast change of time and place. Fred is now in a tube. The man seemed to have just fallen from the sky, and was surprised, then immediately took a deep breath. A moment later the blue tube opened.
"Hi, Fred," Rob sounded greeting.
"Oh, hi, hello, Rob," Fred greeted his friend back.
"Sorry guys, I failed again," said Rob.
Fred sighed.
"No buddy, neither am I. I'm pulling the auto rescue rope too."
"There's still another simulation, right?" asked Rob.
"I don't know, Rob, this might be the last one," replied Fred.
A moment later, a voice came from the speakers installed in the four corners of the room.
"Subjects 48 and 49, —subjects 48 and 49, Freddy Cracken and Robby Hope, you failed again to participate in the simulation of life on the planet Mars in the 50th trial. You were declared useless, so automatic annihilation was activated."
Fred and Rob looked at each other. Both fell silent. It was even worse than the big mouthed monster that was blocking the horizon.
That was a bummer for the two astronauts, it was an interesting twist at the end. Nice read... :)
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You nicely kept the suspense throughout the story until the end, just to finalize it with a couple of unexpected and interesting twists. Well done!
Thank you for sharing this story with The Ink Well community. We appreciate that you engage with other fellow writers.
No one expected any of that, not even me. I think it writes and flows like water, that's what makes everything look natural. Thank you.
You partially deceived me at the begining of the story, then at the end after the double-twist I was expecting Fred to wake up from a dream, but nope. 😁
Nicely done @mosin-nagant!
Thank you sir/madam admin @yaziris . Everything went without any intervention and I also never put it in my plans before.
@silentbot star 3
That's a nice one. I didn't see that coming in the end. Twisty.
Thank you for your compliment.
Hahahaha. I loved the twist. I think a good writer has the ability to capture the attention of the reader for the entire work and you not only did that but also positively deceived us. Hahaha. Nice.
Thank you for your compliment. Hopefully the same atmosphere will continue. I will continue to study.
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Oh those guys, how are they ever going to be successful, if they keep failing the simulations? Ha ha. Great descriptions of life on the ship. The dialog between the astronauts is excellent too!
ha-haThanks for curating my work @jayna. Yes, it seems that life on Mars is very difficult, so the simulation can be that heavy,
This is special write up. Please keep it up
I really enjoyed this story it was really amazing.