Flash Fiction, Return to Earth

Return to Earth

Captain Liam Cross knew something was wrong the moment his ship's engines sputtered and failed. He’d been in orbit for days, sending reports, watching the blue and green marble beneath him spin. Earth. Home. A place he hadn’t seen in five years. But when his vessel drifted just a little too close to the atmosphere, a jarring system failure left him helpless, the controls dead and his emergency escape protocols only half-functional.

The re-entry was chaotic, violent. Warning lights flared as the craft rattled like a tin can in a storm. Instruments screamed at him; his heat shield buckled under the strain. He braced himself, clutching onto the last shreds of hope. He’d come so far—through the void, across barren worlds—and now, he was almost there.

Then, blackness.

Liam’s eyes fluttered open as he felt the cool night air on his skin, crisp and damp with the scent of earth. Every nerve in his body screamed in pain, yet somehow he forced himself to move. Dazed, he looked around, barely able to make sense of his surroundings. Dense forests loomed, shadowed by towering mountains. He was on solid ground, back on Earth, but… not like he remembered it.

He struggled to stand but collapsed again. His suit's systems were fried, his comms silent, the once-reliable technology now a prison. Liam shivered, realizing the bitter cold was seeping in, something his suit was supposed to protect against. Slowly, he became aware of figures in the shadows.

At first, he thought it was rescue. He called out, his voice muffled by the helmet, but as the figures approached, he realized these were no rescuers. They wore tattered furs and hides, their faces hardened and painted, their hands clutching sharp, primitive weapons. They watched him with wary eyes, as though he were an alien—a stranger on his own planet.

One of them, an elder with deep lines etched into her face, whispered something to the others. It was a language Liam didn’t recognize, guttural and raw. Her hand lifted, fingers curling into a signal, and the group advanced, weapons drawn.

Liam’s heart pounded, desperation clawing at him. He tried to speak, to explain, but the words died in his throat. His mind raced, piecing together fragments of history he’d read during his training. Five years in space, but Earth had changed in ways he couldn’t fathom. Perhaps war, perhaps disaster—whatever had happened, civilization as he knew it was gone, leaving only these people, hardened and wary, survivors in a world that had turned savage.

He reached out a hand, pleading, as the first of the figures stepped closer, knife glinting in the moonlight. They encircled him, their faces a mix of fear and awe. To them, he was a relic of an ancient, unknown age. His suit, once his lifeline, was now a bizarre artifact, something they could neither understand nor trust.

The elder raised her hand, and in one swift movement, a young woman stepped forward, knife in hand, her gaze determined yet almost mournful. Liam’s vision blurred as he tried to reach up, but his body was weak, broken by the fall, by years in space, by a planet that no longer had a place for him.

In his final moments, as the blade hovered above, Liam felt an odd sense of peace. He’d made it back. After all this time, he’d returned to Earth. And even though it was not the Earth he’d left, it was still home, a world of people bound to the soil, surviving against all odds.

The blade fell, and the shadows closed in, swallowing him.

In the morning light, the strangers would leave nothing but a scuffed patch of ground, the last evidence of an astronaut who had come too far, only to find a world that no longer remembered him.

The silence that followed was suffocating, the cold hum of space closing in around him as his vessel drifted, powerless, towards the blue and green jewel beneath him. Earth. It had been five long years since he’d last seen it, since humanity had sent him and his team to explore the far reaches of the unknown. Now, hurtling through the atmosphere in a storm of fire and torn metal, all he could think was how close he was—and how far.

The re-entry was chaos. The heat shield groaned, splintering as Liam fought to stay conscious. The control panel before him erupted in a shower of sparks, his vision seared by flashing red warnings that screamed their silent sirens. The world spun, a whirl of searing heat, violent shaking, and finally, darkness.

When he awoke, he was on solid ground. The night air was cold, biting through the cracks in his damaged suit. He tried to move but pain lanced through him, sharp and unforgiving. With a groan, he managed to turn his head, taking in his surroundings. Forests stood tall and dark, their silhouettes against the starlit sky jagged and foreboding. Earth, he thought, relief flooding him for a moment. But it was a fleeting comfort.

They emerged from the woods like ghosts, silent and deliberate. At first, Liam’s fogged mind clung to the hope that they were rescue—survivors, perhaps, of some catastrophic event that had changed the world in his absence. But as they drew nearer, he saw the truth. Their eyes shone with a feral glint, their hair matted and tangled, their faces streaked with mud and blood. They were gaunt, clad in scraps of fur and leather, wielding blades carved from bone.

Fear struck him like lightning. He struggled to sit up, to speak, but his voice came out a broken rasp. The leader, a man with hollow cheeks and eyes that burned with a cold, hungry fire, stepped forward. He said nothing, only tilted his head as if appraising Liam, a grim smile curling at the edges of his cracked lips.

Panic surged. “Wait,” Liam croaked, raising a trembling hand. The group’s murmurs swelled, low and guttural, a language lost to time. The leader’s smile widened as he lifted a hand, signaling the others. They closed in, shadows under the pale moonlight, their breath visible in the chill air.

Liam’s heart thudded, the realization sinking in, heavy and paralyzing. These weren’t just survivors. They were predators.

Rough hands yanked at his suit, tearing at the thick fabric. The air filled with the sounds of ripping cloth, the snap of fastenings giving way, and Liam’s frantic, muffled cries. They dragged him from the remnants of his suit, cold seeping into his skin as blades flashed above him. His vision spun, the night sky blotting out as their bodies closed in.

He didn’t know how long it lasted. Minutes, hours—time fractured as pain and fear became the only constants. The world blurred to a cacophony of tearing flesh, gnashing teeth, the metallic tang of blood filling the air. Liam’s mind began to slip away, retreating to memories of laughter, of sunlight and blue skies, of voices he’d loved but would never hear again.

In the end, when the darkness fully claimed him, the only sound left was the quiet, satisfied hum of the feast.

By morning, the clearing was silent once more. The only trace of Captain Liam Cross was a ruined suit and the gleam of bone under the first rays of dawn.