I’m Coming Home
The year is 2151. SKK RRGH!!! The sound of shuttle SP001 landing in the barren, desolate landscape of Mars echoes throughout the crater. The midnight dusk covers the land in eerie blackness broken only by faint flickering lights. As the clouds of dust settle an alien ship is revealed. For the first time in planet history, Mars has a visitor. Inside the ship an earthling named Sarah sits in waiting, pondering what lay ahead in her journey here.
The reasons for Sarah’s arrival on the red planet are both wretched and despairing. Nuclear war had broken out on Earth. Countries like America, Russia, China, and North Korea were in an all-out fight to the death. The reasons behind this civilization-ending catastrophe are lengthy and complicated so I shall spare you the details. In short, the world was experiencing a massive shortage of food due to overpopulation and climate change. Rising sea levels covered entire cities, global warming caused massive droughts worldwide, and starvation and poverty were rampant. Countries were all fighting for the last remaining resources. This sad, hellish reality had all but ruined Earth.
Sarah was sent here on a last-minute mission to survey this planet as a potential safe haven for the human race. She was to stay here on Mars for 7 days and collect data on the climate and possible sources of water. She was to establish first contact with aliens if there were any. And she was to examine the Martian soil and see if it is viable enough to grow crops.
As time passed night eventually gave way to day and the first shafts of sunlight began peeking over the towering crater walls.
The gentle buzz of her gen 17 iPhone X7 signals Sarah to wake up. “Eeuggh”, Day 1 she thought to herself. As she hops down from her hammock, Sarah takes a quick look out the window. The view is bleak, the terrain consists of broken rubble and red dust. Out in the distance, the steep crater walls can be seen dominating the horizon.
At one point in time, this place would have seemed so much different than earth. Now she wasn’t so sure. “Could this place really be humanity’s best hope?” she thought. No trees, no rivers, no plant or animal life. It has nothing at all. It was all so depressing. Sarah tried to muster a sense of optimism as she went about her morning routine since, after all, it was only the first day.
Her morning routine was simple. A quick shower was followed by the only meal of the day. A small package of green paste complete with all necessary nutrients supplemented with a glass of water. Very nutritious but extremely bland.
As Sarah wrapped up her morning regimen she turned her attention to the day's duties. Her main goal today is to start her tests on the Martian atmosphere and to search for signs of water. She slips on her gray spacesuit made of next-level nanotechnology. She takes with her the various scientific instruments needed to begin her experiments. Before she leaves, Sarah takes one look back at her ship making sure everything was in order. She wasn’t taking any chances.
Sarah scans her face in the control panel. A green light flashes before the access hatch gives a hissing pop. From inside the interior of the ship out stepped Sarah.
“Wow…………wow”. Sarah stands wonderstruck at the edge of the shuttle ramp. The sun can be seen barely poking above the crater walls. The open world stretches far and forever beyond that. The breathtaking view makes Sarah reminisce about past stories she read about the first people to step foot on the moon, how they made history, and how they changed the world. Now, standing here at the edge it was her turn to make history. She tries to think of some inspirational thing to say but she can’t come up with anything. She takes her first steps. Her boots leave faint imprints in the red dust. For some odd reason, she feels like crying. During the months she spent traveling here, all the pressure that rested on her slim shoulders, and all the pent-up emotion, all spilled out. At this time the sun’s light hits her eyes. She looks up at it and thinks to herself. “The same sun that shines on me shines on everyone back home. In a way, we are all still connected” Sarah takes comfort in this thought.
Sarah walks a good distance out from her ship to the edge of the crater. She begins various experiments on the Martian soil. She releases tiny self-automated drones to collect data on climate and to detect sources of water. She tediously digs up soil samples and packages them up for later.
As she works Sarah notices the wind start picking up and clouds of dust start drifting across the land. “That's odd,” she thought, “my weather detector said no wind today.” At first, she took no real interest in the matter. It was only when she started hearing a slight rumble in the distance did she start feeling a twinge of alarm. Deciding to air on the side of caution, Sarah packs up and starts running the 1 kilometer or so back to her ship.
Only it was too late.
The rumbling got louder and louder until it was deafening. Blowing in from the top of the crater towered a massive dust storm hundreds of meters high. Seeing this Sarah decided to make the split-second decision to hide behind a sizeable boulder instead of racing back to her ship. As the cloud passed over Sarah she was blinded by the sheer mass of dust. Sunlight could not penetrate the dense cloud. Sarah was stuck in pitch-black darkness being bombarded by dust particles. The next few minutes felt like forever. Each second Sarah felt like it would be her last. Each second Sarah anticipated one unlucky speck of sand cracking her visor and killing her. As the dust storm finally passed over her, Sarah remained alive, battered heavily, but still alive.
Returning back to the ship, Sarah couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy. Something seemed off. “I should probably send a long-distance message back to ground control about the sudden dust storm and the possible lost drones,” said Sarah.
As she was recording her message Sarah noticed the “signal not found” icon blinking consistently. Her long-distance communication signal seemed to be cut off for an unexpected reason. “Damn it,” she thought to herself. Why won’t this stupid f*cking thing work!”
What was this strange feeling she felt in her stomach? Anger? Panic? Fear? Sarah felt nauseated. She had lost her only connection to Earth. She was alone, stuck on a ball 80 million miles from home. At that moment her week-long mission suddenly seemed so much longer.
“Calm yourself,” she muttered “Maybe there’s a way to fix this” Sarah turned to the left “Perhaps the emergency handbook has a solution.” Accessing it through the onboard virtual assistant she flips through the manual hidden in the ship's archives. She saw nothing of use. At any rate, now wasn’t the time to worry about this problem. She had a mission at hand. Giving up on the situation, Sarah prepares for bed. She was too tired to notice the subtle differences in the room. The slight change of her chair's position, the faint fingerprints on the control panel, and the lingering scent of something sinister in the air. Almost as if someone or something had been in here.
“It’s only a week. All I need is a couple more days to finish my research and then I can leave. Nothing could go wrong, nothing at all,” she muttered to herself reassuringly before dozing off for the day.
Somewhere out in the distance, it smiled.
The following days were extremely uneventful. Each day went as planned. Sarah continued her research and data collection. The drones that survived the dust storm produced some promising results. Apparently, there were signs of liquid water beneath Mars's surface. Her soil sample collection had also grown into a sufficient amount. Only one day remained before she was to head back to Earth. Everything was going great.
Then it all changed.
It was the evening before her scheduled trip back home. Climbing back into the shuttle after finishing the last of her research Sarah notices something weird. Hanging from her control panel was a pair of neon pink socks. It wasn’t the color of the socks that was weird, it was the fact that Sarah only ever owned one pair of these socks and she was wearing them right now.
She immediately knew something was wrong. She crouched down trying to make as little noise as possible. She grasped the slim 2-foot metal pole used for examining soil samples in her hand. Still wearing her spacesuit Sarah quietly walks down the hallway toward the cockpit.
So far Sarah had seen no sign of anyone or anything having been inside her ship, but she knew she only had one pair of those socks. As she rounded the final corner she came face to face with herself.
Upon seeing her, the new Sarah immediately jumps on Sarah, pinning her to the ground. Sarah tries to break free but the new Sarah (or something that looked like her) is surprisingly strong. Sarah gives a final all-out heave and succeeds in breaking free. Sarah immediately turns around and gives the alien a chokehold. The alien fights back but Sarah is determined.
As the alien sputtered out its last gasps for air Sarah continued her chokehold on its neck.
Only when its body had long been still did she let go. Laying on the ground eyes wide open was something or someone that looked exactly like her, clothes and all.
“I did it! I killed it! I’m going Home!” Sarah yells out of both exhaustion and elation.
She was heading home.
Sarah primes the engine and engages the accelerator. The wings of shuttle SP001 unfurl as it prepares for takeoff.
SKUNK!!.
Sarah looks down in both amazement and horror at the 2-foot metal rod now protruding from her lower abdomen.
Sarah looks up and sees herself smiling back at her.
“How? How did it survive?” Sarah falls out of her chair onto the ground. “What are you? What are you doing? WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT!” Sarah screamed. The thing regarded Sarah for a moment before it smiled and laughed, “I'm going home.” it replied.
The thing proceeds to drag the dying Sarah out of the ship and tosses her onto the ground. Whoever or whatever this thing was it didn’t seem to need to wear a space suit.
Moonlight brightens Sarah’s pale face. Her blood spills out on the ground in a pool of red. The light is fading from her eyes and the last thing she sees is the image of shuttle SP001 gliding through the sky heading back towards Earth.
I am currently a junior in high school. I chose to join Creative Writing because I thought it would be an interesting class where I could exercise my writing skills. My purpose for writing is to bring my own unique ideas and stories to life. I wrote this story because I really like the sci-fi genres of writing and I wanted to try writing my own piece.
In my short story I’m Coming Home I focused heavily on dystopian/sci-fi themes with a dash of supernatural/paranormal elements. I tried to include bits of foreshadowing in my writing to add to the suspense of what's going to happen. My original vision of the story included more characters but I ended up not including them in later drafts. One part of my narrative which I don’t love and am planning to redo is the ending. I feel it was too sudden and without any buildup. My original reasoning behind the ending was I wanted to add a little something extra to spazz up my story since it wasn’t very long but this was a last-minute decision and the delivery just doesn’t hit/sit right with me. I really like how I was able to cut down and chop away at the original draft and end up with a refined story. I feel like each revision added/revealed something new.