by Crae, Edward
Three glistening and quivering cocoons hung from the cavern ceiling; pale white and crisscrossed with blue veins. There was movement inside them, and the silhouettes of their contents showed through the thin membranes.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Dan gasped.
Eric and Toni gazed upward as well; their mouths hung open in shock. They looked at each other at the same time, and then raised their weapons. They all fired simultaneously, blasting the cocoons with every round they had. The screams of pain that came from the cocoons were deafening and demonic. Fluid spilled onto the floor along with great chunks of stone and bits of flesh. That could mean only one thing.
The ceiling was collapsing.
“Let’s go,” Dan said.
They all backed into the cave, still firing and reloading in an effort to destroy the cavern. Their pursuer appeared again, leaping out of the dark hole just in time to be crushed by falling debris. Now, they all turned and ran, with Eric in the lead.
They sprinted as fast as they could while the rumbling sounds behind them became louder, and closer. Debris fell just behind them, barely missing Dan. He pushed forward, his lungs and legs burning, and his heart on the verge of bursting. Finally, the three of them ran off the rocky ledge of the outer cave, and tumbled painfully down into the open air.
Eric groaned loudly, and Dan knew that he had broken something. Breathless, he rolled and crawled in Eric’s direction. Toni was sitting up, still holding her revolvers, her face cut, and bleeding.
“You alright?” Dan asked, grasping his own right side. There was a broken rib in there, he knew. Toni nodded.
“Eric,” he said, crawling over to the big man. “Eric, are you alright?”
Eric gasped for breath, but he nodded, gritting his teeth in pain. “I think I broke my leg,” he said.
“Shit,” Dan said, lying back on the cold ground. “That was fucked up.”
“You said it,” Toni whispered.
He could see her standing, holding her back and stretching. After a few moments, and a head shake, she reached down to help Dan to his feet.
“Come on,” she said. “We need to get Eric to Travis. You too, looks like.”
“Right,” Dan said.
Together, they helped Eric to his feet and began their hard trek back up the ravine. It would probably be daylight by the time they returned, and everyone in the camp would be worried. Fortunately, they had made it out alive, and much wiser for the effort. They had gotten the answers they were looking for, and could relate everything they saw to Travis and the rest.
And they would mention the bizarre new creature they had battled.
“So,” Dan asked, thinking of the strange beast. “What do we call the new thing?”
In the sky above, out of their sight, the telltale signs of the comet showed through the clouds. It was nothing but a smudge to anyone who saw it, and would likely go unnoticed. To those who knew what it was, it was an omen; a sign of darker times. To those who studied scripture, it was something else entirely.
The Destroyer was coming.
Entry 201b, final observation—Dr. Priyanka V. Patil (306459-A14)
My observations over the past year have led to many false conclusions as to the nature of the comet. The initial assumption was that the potential ELE would safely find its way out of the Solar system. That assumption, even though based on trajectory data gathered for the previous ten years, was incorrect.
Though its course, as predicted, carried the comet across the orbit of Venus, the combined gravitational pull of the Earth-Moon system caused a massive breakup of the comet. The two major halves were thrown into separate trajectories. The larger of the two will continue toward the inner Solar system, likely colliding with Mercury. The smaller half, upon reaching its orbital peak, was broken up yet again into seven equally sized pieces; each approximately 0.8km in diameter.
While none of these fragments are large enough to cause any major damage to the Earth itself, the fact that they are all on a collision course is highly disturbing. The fragments are arranged in a row, much like the Shoemaker-Levy comet that crashed into Jupiter, and will impact Earth intermittently. The likely time between collisions is roughly one month, with the last and largest fragment impacting nearly two months after its predecessor.
While data projections cannot predict the outcome of these strikes as far as physical damage goes, the comet’s makeup suggests that whatever it was that caused the mass deaths of billions of humans and animals will be much more devastating when it actually impacts than it was during the initial flyby.
Data received from NASA prior to the first flyby has suggested that the comet is a fragment of a larger object that may have been responsible for seeding Earth and the nearby planets and star systems with its initial DNA strands.
I am confident that this event, and its subsequent events, will be the deciding factor of the fate of all life on Earth. All native species are in danger of extinction, and would likely be replaced with derelict lifeforms, as has been evidenced thus far. This has led me to a painful decision.
I will take my own life.
Whoever finds this recording should know one thing. This is my will. I do not wish to watch all life on Earth be destroyed. I do not wish to be witness to Armageddon, and the new Genesis of life. Human eyes are not worthy of witnessing creation, or attempting to stop divine destruction. That is not our place.
Life will continue, as it has always done, and that is the way of the Universe.
I look forward to Oblivion.
Namaste,
Dr. Priyank V. Patil, PhD.
NASA-JPL
About the Author
Edward lives in the rolling hills of Brown County, Indiana, where he shoots things, eats things, and tries to grow things. Unfortunately, nothing grows well on his land, since it’s in the middle of the woods… dang it.