The Dark Planet & A Focused Man

Aw man… I really tried writing this story for yesterday’s daily post and then life caught up with me and I ran out of time. SO, I decided to finish it up anyway and incorporate the other daily post. So here’s my first stab at sci fi (sorta). Enjoy! 

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*BEEP BEEP BEEP*

An alarm goes off and the noise bounces everywhere in the darkness. A man lies unconscious on the ground, but is immediately woken up by the blaring alarm. He checks his surrounding and struggles to remember how he got here.

“Hello Sir!”

The man is startled and immediately jumps to the side at the sight of two blue floating circles. His vision starts to return and all of a sudden sees that those two floating circles are eyes belonging to a round floating object.

“What’s the matter sir? It looks like you’ve seen a ghost.” The round object speaks.

Again a surprise look appears on his face.

“Are you… talking to me?”

The object tilts to the side and moves closer to his face. “I believe so as there are no other living creatures around us. Are you okay sir?”

“I think so, but why do you keep calling me sir?”

“Hmmm.. don’t move.”

The floating object then lets out a bright light that starts at the bottom half of his body and then slowly moves up to the man’s head.

“Analysis complete. Sir, it looks like your injury was worse than I thought. You are suffering from some sort of amnesia.”

“Well that explains why my head is so sore…”  

The man puts his hand to side of his face and squints at the pain.

“What the heck happened? And where am I? And who are you?”

“Oooo one question at a time sir, but where do I start..? First off, your name is Matt Morris and you are a scientist. As for me, I am a robot named A.I., and you designed me to assist you in your research. You and a small team were tasked with exploring this quadrant.”

The A.I. moves back and a hole opens on top of it. Light comes bursting out to form a projection of a planet. A line of mountains can be seen running throughout the planet and dividing it into 4 quadrants. A small blip appears on the biggest quadrant.

“We are exploring the darkness quadrant of the planet and out of all 4 quadrants, it is also the only one left unexplored. The other 3 three quadrants are tropical, winter, and desert. We are originally from the winter quadrant. A few years ago, a challenge was issued out to all quadrants to see who would be able to explore and traverse the darkness quadrant. Does any of this ring a bell?”

Matt is now closing his eyes in an attempt to recollect everything that his A.I. had mentioned. His head begins to hurt and then he shakes his head.

“Nothing’s coming back.. I’m sorry.”

The map disappears and the A.I. looks down in disappointment.

“It’s okay sir. For now we should try to get you out of here before it returns.”

“It? What do you mean by it? And most importantly, how exactly did we end up here in the first place?”

“Sir… a creature has been chasing us for awhile now, and it’s the reason why this expedition went wrong. You and your friend James were the only survivor..”

Matt’s eyes begin to widen. His head begins to ache even more as sudden flashes of memories begin to resurface.

“James! Where is he?! What happened?”

“You and James have been running for months, but both your lucks eventually ran out and the creature managed to injure you. You were unconscious, but somehow James managed to bring you here and then he went ahead to distract the creature.”

“What?! Where is he? Can you find him?”

“Unfortunately… all forms of communication were destroyed when the creature first attacked, but he powered me down and programmed me to automatically turn on if he didn’t return after a certain amount of time… Sir I think it’s safe to assume that James may not be coming back”

Matt glances down. Tears start to roll down his face, but stops himself once he realizes the gravity of his situation.

“All right… I don’t want James’ sacrifice to be in vain.. Let’s begin our escape…”

A.I. flashes a light down a long and narrow cavern. The darkness seems to be endless, but the both of them begin their trek towards the exit. The cavern eventually opens up to a larger cave and then the exit was just ahead.

As they exited the cave, Matt is greeted by strong winds and booming thunder. The outside is as dark as the cave they both came out of, but there’s occasional flashes of lightning to guide their way. A.I. pulls ahead of Matt and uses his built in flashlight to light the path ahead. A.I.’s light reveals that they are at the bottom of a ravine. The paths are narrow and they are surrounded by large mountain sides. He looks up and can barely see the sky, but it doesn’t matter because the sky is completed blanketed by dark thunder clouds.

Matt calls out to A.I., “So where to?”

“We should continue to find higher ground.”

“Sounds like a plan”

All of a sudden, a loud thunderous roar can be heard echoing throughout the ravine. Both of them jump in shock.

“That can’t be… the creature.. Was waiting for us!” A.I. exclaims.

A.I. then projects a map. A red blip appears on the map.

“You must head here! This was the destination that the both of you were planning to head to.”

“Why?!”

“I may be able to connect to one of our satellites from there and then establish communication with another quadrant, but I can’t reach anything at the bottom of this ravine…now go!”

Both start running as fast as they can. The creature continues to roar and this time it begins moving. It’s footsteps getting louder and louder as it catches up to the duo. Eventually they both arrive at another cave, but it’s too late and the creature is now right behind them.

“What… what is that?”

A blue light from A.I. shines on the creature.

“Analysis complete… results unknown. This make senses as the darkness quadrant is uncharted territory.”

“Shit… ”

The creature seems to move on all 4 legs, with it’s back legs a lot bigger than the front. The creature is on all 4, but it’s still twice the size of a normal human. It’s entire body was shrouded in some kind of black energy. The only thing that could be seen are its bright, white fangs, but something else catches Matt’s attention. The creature’s eyes are pure red and they glowed brightly in the darkness. It’s eyes were trained on Matt and it felt as if he was being analyzed. Similar to how A.I. analyzes its environment and subject.

“Sir! In your previous encounter, James learned that the creature is afraid of light. He placed the last flare in your backpack in case the creature ever caught up.”

“Light? That seems too good to be true… but.. What choice do we have?!”

Matt reaches into his backpack and pulls out the flare. The creature begins to walk over, but immediately writhes in pain as Matt lights the flare. The dark energy that was covering the creature instantly evaporates into nothing revealing a pale white, skinless creature. Matt stares at the creature, but then A.I. all of a sudden appears in front of him.

“What are you doing?! You got to run! I don’t know how long it’ll be immobilized for!”

“Shit! Right!”

They both run into the cave and the creature’s scream grows quieter as they go deeper into the cave.

The cave was a lot larger than the last one they were in and it seemed to go on forever. They both eventually arrive at an incline and begin their ascent up. The path upward wasn’t any easier. The incline became steeper as they made their approach to the peak.

“A.I., how much more do we have before we reach the top..”

“The exit should be coming up, but that’s strange. I don’t see a way out.”

“What?!”

Matt pushes A.I. out of the way and rushes forward and coming across a pile of rubble.

“Shit this is the exit! But it’s caved in! A.I., is there any other way out of this?”

“No.. I can’t seem to find another path.”

All of a sudden, a growling noise can be heard from behind them.

“A.I.… please tell me that’s not what I think it is…”

The both of them turn around to find the creature blocking their path back to the bottom. It lunges forward at them and Matt barely manages to jump to the side. He hears a small crumbling noise and notices that the creature swiped hard enough to knock a few rocks loose. That’s when he realizes that the creature might be strong enough to knock the rocks out of the way.

“SIR! Watch out!”

Matt was lost in thought and is unable to react in time. The creature manages to get a clean hit to his right side and knocks him even further away from the exit. Matt is now lying is on side and as he tries to get up, he realizes that his right arm has been broken.

“Sir, are you alright?”

“Yes… somehow..”

Matt manages to pull himself up and then faces the creature head on. He notices its red eyes staring back at him. The creature is now in a pouncing position, preparing to lunge at its prey. He knows that he only has a split second and if he makes one wrong move then he’ll have more than his broken arm to worry about.

In an instant, the creature pounces towards them and is now flying through the air towards Matt and A.I. Matt takes advantage of this and runs toward the creature and slides right underneath it. The creature quickly lands and re orientates itself to face Matt. It doesn’t give Matt a chance to run and instead lunges at him once more. Matt anticipates this and jumps to the side and with a large crash, the creature is sent flying through the rocks.

“Sir, that was a gamble, but you did it!”

Exhausted and out of breath. Matt struggles to talk and instead gives a thumbs up. They both make their to way to the exit. The temperature is even colder and the winds blowing even stronger. Matt is greeted by rain pounding on his face, then he scans the environment and notices that the area isn’t too big and that there’s nothing but drops on all sides.

The creature lets out a roar and causes Matt to fall to the floor. His legs weary from the previous encounter.

“Shit.. this guy is persistent”

The creature madly dashes towards Matt. He tries to move, but then feels his leg scream out in agony.

“Damn it legs! Move!”

In a split second, A.I. comes from the right and knocks the creature while it flies through the air. This causes the screen on A.I. to instantly shatter and also smash in its entire right side, but it was enough. This causes the creature to go flying right off the side. It lets out one last roar and then falls into the darkness.

“A.I.!”

Matt rushes to his now downed ally and on the way, he tries to gather the scattered pieces of A.I..

“It’s okay buddy.. I got you…”

The once glowing blue lights no longer appear on A.I.’s screen. Matt yells out to A.I., but no response.

“No.. I can’t lose you too..”

“Sir.. I can’t see..”

A somewhat garbled voice can be heard from A.I. and Matt rejoices.

“You’re okay! Don’t you dare do that to me again buddy.”

“No promises. My optics have been damaged, so expect me to be crashing into a lot of things”

The two laugh and then A.I.’s map of the planet pops out all of a sudden, but something looks different. Matt’s eyes focuses on the map and then his eyes widen with horror.

“That’s.. That’s impossible.”

The planet itself has changed drastically. The darkness sector now covers 45% of the map. It’s as if the darkness has swallowed Matt and A.I. and doesn’t plan to let them go. The two stare out into the distant. Focused and prepared for their treacherous journey.