It's another Monday and times are still tough, so here is another free short story as I try to entertain people! This is a brand new one that is associated with a sci-fi novel that I am working on. In fact it might become the prologue, so you are all getting a sneak peak! Hope you enjoy! When the Sky Fell
By Sheri Velarde Marcella fell out of bed as the entire house seemed to shake. She stumbled getting up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and wondering what happened. As she moved towards the door, the ground shook again, but this time she heard a loud boom along with it. Now fully awake and listening she also heard screams coming from outside. Scared, she started to cry as she ran to the door and into the hallway, searching for her parents. “Mama? Papa?” she called even though smoke and dust were sucked into her lungs. Not only was it hard to breathe, but to see as well. She used her hand on the wall as a guide. Just as she reached the next door it flew open, with her older brother Cin calling out. “What is going on?” He walked out and bumped right into her before she could even say a word. He reached down and touched her head gently, “Marcella is that you? Where are mom and dad?” “I don’t know. I was thrown out of bed and then I heard yelling. What is going on Cin?” she cried even harder and hurled herself into her brother’s arms. Reaching down and picking her up, Cin said, “Let’s find mom and dad and then we will figure out what is happening. Come on, I’ve got you now and I won’t let anything hurt you.” Reassured by her brother’s words and arms around her, Marcella relaxed just a little. Cin was seven years older than her, almost thirteen. He was her hero and always took care of her, she would be safe now. Cin could take care of anything in her mind. Cin stumbled and almost fell a couple of times as he headed towards the back of the house, trying to get to their parent’s room. They almost made it when he cursed, saying a word that would have earned him a slap if their mother heard him. “The whole ceiling has collapsed here in the hallway. We can’t get to mom and dad this way.” “They are okay aren’t they?” Marcella asked in tears once more. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure they are fine. They just would have to leave their room through the windows. I’m sure that they are waiting outside for us now, or coming around to get us as we stand her. Come on, let’s go out the front.” Cin said confidently, though Marcella thought she might have seen tears in his eyes as well. Thankfully they were able to make their way through the living room and to the front door, most of the damaged seemed to be towards the back of the house. Once outside though, Marcella’s fears only grew. Their house was not the only one in shambles, the house across the street had been turned into nothing but a hole in the ground now and the one next door was on fire. “What is going on Cin?” She cried as she clung tighter to her brother. “I don’t know. But it’s going to be okay, let’s find mom and dad and then we can figure out what is going on.” Cin tried to sound strong, but Marchella could hear the fear and confusion in his voice. More explosions could be heard around them as they quickly made their way around the house. Once they made it to the back of the house, the ash covered figure of their mother could be seen coughing and trying to get back into the house. Cin ran over to her, still clutching Marcella. “Mom, it’s okay, we got out. You can’t go back in there, the roof looks like it’s going to fall in at any moment.” “And that is why I have to go back in. Your father is trapped in there.” Their mother practically screamed in her frenzy. Cin pushed Marcella into their mother’s arms. “You take care of Marcella, I’ll go in and find Dad.” “No, you stay out here with your sister…” “Marcella needs you. I’ll go.” Cin said, kissing Marcella on the cheek and climbing in through the window at the back of the house. He disappeared almost immediately in the thick smoke that billowed out the window. “Mama, what’s going on?” Marcella tried to stop her tears, though they still silently streamed down her face. Her mom always said big girls didn’t cry, but she saw unshed tears in her mother’s eyes as well. “We’re under attack.” Her mother said, not sparing her daughter the harsh reality surrounding them. “Who would want to attack us? We don’t hurt anyone.” Marcella asked, confused as well as scared. “There are those out there that will hate us for the blue hue of our skin, or for the good land we are lucky enough to live on. The universe if full of people who hate for no reason. We have no way of knowing who is attacking us or why, at least not right now.” Her mother said, her eyes never leaving the window in which Cin had disappeared. Strange ships flew overhead, so low that Marcella could see the movement of someone behind glass, someone controlling guns on the ship. Someone who saw them as well and fired at them. Marcella’s mother snapped her eyes from the burning house to the sky, dodging to the side just in time as lasers hit the ground where they had just been standing. Marcella tumbled out of her mother’s arms. “Run!” Her mother shouted as the ship turned around and came for them once more. They both scrambled to their feet, running towards the small ravine that flowed behind their house. At this time of year there it was dry and full of weeds. They had barely dove for cover when an explosion rocked the entire ground. Marcella felt heat and pressure on her back that knock what was left of her breath out of her. She laid there in the tall grass, trying to move even though her body didn’t want to. She started to cry again, though she hardly noticed anymore. She managed to push herself to sitting when she heard a blood curling scream from beside her. She turned and saw her mother screaming and crying herself, clawing her way back up the ravine. “No! No! No!” Her mother shouted over and over as she reached the level ground once more and began running back towards the house. Marcella struggled to her own feet and had a hard time crawling out of the ravine herself, once she did she saw her mother on her knees not far from her, pulling at her hair and howling at the sky. Staring past her mother, Marcella understood. Their house, or what used to be their house, was nothing more than a crater in the ground. The entire home had been destroyed. Everything happened so fast too that there was no way Cin could have made it back out with their father. Her brother, her father, her home, everything was gone. Only her mother remained, who continued to howl at the sky in pain. Marcella tried to shout, tried to move, but she felt herself drifting away as her body fell to the earth in a dead faint. How long she laid on the ground she had no idea. Nor did she know how long it took her mother to come back to her senses at least a little and notice her unconscious daughter. There was also no way of knowing just how the two of them survived the rest of the attack, but somehow they did. What she did know was that her father and her brother, her hero, were gone. She also knew that her mother was no longer the mother she had loved and known. She’d become a shell of a woman now. The attack, the death of half their family, it broke her and despite her young years Marcella doubted her mother would ever be the same. She herself would never be the same. She’d lived a loving and safe life up until tonight, but she doubted she would ever feel either again. What did they do now? Their entire world had been destroyed, how did one move on from that? Eventually the sky began to lighten and the fires started to die down. Others started to emerge from the darkness of the night, other survivors who had the same hallow look in their eyes as Marcella and her mother. They were half people now, destined to always and forever miss their other halves, the ones who had been so brutally taken from them. From their entire town of thousands, only 159 people survived. The rest of their people had been killed in a mass genocide. “It was the Lansers. I saw some of them land, using blasters to kill those that their bombs didn’t.” “Who are the Lansers?” Marcella asked, though with no real emotion or curiosity left in her voice. It didn’t really matter to her who had done this only that it happened and they’d lost everything that mattered. “The Lansers are the ones who drove our ancestors from our home planet years ago. The remaining Skylins fled across the galaxy, here to the very edge of known space and built a new life. A life where were thought we were safe. A life where we forgot about the Lansers and tried to live in peace.” My mother said in her hollow voice. “It seems we were not forgotten by the Lansers.” Someone else said. “What do we do now?” Marcella asked. “We leave before the Lansers come back and finish killing the rest of us.” Her mother said, standing at last. “And go where?” Someone said from the small crowd now gathered on what used to be their front lawn. “Somewhere far from here. That is if they didn’t already destroy all the ships. We find a new world ready to accept us, we try to begin again. That is all we can do. Try to start over in a place where the Lansers will hopefully never find us.” Her mother said, some steel entering her voice. “We cannot let them win, we cannot let them destroy all of us, to wipe us out of existence. The best way to get back at the Lansers is to survive.” There were some murmurs, a few people agreeing with her, others not sure what to do. Aylea, Marcella’s mother, had always been a leader of their clan and now was no different. Marcella saw the pain etched on her mother’s face and doubted it would ever disappear, still Aylea would do the best to lead there people to safety and the promise of starting over. “First let’s gather what we can then make it to the hangers. We need to find a ship still able to fly those of us left out of here. Grab only what is easy to carry, if there is anything left to carry. For Marcella and myself we have only the clothes on our backs left. Maybe we can find some food as we make our way down to the airstrip. Hopefully there is a ship and enough fuel to jump us to hyperspace and put as much distance as we can between here and wherever it turns out we are headed.” The survivors did as her mother asked. Gathered what they could and slowly kept moving towards the hangers where the Skylins kept their few ships capable for space travel. From afar they could see some damaged, but at least of few of the hangers were still intact and hopefully they would have the fuel they needed to escape. Aylea and one other woman were the only capable pilots left, but they could make due with a decent ship. The whole walk out of what used to be their town was quiet, people barely speaking to one another, barely looking at all the destruction around them. No one seemed able to put into words what they had lost, or the uncertainty of their future. Everyone kept watching the sky, waiting for it to finishing falling down on them and ending the Skylins once and for all.
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AuthorAuthor, artist, jewelry maker and all around creative person. I write in many genres and have a lot of fun doing so. Please take a look around and enjoy! Archives
January 2022
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