Wes said:
Topic ideas:
- Shopping for the perfect android servant
- Survival on an uninhabited planet
- Thoughts of a young clone
- Strange customs of an alien race
Here
Misconception
"Noo... This is..." A young girl hesitated unsure how to respond as she blinked, her eyes temporary distorted by the sudden flash of light. Carefully she backed away from the rather pushy salesman and his android with flood lights for eyes until she was safely outside the building.
That shop was the last one in this district and like all the others they didn't have what she was looking for. Perhaps what she sought simply did not exist. For a moment the dejected girl was about to give up until a fire lit up inside her heart, forcing her feet to march on. She could not give up, would not give up. Her perfect android butler was out there somewhere and she would find him.
--
Idle Face
Within a popular coffee shop, sat a young man staring at his reflection in the window.
Who were you? Thought the young man. He was clone created to be a soldier and had a habit of spending his time off from training idling in the main shopping district. The question he ask wasn't meant for him, but rather towards the man who's face he assumed. How could a face he saw every day, in his teachers, his friends, even his own reflection, be so mysterious to him? It was almost disheartening. Was he just another faceless face? At that moment the image of a girl with the look of fierce determination in her eyes marched pass from the other side of the glass, distracting him from his thoughts.
Chuckling at the strange sight, the young clone shook his head and clearing away all the negative thoughts. It didn't matter who this face had belonged to or how many of it was around, he was still himself. As if to reaffirm himself, the man looked to his reflection again and spoke. "I wouldn't want to be anyone else, but me."
--
Unsweet Release
"I don't want to be me..." muttered the poor girl, splashing away her reflection in the river. Further up the river she could hear chanting, the ceremony had begun. For her people, it was customary that unmarried woman of age would wade into the great river each year and crack the hard Loqu plants on the bony crest of their foreheads as unmarried men swam around them, picking the strongest to be their brides. This was her fifth year and she was sure that it wouldn't be her last.
The chanting got louder, closer then before. Soon it would be her turn. Carefully the girl reached down into the water, searching the river bed for the plants that grew there. Feeling the familiar round plant, she plucked it from its stem and lifted it out of the water. Loqu was a fast growing weed completely uneditable and the sap within its shell was sticky and smelled foul. She hated it, almost as much as she hated herself.
As the chanting surrounded her she raised the plant over her head, watching its wet surface shine in the moon light.
How long will I be alone?
--
Last Light
How long have I been alone? A fragile thing of a man briefly thought as he laid at his worn makeshift cot.
How long must I survive? He had long since forgotten the number of years he had spent here, this uninhabited planet far outside the edges of known space. He could barely even remember who he had been. Wasn't he a solider? Or a perhaps one of the scientific survey teams sent out to map new sectors? All he knew was that he was once more then this, but after that crash, after the realization that only he survive, he was nothing but a slowly dying creature. This planet wasn't just uninhabited, but near void of life as well. There was little to no wildlife and the plants grew in scarce patches, even less so were the editable ones. Often he would go days without eating, yet he managed to survive all this time, until now.
It was summer on this planet, the hottest he had experienced during his time here. The plant life literally burned on the surface. Like the prey that burrowed underground, he found shelter deep inside a dark cave. With nothing to eat for months and this burning heat his body couldn't take it anymore. He could feel unconscious taking over again, a dark almost welcoming veil over his weary eyes. Before the darkness completely took over, strange figures approached him. They walked like him, moved like him, and if he could hear their voices, talked like him. When they reached him, one of them quickly held something in front of his eyes, a light so bright that in his final moments, his last thought had been.
Blinding