No Sign of Life

The light outside seemed to put much effort into juxtaposing my vacuous mood. It partook in all sorts of gymnastics, dancing from one snowflake to the next, each routine and angle entirely unique. I kicked my legs in the air, and they felt so extraordinarily light. I willed weight back into my legs. I willed feeling back into my body. This might just- no, it will-drive me insane!

“I think I need to go for a walk” I muttered aloud, as if asking for permission.

The snow came down in thick sheets, deceptively comfortable. I trudged carefully down the steps before making a final leap onto the feathery snow below. I peered into the distance in each direction. It all looked the same. I decided to head to the right. When I was much younger, I once told my mother that if I ever got lost, I would always take the right turn because then it would always lead me in the right direction. I could scoff at myself if the thought didn’t choke me. As I take my first careful steps, I wonder if my mother ever turned to the right instead of the direction she originally intended, just in case I was waiting around the corner.

I find myself lost in old memories, the colour of tea stains, ripped at the edges due to the turbulent journey of time. Memories like these should be comforting, and yet all I feel is suffocated. I try to breathe and as I do, I focus in on my surroundings. Suddenly, I realise just how far the Train of Thought carried me; I don’t know where I am. I decide to turn back and hope my footprints are retraceable in this weather.

Quickly, I spin on my heel, but I’m faced only with fresh, sparkling snow. That is some hard-working snow, I muse.

“Crikey” I whisper, the only thing I can do is hope the snow’s obstruction only makes it feel like I’ve found myself in the middle of nowhere and continue back the way I came. So, I take a step. And stop. Snow has turned to ice, locking my muscles in place. Slowly, I lift my foot off the ground. Fresh snow. The way it glitters and gleams… it’s almost mocking. With conviction I stomp my foot onto its perfect surface. Then I jump, you know, for good measure. Almost squinting, I lift my foot. Not a scratch. I am both in awe of this mighty breed of snow and absolutely mortified at the same time. For a moment, I pause.

I stare at the untouched floor. I suppose I really shouldn’t be surprised.

Something catches my attention, a flickering light not too far ahead. I ignore the lingering dread and force myself to move. Soon, I am faced with the ginormous, reflective wall of my home. I stop short. I suppose it is my home, but it feels wrong to call it that.

Shaking like a dog, I work to remove the snow from my suit. Some snow does fall, but a good layer of it seems to stick like glue. So, I carefully remove it and place it in the laboratory. It’s hard to remove a sample so I cut a sample of the suit and place it in the freezer room to run tests on later.

Slumping down next to the control centre, I feel my body shaking. Should I tell myself it’s from the cold? Should I take samples and run tests like it even matters?

My eyes are inevitably drawn to that speaker, I glare at the silence emanating from it. Before I notice it, my hand is pressing the button.

“Copy. Do you- does anybody… hear me?”, my voice falters and fades away. I gaze out of the window. White. All the colours and none at all. Everything and nothing. My whole body yearns to explore. My bones stretching out so far that they could practically penetrate my skin. My eyes close as though it’s the door that keeps my skeleton inside my body. There’s nowhere to run.

I imagine that there’s a community just out of sight, with technology that could fix my ship and send me home. It seems impossible. We have barely found evidence of life, it’s basically a fantasy. Next, I imagine getting lost in the snow, or at least, what appears to be snow, and feeling my body slowly shut down as the cold takes control. However, as I ponder this, I know that the ship is slowly getting buried.

I know that I’m running out of time.

I return to the laboratory. It might be futile, but it feels like the only thing I can do. My eye catches the suit just as I’m about to go into the freezer room. My mind takes a second to catch up with my eyes before I process what’s wrong.

The suit is still covered in the snow.

Quickly, I put on my hazmat suit and I decide to run tests. I decide to run independent tests on the sample in the freezer and the sample on the suit to see if the two temperatures have had any affect on the substance.

Many results come back inconclusive. For an alien substance this would make sense, but that would mean that this substance is not water. I thought, perhaps, water could act differently on this alien planet, or even be similar to water but slightly different chemically. However, this substance appears to be unrecognisable.

I feel defeated. My hope that this substance would somehow reveal the secret to my situation was dashed. My last idea is to heat the substance over a flame. I slowly increase the heat of the sample in a beaker. It is extremely heat-resistant so far. Temperature doesn’t seem to affect it much at all. Then, all of a sudden, the substance begins to warp and change shape. It moves as if there’s a magnetic attraction, or as if it’s alive.

Suddenly I feel lethargic, I check my watch and it appears to approve. So, I decide to run the same tests on this newly formed structure and let them run while I sleep.

In the morning I decide to skip breakfast and head straight to the lab. Skipping breakfast saves food anyway. I quickly check the window and see the substance latching onto the ship, I’m witnessing my own slow burial. I’ll have to go out and try make room around the ship. Yet, I’m sure it will be futile as the floor itself appears to be getting taller.

In the lab I begin to take notes from the different tests. They are all entirely different. In fact, with results like these, it’s almost certainly, or at least similar to… something that lives.

Would it be ethical to heat it again and see what happens? Do I even really care?

I begin to heat the sample, and almost immediately it contorts, and I would even say that it resembles a spore. Just as I lean in to get a closer look, I am frozen by a sound. It’s like a distorted, hacking cough. Before I can even move, the spore bursts open and all I see is green, and then black.

When I open my eyes, the view above me makes my heart pound. I see a blue sky, and plants reaching towards the sun. More importantly, I’m breathing outside. I jump up, and my heart sinks as I see vines growing across shreds of chrome. Ripped up parts of my ship. I suppose I never did check if the atmosphere is breathable. Maybe even, these plants have caused a change the atmosphere somewhat. For these plants seem to have a life of their own, one spore seemed to lead to the growth of the rest.

What happened here?

That’s when the next fact hits me: it’s warm.

I suppose it’s weird, but I start to feel less alone in this jungle. I could almost convince myself that I’m simply surviving in a jungle. An inescapable jungle, but one on planet Earth. I could be lost, lost but home.

That’s when I look for my speaker. I look amongst each vine, under each leaf, but it’s nowhere to be seen. Some parts of the ship have been torn through and are on high ground. In fact, the parts that haven’t been torn through are at least covered in vines. Except me. Could these plants be intelligent? Perhaps they can detect differences in heat and grow according to the amount of heat given off. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. What matters is finding my speaker.

I start my search above, but some vines are thicker than my body, and have grown too tall for me to reach. So, I remove my shoes and socks and I start to climb, I grasp at the thicker branches. It’s hard and I am weak, but the speaker is my last hope for ever reaching home.

Twelve miserable vines and not a sign of my speaker. My knees give way and I slump by the vine. That’s when I hear something. I try to clear my ear with my finger, yet the noise persists. Could it be- a bee? Another living creature? No. Not a creature. As I move closer, my head tilted towards the vine-tops, I find myself directly under the source of the sound: my speaker.

The vine its tangled in is perhaps the tallest. Go figure. I muster up the strength and begin to climb again. This time, the strength comes just that bit easier. For I am fuelled by excitement. My speaker hasn’t made a noise since the accident. Not one shred of hope, and now I can’t help but to be filled with it.

The speaker is within my grasp. I rest upon one of the thicker branches before taking a small jump to try and grab the bundle of vines holding the speaker. No luck. I jump again, grazing some of the lower-hanging vines. The speaker becomes loose. I feel the branch bending under my feet, I spare a single look towards the ground and, at this point, I’m higher up than most of the other vines. My stomach nearly leaves my body. I grit my teeth and stretch my hand. I jump.

My hand wraps the bottom of the speaker. I land hard on the branch and it bends. It doesn’t matter, I ignore it. The static sounds make my heart soar. I’m scared to press the button. Scared of no reply. While I’m contemplating however, I hear something else, a distant sound. Could it be a voice?

“H- hello?”, the adrenaline makes me shake. “This is Martha from the Aphelion 539, do you copy?”

My heart is in my throat. Suddenly, the branch weakens more, I need to climb down, but I’m scared of moving the speaker too far down. “Do you copy?”, I almost scream into the speaker.

“Loud and clear 539, welcome back”

My manic laughter is drowned by a sound like brittle bones, finally giving in.