The Wraith of Grapes

Intercepted Transmission from The Penal-Agricultural-Station. (PAST)

[Unauthorized viewing will be subject to mind wipes]

We stared into the abyss and in the blackness between the stars, it glared back and found us wanting.

The silence that looms over this once-tranquil retreat is suffocating,  like a weight pressing down on my chest, constricting the air in my lungs.

There's a chill in the mechanized air that has nothing to do with the temperature – the kind of cold that settles deep into your bones, the very atmosphere is tainted with the whispers of long-forgotten secrets, waiting to be unearthed in the depths of the night.

I tap on the second-generation recorder. the recesses of my brain that were developed on the planet of my forefathers, a planet I have never seen whispered to me. They whispered unseen eyes tracking my every move from the cracks and the vents.

I don’t know who's receiving this or how long it will bounce around through space.

“God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” 

I see the green veins overtaking the graffiti on the walls. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction.

The land we created in our own image is rebelling against us, rejecting our attempts to cultivate it for sustenance. 

I had no choice—I had to put out the fires in the agriculture centers. Couldn’t afford to lose the bottom line.

When the product stops coming through the airlocks, people start getting funny ideas, leading to panic. Company protocol drilled into us that nothing—absolutely nothing—could disrupt the supply. So, like clockwork, I headed to the controls, knowing the drill all too well.

The company had a specialized mix they pumped into the system for fire suppression. They didn’t bother explaining what was in it; that was way above my pay grade. All I knew was that it worked, and that was all anyone needed to know—or so they said. But sometimes, late at night, when the station was too quiet, I wondered what exactly we were breathing in when that mix got released.

The security units were out in force, quelling the riots that had erupted down below, their shouts and the sounds of scuffles filtering up to us in the eerie silence of our confinement.

The real threat lay in the interference that had jammed communications to the life-pods and cut off any hope of aid from outside response teams in nearby orbital stations. 

The company's riot control equipment gleamed ominously in the dimly lit armory, casting long shadows against the cold metal walls of the penal colony. 

Each item was meticulously designed for one purpose: to maintain order at any cost. Second-generation stun grenades lay in neat rows, their sleek exteriors belying the destructive power within. 

Riot sticks, with their menacing black shafts, seemed to pulse with a life of their own, eager to be wielded against any who dared defy authority.

And then there were the electronic cartridges, their intricate circuitry a testament to the technological advancements of the modern age. There were no echoes to fill my ears safe for the soft hum of the lights and the distant echoes of footsteps.

I was locked out of the visuals. 

Electronic jamming and chemical weapons were brought into the Colony. The riot-guns had special chips that could only be fired by the authorized users. The shockwaves rendered them useless. Gunfighters resorted to combat. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Resident 981-187-67 looked toward me.

we weren't supposed to refer to them as inmates. The man Loved art class, he latched on an officer's helmet and made red flowers against the wall. He wanted to scream but the inhibitor in his neck prevented it.  The men were here to silently reflect on their sins.

I  gripped the electric prods and rushed the man and his friends. It was an amateur move on my part. 

The batons twirled in a dance I took lead.

The weapons made a wet thud against cold flesh.

 There were no good guys and bad guys here. Everyone was a victim of their own demons. The isolation was torture. A prisoner started to see things that weren't there, a man would welcome the voices for company. 

In blackness beyond the stars, Our brains wired by trauma or head injuries that made violence and easy solution to life’s problems. People wanted to believe in free will, I certainly did, but more and more research showed that often were people slaves to their genetic pasts. 

I tossed the sonic plates on the ground, the metallic clang echoing through the dimly lit chamber like a death knell. There was nothing more I could do for these men but punish them. I had long given up hope to make a difference with my fancy degree, to bring ome semblance of justice to this forsaken place.

The condemned released their prey, their faces twisted in unspeakable agony, clutching their ears in a futile attempt to escape the piercing sound.

The chips embedded in their necks had silenced them for so long, but as they tore them free, blood and circuits intertwined, their voices returned—raw, broken, filled with the madness of long-forbidden speech. The air thickened with a cacophony of tortured whispers and frenzied cries, a chorus of souls long denied their screams.

As the fervor subsided and silence descended upon the chamber, I was left stranded in a sea of haunting stillness. It was a silence so profound, so suffocating, that it seemed to seep into my very bones, chilling me to the core.

The shadows had intertwined and glided no different than lovers in the corners of my vision, whispering secrets that I dared not entertain.

Every step forward, I wanted to take two more back. 

A slight crunch echoed under my boot. 

I spied a line of breadcrumbs towards the agricultural center. Slivers of brass silicon, tainted with a splash of red ink.  It seemed to beckon me forward with their macabre trail. The smell of iron and sweat hung heavy in the air, causing me to instinctively inspect the breadcrumbs closer.

As I knelt down to examine them, I popped a shine from the tool in my pocket, allowing the crackling light of my glow-rod to illuminate the scene before me. What I saw sent a chill down my spine.

The chips, once cold and lifeless, now seemed to pulse with malevolent energy, as though they had absorbed the torment of those they had controlled.

They lay on the ground like cursed relics, still glistening with fresh blood, whispering of the horrors they had inflicted. Each fragment was a piece of a larger, darker puzzle—one that spoke of a place where penance was enforced not by remorse, but by silence and pain.

As I stared down at the chips, I could almost hear the faint echoes of the inmates’ final, anguished cries—voices that had been trapped in their throats, now returning with a vengeance. The anguish I could handle, you don’t make it long in the riot control team if you can't.  The sounds of jubilation made my heart want to leave outside the airlock.

It was as if the very walls of the colony were alive with their suffering, a chorus of lost souls crying out for justice in a place where none could be found. The silence that had once been their penance had now transformed into something far more terrifying—a cacophony of despair, unleashed at last.

It was a grim reminder of the true nature of this place, a stark testament to the callous indifference with which the powers that be treated the lives of those trapped within its walls. Everything, it seemed, was made by the lowest bidder, and it was a miracle that none of us had been sucked out of this tin can into the cold void of space long ago.

In the distance, the fields stretch out endlessly, bathed in an eerie half-light that seems to seep through the cracks in reality itself.

I dragged myself towards the scarlet sorrow towards the agricultural hub.

This is where the sausage was made, what a play on words. All the flora for the blight that is mankind in their artificial homes comes from  PAST networks.

{Transmitting… Transmitting.. Second Attempt. Possible delay from the Ice Storms}

Two of my five senses were flooded with flavors of nostalgia and sorrow, they were genetic memories I’m sure. Our species haven’t touched Terra Firma in over a century.

The smell was a reminder of the paradise lost to humanity's greed and hubris.

The fields – vast expanses of land that stretch out as far as the eye can see, their once-lush greenery now engorged and pulsating, as if the very earth itself has turned against us.

A silent warning of the horrors that lie beneath the surface of these now hallowed grounds. The fields – vast expanses of land that stretch out as far as the eye can see, their once-lush greenery now engorged and pulsating, as if the very green itself has turned against us., a silent warning of the horrors that lie beneath the surface of these now hallowed ground.

I’m adrift in an undercurrent of sadness at the thought of what mankind had done to the planet that had once been our home. The earth, once a vibrant and thriving ecosystem, now lay angry and jilted like a scorned lover by our presence. That's if you believe the holo-files.

May God forgive us, the atrocities we had committed in the name of progress and prosperity. And now, as I stood amidst the twisted vines and pulsating flesh of the agricultural center, I couldn't help but feel a sense of guilt weighing heavily on our souls.

It wasn't just the destruction of the earth that haunted me - it was the realization that the recesses of space, once thought to be a beacon of hope for humanity's future, had become nothing more than a prison for all of us. Trapped within the confines of the silent colony, cut off from the rest of the universe, humanity had become little more than prisoners themselves.

 The darkness that lurks within the panel station was merely a reflection of the darkness that lurked within the human soul. For in the end, it was not the monsters of the universe that posed the greatest threat to humanity - it was humanity itself.

The noises ate away at the endless ringing in my ears. I watched the acolytes flock to the shrine. Those arts and crafts classes really seemed to pay off in the end, oh god I can’t shut off gallows humor. 

Some people look at an endless expanse of green with muscle twitches and gasp, all I could do was laugh. “There is no inequality on the green maw.”

Maw? 

Here in the maw, there is no difference between captor and condemned.” The words of praise left the prisoner's mouth. The first words he had spoken in years. 

The maw had whispered to them, between the long hours and the void of space.  The sweet aroma of flora off the vine had kept them working.

I watched the vines latch on to my friends and foes, no no prisoners were not foes it was never a fair fight. The vines crept through the armor and they ate away at the inhibitor chips. The pain and praise intertwined as the vines sprayed ecstasy on the servants. 

“The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field.”

The Speaker continued to speak words from the old testament.

“The maw wants to return to the earth where she came from.” The maw spoke through the acolyte or maybe it was a grifter that assumed to speak for it, new religions came packed with all sorts of nuts.

An Inmate snuck up when I was in the trance. I wasn’t the fastest in the academy but the tool did the job for me. A spark-shot ejected from the barrel and fried the nerves of the prisoner. The voltage forced smoke out of his body. The man smelled like a broken live wire you didn’t want to put your tongue on. My boot pushed him into the maw. It fed off him, there was no sorrow, only a gleeful smile to be of service.

Before I could register how insignificant I felt before the maw, a green tendril grabbed me and pulled me from the ground. Those unseen eyes I felt during the early stages of the riots were in full swing.

Hundreds of inmates looked upon me. The red sores from where the chips were removed were noticeable now.  The fruits of their labor had reached the end result. 

The chilling aspect was the designs of the maw were patented and copyrighted.  Even if this recording gets out they will justify the cost to keep earth going.

“She wants to return to Earth.”

 The inmate rejoiced. Even before the chips were installed he rarely spoke. I was told he committed murders in several colonies in a fit of madness from the isolation of space.

“We can all return.” He spoke fervently.

 “We just have to keep feeding the maw.” 

The words made my blood turn cold.

As the vines wrapped around my arms I pushed past the chemical dump in my body, I fired a taser between the eyes of my captor. 

The razor tips launched onto him I didn’t attempt to adjust the settings. The inmates hissed and cried in pain. The green tendrils threw me against the wall, I sucked my chin into my chest to avoid brain damage. 

As I stood face to face with the gel-like expanse of the Green, a hundred eyes pointed daggers at me. I was a non-believer desecrating holy ground, I was the Philistine unwanted near the burning bush.

The vines ripped the taser off the Disciple. The smoke from his charred hair and flesh entered my nose. The blade made of sharpened metals from the mess hall and welder room leaped from his sash to his hands as they attempted to puncture the blue lines in my neck and inside my armpits.

It was definitely in violation of Penal code 417.

"They told you Earth was dead, didn’t they? A scorched, barren wasteland, nothing left but dust and bones. It was the perfect fairy tale, wasn't it? To keep us from looking back. It stops us from seeking more than this cold, metal prison. But it’s a lie. Earth isn’t dead—it’s very much alive, and that’s why the Maw must return.

I looked for conflict or doubt, I found none.

"You see, the Maw knows the truth. It always has. Earth is no barren husk; it’s a world teeming with life, with souls ripe for the taking.” I wanted nothing more than to believe it was a ravings of isolation and space sickness.

“They’ve fed you this lie to keep you here, now we feed the maw.”

I stumbled, my foot catching on the grated floor as I moved too quickly, too nervously. My shoulder brushed against the lever, and it shifted slightly, the cold metal creaking under the pressure. The moment froze around me, my breath catching in my throat as a memory flashed through my mind—something I had seen once, a detail I had dismissed at the time but now came rushing back with terrifying clarity.

The suppression fluids in the vents. I had always thought they were there for the fires, a safeguard against the ever-present threat in the cramped, oxygen-rich environment of the space station. It made sense, didn’t it?

Fires could tear through the station in moments, devouring everything in their path. But now, as my fingers brushed the lever and my mind raced, the pieces began to fall into place.

It wasn’t for the fires. I prepared to destroy a night church upon this artificial rock.

For a moment, there was silence, broken only by the soft hiss of the mist as it settled over the Green . And then, to my horror, the creature began to react, its form twisting and contorting in ways that seemed impossible.

As tendrils of darkness reached out towards me, I turned and ran, the echoing sounds of the Green Maw's agony following me down the silent halls of the colony. The disciple stopped me. I had committed an unforgivable sin, heresy and heretics would be fed. My forearm trapped his bladed hand and the moment of the brawl slid into my favor as I tossed the man into the green void he loved so much.

A good and faithful servant was rewarded at the finish line I suppose.

The silence descended upon the colony once again, broken only by the faint drone of overworked ventilation systems battling to purge the compound's air of its haunting remnants. 

The prisoners hurled themselves into the gaping abyss, their preference clear—they yearned to scream into the verdant expanse of the valley rather than succumb to the oppressive quietude once more.

I am checking the oxygen levels in the emergency rafts as I search for survivors.

I have no doubt that even as I recount this, the accountants are meticulously drafting new agreements, shrouded in secrecy, scheming to breathe life back into this accursed project. If this message finds you ignorant of our plight, know that we are doomed to be swallowed by the cold indifference between the stars.

PAST

(Current status: Redacted)

(Current Status: Treatment Residents Redacted)

(Current Location: Unknown) Reviewing the transmission files and recovery files shall not be implemented without a signed NDA under penal of civil and criminal code.