5. Missing Pieces

Jassia had just pulled herself onto a tall rock when the first raindrops fell. Hunger had driven her far from home. To another unexplored territory, even though she noticed the clouds were gray in the morning. Hunger and curiosity, for she noticed another lightbulb had fallen down here.

She cursed Tibre and his laziness, his giving up, his negativity, everything. He was the eldest and strongest of all Dwellers, after Zandir. He had to lead and be an example. Instead he refused to eat, which he wouldn’t surv—don’t think about, just don’t.

Zandir had, fortunately, joined. Just as Piponre and her pet bear, of course. They already stood on the increasingly slippery rocks as they pulled her upward.

This planet was nothing but mud and stone. The memories inside the lightbulbs, though, showed many places that were different. Jassia dreamed of building her spaceship and flying to those places.

Until then, they needed food, and a lot of it.

The clouds contracted, turning from light gray to black. Their animal skins were soaked and Jassia had to bind her long locks of hair to prevent going blind. Ugh, another one of those rules. Why did it have to be a rule that women had long hair and men did not? Surely something their ancestors invented, before they decided to disappear.

At the next step, she slipped on a deep puddle.

Piponre grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. She smiled awkwardly at him, as she felt his warm skin against hers. Their Echobelts clattered against each other and let the entire valley know where they were.

Thunder. Flash. A growing gale almost pulled Jassia’s clothes off her body.

“This is madness,” said Zandir. His spear pointed at the black sky. “We’ll die at the hands of thunderstrokes if we continue!”

“We can’t hide anywhere,” said Piponre immediately. “Returning home will take hours in this storm, and will guarantee we have no food. I say we continue.”

They looked at Jassia. She felt unsteady, but her strong bear kept her upright. No, not that, her bear tapped against her leg and wanted her attention.

Her pet pointed at a black dot in the distance.

“Wreckage!” yelled Jassia. Unbelievable. The explosion had hurtled the spaceship pieces over a massive distance! Maybe the rest of the spaceship was all the way on the other side of the planet.

They closed in. Her thoughts were confirmed: these looked like the other spaceship parts.

Jassia dove to the ground. She had to be quick. Rain washed away all the tracks, all the proof.

She dug into the earth and found what she expected: more footsteps. Certainly not a Dweller, no, because they weren’t human feet. And also not that weird shoe that her husband wore. Another gift from his parents, of course, who never explained it and then disappeared.

She studied the soaked faces of Zandir and Piponre.

“I am not insane, am I? Someone was inside that spaceship. And someone … someone has walked around our caves without revealing themselves.”

“Or, I don’t know, a deer happened to walk past,” grunted Zandir. “And we have finally found our food for the next week. Let’s follow the trail.”

Jassia knew it was stupid. To take on the extra weight, in such a storm, with a weakened body. But her curiosity could not leave it alone.

She and her bear ripped several components off of the wreckage and carried it the rest of the way. This had to reveal more information about what happened. Maybe new technology that taught her how to build spaceships herself!

Zandir gave his opinion by endlessly shaking his head. Though he appeared to be right: in the distance they noticed a dark silhouette, made fuzzy by the curtain of rain around it.

The rain wasn’t falling down anymore. Bursts of wind blew the droplets to the side. To her eyes, the entire world seemed to slant. She didn’t dare take another step, as the rocks now seemed diagonal and unstable too.

“Let’s circle back to—”

Thunder. A bang. A flash.

Jassia looked up and waved her arms.

“Zandir! Out of the way! Watch out!”

A gigant rock fell from the sky, in a cloak of dust and debris. Zandir’s body came alive, as he used his spear to launch himself away from his spot.

The rock was too large to escape.

Zandir was hit in his back, his legs broken by the impact. He lost his balance and fell off the rocky path.

Jassia and Piponre could only scream and watch as Zandir fell down—and died instantly when he hit the floor.

They fell to their knees. For a moment, a very brief moment, Jassia could only hear Tibre’s statements and how right they were. It’s all meaningless. It’s as if nature doesn’t want anything to survive. Everything always goes wrong, and people die, and—

Then she felt Piponre’s warm embrace, as he cried with her and their tears were lost in the rain. Then he helped her back up.

“We go down,” he spoke softly. “We go back.”

Jassia nodded and let herself be dragged along. Until she spotted something and froze, bumping against Piponre.

“This was no accident.”

Piponre placed a hand on a shoulder. “I understand that—”

“Look! Look!”

They climbed down more quickly. Her bear pointed at a light in the distance: the lightbulb that had crashed her. Piponre would have to carry that, as she had to investigate a murder first.

She said a short prayer, then pushed the boulder off of Zandir’s body. Piponre saw it too.

The backside of the rock had been cut off, or rather shot off, and replaced by a black burn mark.

She saw a flash of light—but heard no thunder.

Jassia shivered and whispered: “Some alien creature walks around here and they want us dead. And they have a lightflash weapon, I am sure, I am sure.”

Piponre opened his mouth, maybe to tell her she saw ghosts. Then he closed it and protectively stood before her.

The rain washed away any view of their environment. Was it day? Was it night? The dark clouds, glued together, kept out all the stars and lightbulbs around their planet.

Was that a shadow? Was that a moving silhouette, or a tree? She had to stay calm; she also had to stay wary of the danger.

Something poked her back. She turned around rapidly—it was just her bear. He had grabbed the lamp and gave them some vision. Sometimes her pet seemed more intelligent than many Dwellers.

Eager to view the memory, she pulled out the battery.

“What on Holed are you doing!?” hissed Piponre.

He grabbed his Echobelt, by instinct, and kept it in front of him like a weapon. Like most of the Dwellers did. Though they couldn’t remember why they’d use a musical instrument as a weapon. It wouldn’t help, in any case.

Complete darkness embraced them. The other creature probably hadn’t expected this. Jassia could just make out a faint light in the distance before it was quickly shut off.

She turned on the lamp again and threw it in Piponre’s arms.

“Run!”

The faint light of the lamp showed their path, jumping over logs and skidding over rocks. Jassia had to hope they picked the right direction to their home. Piponre kept glancing over his shoulder and pointing the light behind them, but they had no clue where their pursuer was.

Humans were made to run large distances on two legs. Bears were not.

She had to choose between carrying that second piece of wreckage, or her bear. She chose her bear without hesitation.

A flash. She instinctively closed her eyes and only saw the consequences: a tree in the distance caught fire. Did thunder return anyway? The clouds remained threatening, and this was a laughable miss if someone actually tried to shoot them.

They ran even faster. The lack of food of the past few days made her light in the head, dizzy until her legs moved of their own accord and she didn’t even know where she was. The soles of her feet were scratched and bloody. Her hair had broken loose and hit her nose and eyebrows with every step.

Don’t hesitate, ignore the pain, run.

After hours, or so it felt, the weather improved and they entered familiar territory. That Linecave with the weird entrance, shaped as if someone received a hammer and the command to be too creative with it. The forest that started with some tall gray trees, then continued with only green tiny trees.

Then, of course, the underground tunnel that made them resurface close to their home cave.

“Thank the Dweller Gods,” said Jassia. Her breathing sounded like a crashing spaceship. The cute bear in her arms relaxed and took his paws off the many sharp tools around his belt. “We are back—”

Piponre was nowhere to be found. Many steps behind her, she noticed the lightbulb discarded on the floor. Turned off and left behind like garbage. The boy himself had disappeared.

“Help!” she yelled.

She fainted against the first home cave.