100 Days in Space
A fictional story of a young boy who was in a space ship to Mars. Gradually one by one crew members were getting killed, will he be able to stay alive…Read to know.
By Manan Banik
It was a Sunday evening, when I stepped out of my house. My head was on fire, reason? yah, actually my sister got admission to NASA. So what? Was it necessary to arrange a stupid party for that?
Of course, she deserved it. But mark my words, by that time, I’ll be 20, I would be in a spaceship heading for Mars…
Anyway, I ran to the Coldbridge mountains behind our school to get my mind off things. I found a place from where I could see the huge black universe.
The moon was playing hide n’ seek with the dark clouds. I saw a shooting star with a long fiery tail enter the planet’s atmosphere.
Wait! What?
Shooting stars never enter the atmosphere. It must be something else. The white blazing mass slowly approached me. It was huge. But before it crashed the engines opened! Soon the place was filled with smoke.
Damn!! It was a spaceship ……
After it landed, my mind asked me to go near and explore it but my instinct advised to hide. I followed my instinct. I managed to keep a distance of about 5 meters between me and the spaceship.
Suddenly, I saw the upper gate opening as if by magic. Slowly a body, an alien popped out in front of me. It was not exactly an alien. It walked on two legs, wore a red spacesuit with big and sharp horns which can be easily bought from the down-street plaza. It merely resembled —-
Then, two more aliens popped out, one was wearing a yellow spacesuit and another, a blue one. The yellow one wore a hat while the blue tucked a knife on its head…
Then suddenly, I heard an alarm. I noticed the aliens panicking. They immediately jumped inside the spacecraft. I was still afraid.
Then what?
I ran… ran for my life , ……..
8 YEARS LATER.. (I certainly forgot about this magical incident) …..
After passing my entrance exams, I was aboard the SKELD, heading for a new mission from NASA ….
SKELD was huge; it had several sections- a cafeteria, two engines, a reactor, mid-bay, communication & navigation, electrical, storage, administration, weapons and a security room.
There were 10 of us — Jack, Eddy, Todd, Oliver, Ellie, Max, Tom, Peter and Freddy. This population gradually decreased to 5. You want to know why? Let me tell you…..
After SKELD was launched, everything was fine and simple. But within 10 days, we started discovering bodies of our own crewmates. The first prey was Todd followed by Oliver, Tom, Peter and finally Jack. All of them were killed miserably by a knife in their throats.
Five of us were left alone in the huge ship with the captain; we were informed by the headquarters back at earth that there was an imposter-cum-murderer among us who was committing all these killings. Either it was Eddy, Ellie, or Max, Freddy, or may be the captain himself. All of us started suspecting each other……
DAY 30…….
Being a crewmate I was alive, still a feeling of horror floated around me. Tears oozed out from my eyes as I touched the photo of my mom, dad and my sister……
We were sitting in the cafeteria when suddenly the alarms rang. The captain came running. “Oxygen depletion! Oxygen depletion! come on, get to work everyone !!”
Five of us ran to the reactor. It took about 10 minutes for us to repair it. Finally we were through……
When we returned, we couldn’t see the captain. We went to the navigations to check. Much to our horror, we saw the captain’s body lying on the ground. We glanced at each other….. and the next moment got to work.
Max and Freddy informed the headquarters, Me, Ellie and Eddy decided to finally abort the mission. We changed our direction. It would take about 50 days to reach Earth.
This time we decided to be more careful and work as a team. If we did so, the imposter couldn’t commit any further murder…………………………………………………………… We thought.
Day 49[ Just one day left for touchdown]
It was Ellie’s birthday. A small party was arranged. Max made the cake; we were given party toppers like hair band with horns, a fake knife, and a cowboy hat.
Though it was a party nobody were dancing. We all were aware of the imposter…….As Ellie was about to cut the cake, suddenly we felt a sudden but powerful jerk. I went to check the navigations.
“WE WERE LANDING”
I called everyone; we all were happy. From the window we could see our blue planet once more. Our spaceship entered the earth’s atmosphere.
Slowly we approached the land. The engines opened, and we were throughhh!!!
After a minute of pause, the upper gate opened. I went to check at first followed by Ellie and Max……
I was ………………..what I saw…. From a distance, it appeared like a river with the moon’s shiny reflection
No! In the dim light, I saw myself at least 8 years back, hiding behind a bush………….We were back on Earth but 8 years earlier ………Incredible…
THE ALARM RANG OUT …………..
This time electrical crises; we jumped inside…….
I wish I could say that I found a matching chef’s apron; but no, instead, we found the body of Eddy lying in front of us. Freddy standing over there, with an evil smile and a bloody knife in his hand….
What's Your Reaction?
