Day 305 Writing Short Stories

Gamble

He knew this was crazy, that he should turn back. The little hut in the middle of nowhere was swarmed by the military. He watched them from the nearby hill with his binoculars. A sensible person would turn away and abandon his mission. The odds were low, but he was ready to take the gamble. Getting into the hut meant more than anything in the world.

He had seen the signal and instantly knew he would have to respond, even after retiring from active duty. There was no one else to do his job. They were all gone now. That was the deal.

The soldiers were already setting up a fence around the hut. He couldn’t wait too long. He glanced up at the sky. It was getting dark in two hours, which was good, which worked in his favor.

Another military vehicle drove in, and he watched more men walk into the hut. Most likely, they were their tech and science team. It was only to be expected.

He sat there watching the jungle swarm with men with guns and waited for his time until darkness would take over. Or as dark as it could get with the lights the soldiers were propping up along the fences. He refused to think about it too much. He instead focused on listening to the birds chirp around him. He liked the nature part of Earth. Where he came from, the planet wasn’t as lush with animals and plants. That’s why he had stayed on Earth as his retirement place when his mission ended. He didn’t mind that he was the only one of his kind.

He frowned and glanced at the hut. He WAS retired. His people knew that. They wouldn’t send a communication probe here without a good reason. And it was from his people. The signal had been clear enough. Things were bad if they had to break the protocol and their promise to him. And he could guess how bad it could be.

He had been seeing more and more strange lights in the night sky lately. Meaning other aliens had thought Earth was a good target for whatever they were thinking. There was no telling what they thought. There were pretty nasty aliens out there. Not all known to him and his people. And not all comply with the first contact rules. Meaning he really had to take the gamble. He couldn’t let the military leave with the probe.

The darkness fell like a thick blanket over the tall trees and the eternal life of the rainforest. He could hear the rhythm of the jungle change. It didn’t go quiet. It exploded with humming, chirping, croaking, and the echoes of nocturnal birds. If things were different, he would be there, just listening to the sounds of the jungle. Now he didn’t have time for that.

The military had gotten its lights and fences up. The presence of the military had increased. He could see the lights of more vehicles in the distance, driving towards the camp.

He got up from his hiding spot and disrobed himself. The human skin he was wearing turned scaly and black, void of any light. He dropped down the hill and began creeping through the bushes towards the fence. He avoided stirring the leaves. It was the only thing they should see of him.

He stepped close to the fence and heard the shattering of the men. They were confused as to why they were still there, why the thing hadn’t been moved, and why they had to endure the heat and the jungle and its mosquitoes.

He knew better. They wouldn’t be able to open or move the probe. It was made with his biology in mind. Only he could interact with it.

He pushed through the fence, making his body lose some of its mass and structure. He reshaped himself back into human form, taking the fashion of the closest military person, along with his name and gun. He knocked the man down, who hadn’t seen him coming. He dragged him behind one of the trucks that they had used to transport the fences and the lights. The man would be unconscious long enough. He hoped he hadn’t done any permanent damage. It was against his code.

Moving around the military camp got easier. No one seemed to pay any attention to him or care that he wasn’t at the fence. He made his way to the hut and listened to the men talking inside. They were arguing about what to do with the probe. They knew it wasn’t Earth-made. Or somewhere skeptical about that. Some thought it was enemy-made. He had never understood the concept of the whole enemy among the same species. But that wasn’t Earth’s strong suit, and he had learned to accept it a long time ago.

“Listening in?” a man approached him.

“Yeah, I just wanted to know why they dragged us here in the middle of nowhere,” he said.

“And what do you think?”

“Beats me,” he replied.

The man nodded. “Don’t let them catch you,” the man said and moved on.

Yeah, he thought. That was the thing. He probably would have to let them catch him and take whatever might come. There was no way he could kill enough soldiers to get away with the probe. They had their guns, and while he could alter his mass better than humans did, it couldn’t stop the bullets from killing him.

He would have to take a last gamble, and that was to trust that humans would react the right way with first contact.

He walked into the tent, drawing confused looks and instant commands to leave. There were five men inside. All were wearing military uniforms. All with guns. Some with just pistols. He could take them all down if he moved fast enough. It was in his odds. It might be even the best plan, but he didn’t want to kill anyone, and the plan meant killing.

Instead, he rushed forward to the man, who looked like he was in charge, and took hold of him. He dropped his human appearance and let them see his dark, scaly form as it was.

The men around him drew guns on him.

“You can shoot me, or we can work together to understand what I am and why I am here. And why was this thing sent here?” He cocked his lizard-like face towards the probe.

Smartphone

A girl’s father is tech-enthusiastic, despite being absolutely dreadful at using them. He buys a new smartphone and bugs his daughter with questions. I skipped this one.

Robbery

A clumsy man stops a robbery by tripping over the bad guy. I skipped this one, too.

The prompts are from the book A Year of Creative Writing Prompts.

So much skipping lately. I have been picky about the stories that I write. When something hasn’t sparked inspiration, I haven’t forced myself. But luckily, there has been at least one prompt that I have been able to write. And some of them have run long, like the first one did today.

A friend asked me, “Isn’t it a lot of work to write the prompts. That what’s the point.” And I noticed I like writing these. Not of course every day, but most of the time. It’s like getting to watch mini-movies written by me with emotions and sounds included, like the alien prompt. I was in his head the whole time, and I have a vague sense of where it might end and lead if it were a full story. So, I had that fantastic experience today, which I wouldn’t have had without the prompts.

I’m lucky that way, that I have the time and resources to write and play with my imagination. It is not given. Even where there are people with tons of imagination, their lives might force them to focus on other things, like survival.

Thank you for reading ❤ Have a weird day full of aliens and jungle insects!