Day Three, Week One
Swarm
Dust clouds settled, rust-coloured and cottony, upon the shuttle debris steaming gently in the morning sun. From some hidden place amidst the wreckage, battered engine parts ticked. The pilot of the craft and the two other passengers were already dead. One man's eyes still frozen open - the blank gaze lending an element of the macabre to his partially decapitated head. Red blood, no longer pumping, dribbled and pooled. The acid stink of it attracted tiny flies, which buzzed and hummed and flurried over death's latest smorgasboard.
The survivor clenched her teeth together and resolved not to cry. Yellow, acidic bile bubbled into her throat but she swallowed it down - gasping in a deep breath and turning away from the stare of greying eyes. She was in pain - everywhere - her shoulder, the back of her head where it had collided violently with the wall...she thought to herself that if she were a cartoon character, yellow canaries would be twittering in circles about her head.
A bloodied mess of blonde hair caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. More blood - scarlet, bright, oozing...the dying body groaned. A name, a word, a feeling..? Fluttered into her mind.
Janet?
No...that name was her own. The survivor - Janet - sighed. Who was that person, bleeding in the dirt - slowly, slowly dying? For another selfish moment she focused on her own physical pain -it hurt to breathe.
In...out...in...
...Now that she thought about it, breathing really was a very hard task. So she stopped, to see what it would be like.
Just for a moment, Janet listened to the flies.
Buzzing.
Humming.
Hungry.
Janet breathed again - perhaps it wasn't really that hard. She looked at the body in the dirt again; oozing, bloody.
-Sam.-
The body had a name. Sam. Sam. Sam.
She had to go to her - had to help. Never let a patient die. Janet edged toward the shadow where the blood mingled with the sand. The buzzing, humming insects thronged around her as she dragged herself - slowly...painfully.
Sam
Tiny little legs tickled across her skin. -Searching, hunting, hungry.- Seeking out the heat of blood, of torn flesh...anywhere to lay their young. Fresh meat for their larvae.
They could tell how long a corpse was dead by counting all the little flies...
Another inch closer...
Sam
Janet could almost reach out and touch her. - How much it hurt to breathe- She only needed a little bit further...Janet stopped. She pressed her forhead to the sun-warmed ground.
Buzzing,
Humming,
Hungry.
A little bit further...
The last survivor's eyes fluttered closed. On the ground, the dust clouds settled - cottony and soft. Then, with a whisper, the insects landed - light and deft as twinkle toes.
...But not enough.
***
Swarm
Dust clouds settled, rust-coloured and cottony, upon the shuttle debris steaming gently in the morning sun. From some hidden place amidst the wreckage, battered engine parts ticked. The pilot of the craft and the two other passengers were already dead. One man's eyes still frozen open - the blank gaze lending an element of the macabre to his partially decapitated head. Red blood, no longer pumping, dribbled and pooled. The acid stink of it attracted tiny flies, which buzzed and hummed and flurried over death's latest smorgasboard.
The survivor clenched her teeth together and resolved not to cry. Yellow, acidic bile bubbled into her throat but she swallowed it down - gasping in a deep breath and turning away from the stare of greying eyes. She was in pain - everywhere - her shoulder, the back of her head where it had collided violently with the wall...she thought to herself that if she were a cartoon character, yellow canaries would be twittering in circles about her head.
A bloodied mess of blonde hair caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. More blood - scarlet, bright, oozing...the dying body groaned. A name, a word, a feeling..? Fluttered into her mind.
Janet?
No...that name was her own. The survivor - Janet - sighed. Who was that person, bleeding in the dirt - slowly, slowly dying? For another selfish moment she focused on her own physical pain -it hurt to breathe.
In...out...in...
...Now that she thought about it, breathing really was a very hard task. So she stopped, to see what it would be like.
Just for a moment, Janet listened to the flies.
Buzzing.
Humming.
Hungry.
Janet breathed again - perhaps it wasn't really that hard. She looked at the body in the dirt again; oozing, bloody.
-Sam.-
The body had a name. Sam. Sam. Sam.
She had to go to her - had to help. Never let a patient die. Janet edged toward the shadow where the blood mingled with the sand. The buzzing, humming insects thronged around her as she dragged herself - slowly...painfully.
Sam
Tiny little legs tickled across her skin. -Searching, hunting, hungry.- Seeking out the heat of blood, of torn flesh...anywhere to lay their young. Fresh meat for their larvae.
They could tell how long a corpse was dead by counting all the little flies...
Another inch closer...
Sam
Janet could almost reach out and touch her. - How much it hurt to breathe- She only needed a little bit further...Janet stopped. She pressed her forhead to the sun-warmed ground.
Buzzing,
Humming,
Hungry.
A little bit further...
The last survivor's eyes fluttered closed. On the ground, the dust clouds settled - cottony and soft. Then, with a whisper, the insects landed - light and deft as twinkle toes.
...But not enough.
***