A Final Transmission From Under a Rotting Sun

A Hadean Void Short Story

Log 1, Local Time: 458.13.21, 19:24

The Void storm that broke out across the system a fortnight ago continues to batter Harkep. Even underground, I can hear the city of Traejale above me crumble and collapse, with the last emergency announcement from the System Council ordering all citizens to seek shelter within the crumbling capital itself. I counted three major crashes today, all sounding like they came from the city center. The surviving cameras near the entrance to our bunker have shown nothing but ruin for days now, I must have spent hours watching them today, looking to see if anyone from the last observation team that went out two three days returned, yet all I saw the same low-quality image of the ruined road just outside the bunker.

Log 2: 458.13.23, 20:12

The bunker’s power finally cut out several hours ago, likely ending our experiments for good. Despite that, I have no intention of leaving the bunker, isolation be damned. Before the power was cut, a sickly green light was visible outside on the cameras, probably just another anomaly from the Void storm. The load crashes that have been commonplace over the last days have completely subsided, and that, combined with the lack of power has made the bunker eerily quiet. I’ll try and get one of the old emergency batteries down in storage online tomorrow, hopefully something from our projects can still be salvaged.

Log 3: 458.13.24, 16:09

I managed to restore some amount of power to the bunker, although I’m not sure how long it will last. It took much more effort than I thought it would to find and activate the batteries in storage, partly because my dwindling personal light sources proved wholly inadequate for the vast rooms we have down here. In any case, I doubt the batteries I found will last long, and as such, I have kept much of the bunker dark, and only restarted a handful of vital systems. Almost by habit, I restarted the cameras, only to be met with the same ruin and unsettling green glow from yesterday. I could have sworn I saw…something moving out there however. In the corner of the screen, a small circular mass with some kind flailing appendages gradually came into view before quickly vanishing over the course of a few minutes. Replaying the footage, I have no idea what I saw, it must have been a visual glitch, as no animal I know even remotely looks like that, or could survive so long outside in an active Void storm.

Log 4: 458.13.26, 04:53

As expected, the batteries have died, and the entire bunker is dark again. It’s starting to affect me, as I spent most of yesterday sleeping, but still feel exhausted. Between these bouts of largely-restless sleep, I continued checking the camera feed, the last system I kept powered, and saw no more strange creatures, but instead a blood-red tree root gradually grow across the entrance to the bunker over the course of a few hours, it was bleeding…something’s out there. Tomorrow, I intend to venture out, as the darkness and isolation down here is becoming a problem. There are still ample stores of food and water for me to take, as well as a few protective exosuits left in the bunker. Regardless, there has to be some kind of shelter left in Traejale, and with any luck, I’ll find the team that left a week ago, or at least someone else…damn isolation.

Log 5: 458.13.27, 20:34

I gathered myself, and as much supplies as I could carry, and left the bunker early this morning. While it should have been dark at the hour I left, the same sickly green light persisted across the landscape, emanating from some kind of pale green orb in the sky, glowing…pulsating like a second, malevolent sun. Compared to what awaited me in Traejale, or whatever’s left of it, the glowing orb was nothing, as I was met with a scene of absolute horror less than a minute I stepped out of the research bunker. The ruined city I expected was gone, replaced with what can only be described as an…utter mockery of a natural environment. Where towering buildings and factory complexes once stood, perverse, ruined lifeforms persisted instead, not a single lifeform I encountered was unaffected, everything, even the microbes on the ground were…mutated, forming a living surface where dirt should be. Trees have become disgusting masses flesh and bone, growing bleeding, pus-oozing tendrils across the ground, and periodically releasing bursts of spores into the air. What few animals Traejale once hosted are equally afflicted, shambling around with horrifically distorted bodies and deformed limbs, with some even appearing as little more that pulsating masses of flesh, seemingly amalgamated from dozens of once-separate forms. I guess I figured out what that thing I saw on the cameras four days ago was. I couldn’t tell what most of these creatures originally were, and some even appeared to change and contort as I observed them. Many of these…things have become large in size, and possess gaping, tooth-filled maws or gnarled claws. Thankfully all the creatures I observed were too…broken in form to do more than stumble towards my general direction, if they even still possessed the organs to sense me at all. Whatever caused the environment to so horrifically change is a mystery, yet it appears to be fully-mitigated by my exosuit, however I have yet to find any signs of human life amongst this biological hellscape.

Log 6: 458.13.28, 17:20

I explored for a few hours more after writing yesterday’s log, and came across a rocky crevice to sleep in. The days I spent in the pitch-black bunker are still affecting my sleep, which has been little-improved in the ever-present green light that bathes the surface. I thought the makeshift crevice would be safe from the mutated things I observed yesterday, but I was wrong. I woke up to a fleshy tendril originating from a nearby ‘tree’ constricting around my leg, just below the knee. I cut it off easily enough, but my leg has remained numb, if still functional, for hours now. I don’t dare remove my exosuit however. As I continued to look for other survivors today, I came across a bloated mass of flesh, about three meters in height with bone-white skin, and multitudes of thick blue veins just beneath it. As I approached it, the thing let out a sharp moan, and began to contort, before dozens of maggot-like creatures chewed their way out of its flesh. Each was fat, and the length of my boot, and consisted of a wriggling body with a human head and a mouth filled with overgrown, gnashing teeth. Each one made eye contact with me from the moment they emerged from the fleshy mass, and out of morbid curiosity, I intended to observe them, but as they began to chew on my boots, I ran. It was only hours later that I had fully realized what I witnessed, and came to the awful conclusion as to why the creatures had human heads. I spent the latter part of the day wandering across the ruined landscape, looking for survivors, or shelter, only to fail at finding both, and stumbling across more mutated masses too…confusing, too horrible to describe. The biology, and landscape, or Harkep is changing around me, on my left, the same fleshy trees appear to be growing from barren dirt, while on my right, a vast forest is melting into a single, viscous mass. I have completely lost my sense of direction in reference to the research bunker, as any real landmarks, artificial or natural, are wholly unrecognizable, or just gone. I found another place to rest for a few hours, it’s hardly a proper shelter, but at least there’s no ‘trees’ around this one. Tomorrow, I will head north, towards some hills in the distance which overlook whatever’s left of Traejale. From a distance, the region doesn’t appear to have many mutated forms on, and I can use the height to look for survivors, if any remain.

Log 7: 458.14.1, 01:52

I write this still in the location I slept yesterday, as when I awoke, my leg, the same one that was constricted by the tendril yesterday, was in agonizing pain and virtually paralyzed. The blood flow was probably cut off for too long, but yesterday…with the maggots, I can’t remove my exosuit, not even for this. Not that walking would be much use today, the hills I intended to climb this morning were just…gone. Whatever force destroyed the life here must also be capable of altering the terrain, as any other alternatives I could think are too terrible to accept. For now, I will wait where I am, there aren’t any creatures around me, and my emergency beacon is activated. Every survivor on this side of Harkep should know my location, and I have at least a weeks’ worth of food and water left in my suit’s stores.

Log 8: 458.14.1, 09:01

This…is it. I drifted off some time ago, only to away from a nightmare-ridden sleep. In my dreams, I was running, sprinting through a verdant green forest, but when I awoke, an entire forest, made not of wood and leaves, but of repulsive flesh and splintered bone surrounded me. My leg had stopped aching, but when I looked down, it simply…no longer existed, as in its place with a wriggling, blood-red tendril. With a strength I didn’t know my body still possessed, and with unexpected control over this grotesque appendage, I bolted, intent on exiting this newly-grown forest. I don’t know how long I ran for with that…thing replacing my leg, but it doesn’t matter now. At some point, my newfound control over the tendril simply ceased, and it drove itself into the ground, anchoring me, trapping me within this abhorrent place. It is from here where I write my last log. Although I could swear I haven’t moved in hours, by pulse still feels like my body is bursting, and…my heartbeat, it’s perfectly in time with that pulsing thing in the sky. Yet now… the trees have turned towards me, and creatures are emerging from the blood and pus of the underbrush. By the firstgens…the trunks, the worms, the horrors…I’m surrounded by human faces. They’re smiling.

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Short story entry for the Lunar Awards, Season Nine.

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