Surge: Prologue

Disclaimer: I apologise in advance for any spelling/grammar - this is an entirely unedited Work In Progress and therefore my dyslexia will be on full display. ^_^; If I publish this, I'll get it edited, but for now, enjoy the rough draft - let's have fun!

PROLOGUE

It is in solitude that a man finds solace,

Yet it is in community that a man flourishes;

For man was made to make friends.

Grass, between my toes. I sink into the dampness, crushing the thin blades, and delight in the warm mud that oozes against my skin with a delicious tingling.

I have never known the sweet smell of grass, nor the feeling soil flush against bare skin. Just stories. Words. Pitiful words of longing. How could I comprehend a meadow, ablaze with golden flowers, when I had never once seen one? Was this image before me, with a wide blue sky, and long white clouds, even true?

Grandpapa, who had stayed behind, had told me that Earth had a blue sky, but what was the colour blue? Is it the shade of mother’s eyes, forlorn and lonely, lost forever in desolate despair?

Entrapped we both are, snared in the cold slumber of cryogenic sleep.

They told us that you do not dream in the icy cocoons—but I dream—extravagant dreams of green grass, golden flowers, and blue skies.

I dream of things I do not know; of things I not yet understand.

I dream of terror. Of an endless coming night. Of the stars going out—one—by—one

I dream of mother—

Of mother’s cries—

For no one can hear her—

Long ago—

Mother died—I think—

Long ago—

I am trapped—

Endless—

Drifting—

I am at peace—I cannot fear ever growing old, for I am immortal in my cocoon. The things a boy would worry of seem distant, and I only hear my laughter, not the harrowing sobs of souls who mourn for the world we lost—long ago.

There was no warning of their arrival. No hallelujah, no lightshow, no sign to declare their existence. Just a hail of hellfire that fell from our Sun, and like a plague of rampaging maggots, meteors consumed all the flesh upon the Earth—we called The Fireflies.

Just a passing storm it was. It vanished. Leaving behind a void. A dead Sun, an unliveable planet. We of the Mars Colony were all that remained, but even we could not last long in a cold—dead—zone—

So, we mined. We ripped Mars apart to seek the resources it contained and dragged out from its depths our final hope. One last ship. One last breath. Freedom would be launched. Desperation and hope in a ship, slow moving as a whale, like the colony-ships of old, sent out into space centuries ago. Silently it would swim through the endless expanses towards a dot on a star-map.

We were, after all, deep in our blood, still explorers, still colonists. Even without Earth, humanity would reach outward, into the galaxy, and find land once more in a vast ocean.

If we had known—

If only we had known—

Freedom is a tomb.

There is ice in my veins.

The stars are going out.

I am alone.

I drift.

Alone.

Hello? Can you hear me?

Warmth.