Much of West Africa was scotched when the last of the meteroites landed. The remaining population died off as noxious gases spread through the length of WA. No country remained. What used to be borders are now crimson venation when see from above.

Yes, our space shuttle was hurtling down fast. The anti-gravity stabilizers had malfunctioned upon entry into the Earth's stratosphere and so bodies were floating about, bumping together, nudging electrical knobs and there were creepy dangers sounds meowing forever.

Did i say bodies, yes....I am the lone survivor of the strange illness that suddenly affected everyone onboard. Except me.
The Captain, his neck purple and bloated, dead and floating like the others. The Space shuttle bursting through near earth space debris. I might have survived getting infected but i seriously doubt if i will walk with my two legs or even be alive once the shuttle crash onto Terra firma.

If you are listening to my thought messages on Diab 1048 then know that we, my crew, had been destined to a fatal fate. We are crashing down to earth, all fallen sick and dead....except me.

Dust clouds rush to embrace us, as if they can with-hold the pervasive force of gravity pulling the shuttle. I closed my fits, willing that Death should come quick and without pain. That it would be a matter of seconds and that i shouldn't feel any pain upon impact.

In these fleeting moments as the shuttle, as we, the bodies, blast through the Earth's atmosphere - our crew's mandate flashed through my mind. Our ship was on a mission of exploration. One of the first ever built with the new prototype FEI Eirzon Drive. Our primary mission was twofold.
- One, find there are any flicker of human life in the disaster zones, preferably without signs of morbidity.
- Two, test if the oxygen levels have normalized for human re-colonization.

Watching polluted clouds brush pass our speeding shuttle, I couldnt help feelin sad and forlorn. Here, we were sent to check for signs of life but instead, we are hurtling to a scarred earth at break neck speed. A space shuttle filled with six dead bodies and a lone about-to-be dead survivor.

We weren't just sent to look for signs of life back on dear earth, our population back at Planet Diab is 2000 individuals strong. But we are all..infertile.

At Planet Diab, We thought we had found a replacement habitat, the planet was an earth twin, with almost earth-like fauna but the down side is that its atmosphere is laced with a reactive isotope of Nitrogen that somehow interfered with our reproductive system. No one has given birth to a live child. Stillbirths upon stillbirths. the researchers are not forthcoming with any working solution.

Of the population that were ferried off to planet Diab, three hundred was of African descent, on this shuttle I am the only African. The one of twenty Original Nigerians that escaped Earth when the meterorites came in their hundreds. I was handpicked by my superior because Central sensors at AIO HQRTs began picking signs of life on the region that was once Onitsha. My superior deemed fit to add someone who would probably communicate more with the survivors.

My future thought listener, You know fully well that earth was ravaged sixty five years ago at year 2135. The prophets predicted it but we never knew it would come upon us that sooner. The meteriotes first hit tiny taiwan then mainland China. They didn't just hit, curious sediments on each of the platinum rich meteor contained a yet to be identified reactant that mixes with our oxygen and formed a by product that killed off in dozens those that survived the meteorites' impact, the resultant tornadoes and the seismic waves.

My future thought eavesdropper, you might not fully understand how AIO picked up those life heat waves from earth but i will briefly forward an explanation. Prior to to the earth's destruction,a terrorist organization had metamorphosed from ISIL into a powerful drug-money fuelled but science inclined organization. They inject a chemical compound know colloquially as CH4 into the bodies of willing volunteers. Their Branch in North East Nigeria was an effective massive recruiter of young people. These CH4 inoculated people were used as instruments of warfare. they were mindlessy potent and strong. Their IQs as a result of the CH4 in their circulatory system caused instant mutations that made them approached the limits of human intelligence but only for malevolence. They conquered huge swathes of what was once known as the Middle East and East Africa. They were ruthless in their acts of terror that much of the world governing council agreed to develop a counter measure.

Nice writing... Didn't know we had good sci-fi writers here... Wanna team up sometime??

The counter measure was to use chip implants....

When every child is born, they're given a Umbrella Inc. Death Detector chip, which is injected into the nape of the neck and uses nanites to merge with the baby's nervous system, and using a predictive algorithm, it not only projects their date of death , it also protects them from being receptive to the CH4. It updates itself daily, taking into account current health, genetic pre-dispositions, even geographic crime rates. There is a margin for error, of course, as random chance can always affect when someone dies, but the closer to the date of death you are, the more accurate it is.

The chip implants were moderately successful in caging the terror organization from turning people into terror zombies even though not every mother allowed their baby to get the free implants.

So our command headquarters on planet Diab got signals from an active chip on Earth. We were surpised that after all these years since the evacuation from earth that .......there is still an active chip out there. A potential Fecund person.

Segundevond2@yahoo.com... Let's talk...

brainiac13:
Segundevond2@yahoo.com... Let's talk...

Sent a mail now...

My future thought listener, we have passed the clouds, the scorched remains of earth is approaching at dizzying speed...I wish i could pray but earth gods died a long time ago with the earth.

The tail ends of the shuttle are now on fire, my lips are drawn forcefully away from my teeth as our acceleration mounted. The dead bodies pressed me against the cubicle window and even in this dire moment, i coundn't help admiring what was once my childhood home.
when i was younger, I used to see pics of the first space walker's view of earth as they re-entered from space. It was always beautiful. The earths curvature view was as beautiful still....the hard beauty of devastation , of desolateness.

If your sensors are receptive of my thought signals, please tell my superior, Emekon Odi120 of the 12th Detachment, that I, First mate, Kazuna Maduka aboard Shuttle DF-458 have failed....

I dont know how to end this short.... :p

Anyway, shout out to Nnedim Okoroafor for winin the Hugo Award....itz not easy doin and winin in scifi.

The crash came in a cacophony of heavy sounds and wheezing dusts. And lumpy bodies thrusting me through hard perplex. At least that was all i saw and could feel before i went into oblivion.

When i came to, orange fingerlins of a setting sun burned my eyes. They are swollen to slits. Trails of dirt and blood streaked down from them. One ear, the left one, was entirely crushed. I could taste copper in my mouth and the entire front teeth felt they could come off if i dare open my mouth.

The smoldering wreckage of the shuttle came blurry in my view at first and then brought an instant recollection of our misfortune and the gnawing pain of failure. They got roasted...I survived again.

A meter away from me lay my head visor on its side, partly burnt but with its radio lights still winking..mocking my disabled state.

It felt as if i could hear my damaged ear capillaries crying, i gave a weak groan and tried to turn on my back. My ribs protested gravely. The pain was numbing, enough to beg for death even.

The fates must have pitied me, I passed out again into a dark dreamless void.

Its was a witchy moonlight when i awoke from my pain-induced slumber.....


It was pain again when my body thawed from the last remnants of the sleep. Of course my whole frame ached like a thousand tiny hands were pulling out strands of neurones and veins inside me, but the most severe pressure came from my damaged ear.....Something was on it.

Someone was making phlegmatic sounds above what was left of my ear. In one horrid instant , a picture of a night scavenger, an hyena perhaps, no a bald vulture taking stringy chunks of my ear cartilage morphed in my mind. I screamed.

A figure, half naked and moist skin in the moonlight, knocked back a few meters away from me. He was on all fours. His eyes gleaming with curiosity and a wariness that belied his near savage appearance.

His lips dark with my ear blood. I could perceive his unwashed body, the metallic odour of my blood dropping off his mouth, the crisp tang of the soot drifting from the shuttle wreckage.

When you are really scared, your olfactory keens to its limits. I was really scared...

Try o, keep writing.

I don't do sci-fi but how about you give yourself a mission, you were able to locate the living beings in onitsha only to find out that a higher sentient being have them in captivity and all you have to do now is save them.

You mentioned that people in Planet Diab were infertile so if they were unable to give birth how is it that you are here in the now if the destruction happened 65 years ago. Or maybe its just dat you didn't grow old or you were a kid when it happened and you re just now 65+ old.

There are so many ways this your build up can go and i'm very sure you can do it. plus i love the sci-fi terms you are using so far..., Planet Diab, eirzon drive, aio.etc

Plus i don't seem to get ''my future thought listener'' and ''my future thought eavesdropper''

MrsExplorer:
Try o, keep writing.

I don't do sci-fi but how about you give yourself a mission, you were able to locate the living beings in onitsha only to find out that a higher sentient being have them in captivity and all you have to do now is save them.

You mentioned that people in Planet Diab were infertile so if they were unable to give birth how is it that you are here in the now if the destruction happened 65 years ago. Or maybe its just dat you didn't grow old or you were a kid when it happened and you re just now 65+ old.

There are so many ways this your build up can go and i'm very sure you can do it. plus i love the sci-fi terms you are using so far..., Planet Diab, eirzon drive, aio.etc

Plus i don't seem to get ''my future thought listener'' and ''my future thought eavesdropper''

Reading ur work actually spurred me to this, beforehand.....I thought i was cut out only for horror.

Ok, Earth was destroyed 65 years ago and i was ferried along side a few survivors when I was barely 10. On Planet diab, We developed or rather inherited/modified a tech with the ability to transmit thought processes across great distances. Ofcourse, u can always block ur channel, make urself invisible just like outdated bluetooth radios of ur current time but all powerful Central Command (AIO) can easily scrammble any thought channel and/or eavesdrop on it....much like the Americans did with the Japanese Morse codes during WWII

kazuna:


Reading ur work actually spurred me to this, beforehand.....I thought i was cut out only for horror.

Ok, Earth was destroyed 65 years ago and i was ferried along side a few survivors when I was barely 10. On Planet diab, We developed or rather inherited/modified a tech with the ability to transmit thought processes across great distances. Ofcourse, u can always block ur channel, make urself invisible just like outdated bluetooth radios of ur current time but all powerful Central Command (AIO) can easily scrammble any thought channel and/or eavesdrop on it....much like the Americans did with the Japanese Morse codes during WWII

oh, i get now. i'm just too dull for sci fi.

This is a nice one, great sci-fi work. Make I no pretend lyk sey I understand the terms.

But the story is...gbam!

Kudos...following

MrsExplorer:


oh, i get now. i'm just too dull for sci fi.

Mrs Explorer...Do Book cover for me nah,abeg. For my new book 'Ajegunle'. I've mentioned you there.

I promise you'll love it.

He made a cooing sound at me - like he was hushing a baby to sleep. His pudgy fingers crept to his dark stained lips, then he smiled. Innocence was emblazoned on that set of perfect milk teeth that i forgot my pains momentarily.

He was barely five. Chubby and with an intelligence, no a tragic calmness that I had only seen in a picture of a boy from the then worn torn Aleppo.

My ear-blood sucking person was a wee baby.

fikfaknuel:


Mrs Explorer...Do Book cover for me nah,abeg. For my new book 'Ajegunle'. I've mentioned you there.

I promise you'll love it.

I just kinda took a break but i promise, i'll do it

OK, how do I explore MrsExplorer's Sentient Beings idea

####********************

He moved towards me again with the agility of an ape, you could almost touch his curiosity...

I cringed, half expecting him to lurch for my blood but he stopped in his tracks the sooner he saw my defensive motion. He stood straight, wiped his stained hands on his adorably protruding belly and said.

"Bia, Mama, in the house". His small index finger pointing in the dark, towards dark formations that the moonlight wrapped ghostly around.

I was stunned into tears. This time, not sallow self pity for my disability, but an almost cacophonous gonging of joy hit me.
The rings of hope, that sense of not completely failing, came in tiny strands of tears.

He said Mama...Delicious images grew wildly in my mind. There are more survivors of Earth's Meteor rain. Certainly, He was a post apocalypse child and not the bearer of the chip. The chip bearer must be the mother or the father. Humanity would be fecund again. We wont go extinct. My tears came in rivers now.

Interesting apocalyptic themed scifi.

jantavanta:
Interesting apocalyptic themed scifi.

Thank you....

************

"You a baby. Mama said only babies cry." He said, his voice succinct and carrying a little in the quiet night. I guess he had never seen a grown ass man weep.

He came down on his hands again, crawled to me and used his dirty fingers to wipe off my tears and the smudge on my swollen face. He smiled again, beautiful and savage, eyes gleaming with mischievous awe in the moonlight,a child clearly bemused to see a grown adult hapless and wimping. I wont blame him, of course, this grown man was overwhelmed - this grown man was basking in a renewed hope. He will never understand.

" I will get Mama for you. She will pour water on you. You are dirty" He said and sprang into the night, towards those dark formations that my puffed up eyes cant make out clearly in the distance.


An hour must have passed or may be just a few minutes, You cant really tell the time when you are in between states of hopeful tears, Flesh-cleaving pains and near delirium. I slipped into my delirious sleep once more and got startled when i heard a shout. The boy's cry as he seemed to be smacked by someone. It must be the mother. I could hear her wary grumblings as they approach. I tried to twist my neck, hoping to get a vivid silhouette of the woman before she comes up close but my scapulas hurt so bad. Despite the pains, I couldn't wait to behold the face of the woman who had salvaged Humanity by been fertile. The part of my mind, that has always being a cynic, chided me for being so excitable. She cant be the only post-apocalypse female survivor who can get pregnant.

A shrouded figure hit my left clavicle with a dark instrument. The butt of a rifle, The rough hewed edge of a tree trunk....

What was i expecting, a kind virgin Mary?

My scream rented the night.

I was dragged on coarse ground. My bones protesting in white hot earnest pains. At some point i felt my scapulas would yank off my shoulder. The woman was dead to my anguished screams. She kept on talking in electrified tones to the boy. she was strong for a woman. I prayed to expire but somehow the thrill of first contact fiercely mixed with the excited hostility of the first humans I met on EARTH WAS like an electrical prod against that Death wish. The boy kept on gibberish with his guardian.

I found it astonishing how they had suddenly begun to talk in code language almost. The boy that had conversed with me in the language of my youth had suddenly switched to a tecno-variant of Igbo dialogue with his mother. Clearly, Mother thought I was a threat or some spy or both. Whether wounded or not, a foe is a foe. I could be food, even. Surely the Earth is a wilderness now, survivors need to arm to the teeth. Territories would be re-carved. Mutual suspicion must be the relevant ingredient for survival before any thought on civilizing.

The full moon was hidden in a veil of clearly dirty clouds now, as indifferent as the rough ground's sharp stones tearing away my cyber suit, pockmacking my flesh in a thousand places. As indiffent as the dark shreds of cloth that was the woman, shreds fluttering in the slight breeze catching us. Wind that now carried with it the aromas of roasting meat and the lint of lemon grass. Perhaps the dark formations i could glimpse in the distance was a settlement. Despite the pains, a part of me was still adamant and glad. I can smell Earth as it were, 65 year ago

Chapter Two

The Rough handling by the gangly woman and my ever present fracture pains sent me back to oblivion - when I came to again (which was brought upon by a rude splash of tepid water), i was in a room with overhanging , large chunks of meat. I assume it was meat, deliciously crusted, roasted perhaps, my sight had not recovered but my sense of smell was as acute despite my state.

They were suspended from mangled hooks that dropped from a hipped ceiling. The ambient light in the room gave them a succulent carrot red, even with the crusts on their rounded, tampering edges.

A fire cackled in a red mud heath and played nimbly on the small boy, casting undulating monsters on the surrounding wall. He sat on a wooden slab, crossed legged and gnawing ravenously on a tomato. The tomato fluids dripping over his lips and onto his adorable belly.

The thought of tomatoes made my stomach grumble. I felt famished. Tomatoes...
The cultivars we took on to Planet Diab failed to germinate and so do many other vegetables. Some did grew in abundance, especially spinach, but for the rest, farmers tried to cultivate with much optimism than success in the unrewarding lateritic soils of Diab.

The room had the remnants of a mechanic's tool-shed converted to a hybrid living space and pantry and smelled just as nice. What looked like a rafta mat blocked its single exit to the outside world.

In its cloistered space, the woman roamed frantically around, deftly meandering through the hanging flesh, muttering, putting things aside with the hurried frenzy of a confused demon. She placed an iron blade over the heath and my Uvula spasmed like sewage rats were gnawing at it.

The blade was wicked. It would soon grow hot. I stiffened my self, prepping for some kind of torturing.I channeled a small prayer to any listening god, begging him to strike my cerebral cortex with epileptic shocks or cause the onset of Septicemia. What else could there be. Instinctively, i longed for the exit blocked by the rafta mat, cursing myself for my stupid clinging to life. I should have perished with the others in that shuttle crash.

After a while, as the Blade made sizzling noises and glowed, the lanky woman picked it off the fire with a rag and stash it into a steel bucket. She crashed to the floor beside where I lay, elbows thrusted acutely away from her lean frame and the rusted steel bucket making clanging noises that forced the boy off his tomato. She had taken off her shawl to reveal a weathered , crude face. She brought the glowing blade's tip close to my left eye. It was hopeless, my mind screamed - prepare for whatever.