Timeline: Past
Point of view: Claudia
Location: Red Planet
When Claudia awoke, she found herself in a cage of vines. It wasn’t clear at first what the cage walls were made off (there were no windows and limited lighting), but in time she was able to make them out as a kind of thin, red climbing vegetation and disappeared into the ceiling. They were seemingly planted in such a way that they curved upward into a dome-like structure, tightly packed and preventing light from filtering in through the cracks. Claudia couldn’t see a door. After Lisa Reed introduced herself to Claudia, she helped Claudia sit up.
This is when Lisa had told her everything she knew, which took what must have been hours to unload from her scattered mind. Lisa spoke calmly but quickly, sharing everything with Claudia that Claudia, too, would eventually share with Ralph. Lisa also shared things that Claudia didn’t plan to tell Ralph just yet. Ralph was on a need-to-know basis, as they say, and she didn’t know if she could trust him with the knowledge.
Lisa shared that she wasn’t first first person to be in the cage, and Lisa had been in the cage for a long time. She didn’t know for how long, but it felt longer than weeks. She’d slept and awoken too many times to count. Before her there’d been another, and the things Lisa shared with Claudia were the same the other had shared with her. It was a complex game of telephone, and Claudia had no way of knowing which parts of the story were true and which were false. Regardless, she believed that Lisa believed what she was saying, and if anything that meant she could trust the woman.
The condition of Lisa's clothing was such that she could have been mistaken for being nude. Her clothing had been worn thin and was torn and ragged at the edges. It was caked with so much dirt that Lisa couldn’t tell the original color of the shirt. She had on shorts (at least, they had become shorts) and her knees and thighs were scuffed white from the hard ground.
In the dome, there were no beds and no water. There was no apparent dedicated urinal. When Claudia had asked, Lisa said, “That corner of there,” and pointed to an area of the dome that was not a corner at all. “If you need to go, I’ll close my eyes. They come in and clean it out while we’re sleeping. They bring us… food and water each morning. They leave nothing behind when we’re done. They come back and remove all scraps."
With the room and board questions out of the way, Lisa dropped the hammer. “This will be our only day together, Lisa said. “In the morning, they will come to take me away and they will leave you. You will be stuck here until they find a fresher magnet.”
“What do you mean?” Claudia asked. “Where will they take you?”
“I don’t know. But what the person before me said was that when we come to this place, we’re attracted to areas where there are other humans. We don’t know if that’s true or not, but that’s what the buzzsaws apparently believe. So they leave us here partly as bait, to attract more people to the forest. I don’t know how we know that, but that’s what I was told, so I’m relaying the information.”
“But for what cause?”
“Because we create the pylons,” Lisa said, and Claudia looked at the woman in confusion.
Lisa continued. “We still don’t know how we get here. One theory is that it’s due to a wormhole that connects our planet to theirs. Another is that it’s an inter-dimensional thing, where some people are able to see and interact with another dimension altogether. Other theories are that the bridge was created on Earth, either accidentally or on purpose, hoping to link humanity with other intelligent life. But it's all guess work. All we know is that people keep coming here, mostly unintentionally. And we all seem to come to the same place or general area. Amongst the trees. At least, those of us that end up here have.”
“And so, naturally, those… things...”
“Buzzsaws.”
“Buzzsaws. They think it’s because we attract each other to ourselves, as if we’re… super-powered, inter-dimensional magnets?”
Lisa nodded her head, her tangled curls bouncing on ends as she did. Claudia found the woman’s hair pretty, how she’d been able to keep such nice curls despite everything. Some people had naturally amazing hair, and her jealousy came subconsciously.
“So why don’t they just pile us up in here?” Claudia asked.
Lisa got quiet, tears starting to pool in the corners of her eyes. “The one before me didn’t know for sure, since we never see outside this tomb. However, the theory is that it would be a waste to collect us all here.”
“A waste?” Claudia asked incredulously when Lisa didn’t immediately continue.
Lisa took a wavering deep breath. “Yes. Keep one as a magnet. Keep the magnet fresh. Use the others… for research.”
Research? Claudia almost asked, but then quickly understood. What would humanity do to an alien, if it somehow ended up on Earth? What did they do to new species of animals that were found?
She felt sick to her stomach. That was why the people never come back, as Lisa had said. Claudia, in an instant of horror, knew that Lisa was about to face what the others before her faced, the others she never saw again, and she was terrified. Before her was more than likely death. And then after Lisa, Claudia would face death.
Claudia feeling a rush of emotion and fear, reached out to hug Lisa.
Lisa threw her back. “Don’t touch me,” she said angrily.
Claudia, stunned by the reaction, only stared into Lisa’s brown, blurring eyes.
When there are only two humans left on an entirely new planet, wouldn’t they seek the comfort of one another?
“When they come,” Lisa said, breaking the moment, “You need to understand how important this is. Pass the message. Everything I’ve explained to you. The history, the races on the planet, what each of person before us has learned so far. Then also include anything you’ve learned while here…”
“What it’s like inside the trees?”
“Yes, that feeling you got inside the tree. All of it. We need to keep a living record for those that are still living. If somehow one of us escapes we need to warn the others back on Earth about this planet. We have to make plans for how to deal with what’s here.”
“Has anyone gone back to Earth?” Claudia interrupted, fearful of the answer that would likely be returned. Lisa only stared into her eyes firmly, her tears drying. Claudia understood the message. No one had returned. She was stuck there, and would be stuck there until she died. The rock that had been hovering in her gut landed, and she heaved, quickly bringing her hand up to her mouth to hold back what she could.
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“That corner,” Lisa said harshly, "Piss, shit, and puke over there," and Claudia crawled on her knees using one hand for balance until she reached the far side. The dirt was darker and felt oily on the skin of her hand and knees. A musty smell crept up into the air around her. She emptied the contents of her stomach onto the soil.
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They were lying on the ground on opposite sides of the dome, both trying to sleep. Neither was successful. Claudia could hear Lisa’s heavy breathing and knew the woman was unable to sleep, the unknown lingering at the edges of her tired mind. Earlier that day, Claudia had asked questions and Lisa had dutifully answered, fulfilling her job as the next human in line to relay information. Now the end drew near.
Claudia thought about how quickly and easily humans adapted to their roles, knowing she was ready to accept hers. Claudia was processing her new role, Lisa hers. Life was the stringing together of accepted roles, from one unexpected change to the next. Everything seemed to proceed at an even pace, almost to the point of becoming a bore, until one day it didn’t and everything changed. A parent died and suddenly a child is forced to become an adult. A boss promotes an employee to manager, and the next day the employee instructs people that were once peers. A teenager gives birth to a baby and suddenly has to become a mother.
Now each human magnet that landed in the dome had accepted their new role. First as a messenger, then as... whatever came next. Perhaps there was an aspect of facing death that unlocked humanity’s animalistic proclivity for adaptive survival.
Or perhaps they’d just been lucky so far.
“Lisa, how many people came before you?”
She was quiet for awhile, and Claudia didn't know if she'd ever respond. “I don’t know. I know of only the last one, and that there had been more before him.”
“What was his name?”
“Brett. He was a father. He had a newborn daughter.”
Claudia swallowed, suddenly feeling as though her situation wasn’t nearly as bad as some of the others had been. She stared up at the edges of the curved vines above her until they disappeared into the black. “How did Brett end up here?”
“He said he woke up here one morning. Not here here, but out past the river. The night before he’d had a terrible headache, and so he’d gone to sleep early. Then woke up here.”
“Jesus,” Claudia said, thinking about her own shock after a night of drinking. At least she’d been conscious during the transition.
“He told me about his daughter before they took him. He said he hoped that his body had still remained there in the bed next to his wife, even if that version of him died. He said he’d rather his daughter believe he’d died in bed than think he’d abandoned her.”
Lisa inhaled through her nose sharply, and Claudia rolled her head to the side to see that the woman was crying.
“That way, he'd said, at least his daughter would have some peace, you know? Would know that her father didn’t leave them. She’d at least have hope, the understanding that her father loved her, wherever he’d gone. Some kids don’t have that. Some kids just get left on the side of the road and have to wonder their entire lives why they weren’t good enough.”
Claudia understood that this wasn’t hypothetical, that Lisa was going through her own memories in order to accept what came next, but she didn’t know what to say to reassure the woman. It wasn’t an experience she’d ever had, and couldn’t imagine a world such as that. Suddenly she felt immense guilt for how she’d treated her parents. Sure they were overbearing assholes, but even so, perhaps she’d taken them for granted.
“Lisa, I’m so sorry,” she said.
“Shut the fuck up, no you aren’t. You don’t care.”
“I do. Children deserve to grow up like that. It’s not right. It’s unfair.”
“Yeah, well. Fuck fair right?” Lisa said, wiping her eyes and still staring up at the top of the dome. “Unwanted on Earth only to end up a goddamn prisoner on some random ass red planet. Tomorrow I die. What was the fucking point?”
Claudia didn’t know what to say. She had nothing to say. She wondered if she’d reach this level of devastation when her own time came. Lisa had survived how many days in here waiting for the next person to show up only for the end of the mission to arrive. There was a level of denial that came with survival, knowing consciously what was to come wasn’t the same as knowing subconsciously. And why was that? Because humans were just animals, too. Animals with inflated egos and sense of self-worth.
“None of it has a point,” Claudia said, “None of us have purpose. We live, then we die.”
“Ha!” Lisa said, “You’re one of those. Should have guessed from your hair and clothes.”
“Fuck you, don’t stereotype me.”
“You stereotype yourself.”
“How about we just stop talking if you’re gonna be a bitch,” Claudia said, closing her eyes.
“Yeah, sure. Just don’t forget what I’ve told you. One of these days one of us will figure out how to get out of here, and we need to prepare for that person.”
What if I’m that person, Claudia thought, feeling insulted by the woman’s tone. She knew Lisa expected her to be nothing more than a bridge from her to the next adult, the next person that stood an actual chance of getting out of this place. Because that person couldn't be Claudia.
This thought opened another realization for Claudia. Lisa’s devastation wasn’t only because she was finally faced with the unknown. Lisa had hoped the next person to come through that door would have been her savior. She’d likely hoped the next person would be a hulk of a man, a hero, a prince in shining armor. Instead she got a goddamn emo kid that wanted to hug her sadness away.
Again she felt sad for the woman, wanted to offer some kind of consolation, but knew Lisa didn’t want that. Lisa had long ago rejected Claudia as nothing more than a link in the chain. Any spoken words would only make the situation worse.
She rolled away from Lisa and faced the wall of the dome. She was cold and so she hugged herself tightly. She felt cold because she felt alone and worthless. She was nothing more than a cog in some horrific sentient creature’s wheel, a cow awaiting slaughter.
No. She thought to herself. No. I am going to be the fucking iron rod that snaps the cog altogether.
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She awoke to Lisa’s screams. She opened her eyes, the red light filtering in through the lines of the vines of the dome. Lisa screamed again and Claudia spun around to face the sound. Somehow a doorway had opened in the vines. Two of the buzzsaw creatures were tugging on Lisa, their teeth spinning and grating, communicating with one another in ways the two humans couldn’t understand.
“Back the fuck off, don’t touch me!” Lisa screamed, “Let me go, you fuck.”
Claudia stepped forward to intervene, eager to do something to stop them from taking her… her friend? The buzzsaw closest to her swatted Claudia with a back of its hand faster than she could see it happen. She collided with the ground, her head slamming painfully against the dirt. A headache pulsed from the impact.
Lisa fared a little bit better, pulling back as one of the buzzsaws attempted to drag her through the door. She swung a fist down and hit one the the monster’s eyes and a black puss exploded from it. The creature squealed and backed away from the woman so the other could take it’s place. Lisa attempted the same attack against the second, but this one grabbed hold of her wrists. Lisa started to jump and kick, but the buzzsaw held her back.
The first recovered enough from the shock to lift up its weapon.
“No!” Lisa shrieked, “I’ll fuck you up, you piece of shit!” She screamed.
The axe hung in the air above her head, and for a short time Claudia worried she’d see the woman beheaded. Instead the buzzsaw spun the weapon in a circle and hit Lisa in the head with the blunt end. Lisa fell to the ground in a slump.
“Lisa!” Claudia shouted and stood. She shakily ran toward the woman. “Lisa, get up!” She shouted as she approached, but Lisa didn’t move. The creature with the axe scurried to block her path from the unconscious woman. Claudia stopped. She remembered about what Lisa had said, about the creatures needing them, about using them as magnets, and she felt as though she had a certain kind of leverage. She stepped toward the creature.
The creature scurried forward toward her not unlike a large centipede and raised the blunt edge of its weapon. The weapon hovered like a hammer above her in the air.
Claudia received the message loud and clear. The buzzsaw might not kill her, but it had no problem knocking her out cold. Claudia was helpless here. She could either be on the ground like Lisa, or she could stand here and do nothing as they took her. There had to be another approach.
The buzzsaw closest to the opening had Lisa’s hair in its fist. It drug her out into the red light. Soon after, the second buzzsaw spun around and scattered through the opening behind it. Claudia tried to break for the opening but the vines were quick to close the gap. She stumbled forward, attempting to stop her momentum, a new level of respect long since having formed for this planet’s odd vegetation.
“God dammit.” Claudia said as she slumped to the red dirt.