I crept up to the edge of the pit and looked down at its immeasurably dark, beckoning void. I stared in amazement at its depth and width, it being a perfect cylinder 50 meters in diameter and unknowably deep. I looked down at the remains of what used to be a mountain, now peppered with holes of the same characteristics as the one stated before. The mountain was rich in titanium, gold, and aluminum. The once great formation must have been torn up and mined by automated vessels. I turned my head to the side and ran down the rocks towards a nearby grassy plane.

As I stopped to recover from my exaustion, I gazed up in amazement. The unit towered over 600 feet above me. It was a monolithic structure, ridiculously efficient and powerful, probably costing over 100 million dollars. Its mere presence almost had a mental aura, pressing on my temples and forcing upon me its ominous presence. I wondered why it was stationed in this field, alone, without any other vessels anywhere near it. I thought that it must have been placed here for a special reason.

I heard a faint rumbling in the distance, and realized that the materials produced my the automated mining vessels were probably being collected. I knew that they would probably transport the ore from here last, since it was the furthest away, and so I had about 2 hours before I needed to leave. The planes passed by overhead as I laid on the moist grass. I counted the planes flying overhead. "One plane, two planes, three planes, fou-Woah! Why is it so fast?"

More streaks passed through the sky at blistering speeds, and their trails left red imprints on the blues and whites of the sky. I heard alarms beginning to blare as the sonic booms of the projectiles ruptured my eardrums. "S--K S-L-TR D- OT T-MPT CUAT-ON" I heard loud voices yell over the alarm system. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but I thought they said 'SEEK SHELTER OR ATTEMPT EVACUATION," so I ran as fast as I could toward the mountain. I felt the exhaustion set in, but I continued with my adrenaline. I ran towards the transporters but they had all already gone into the pits created by the automatic miners.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Then, the realization set in. I can't crawl into those pits, I'll die. But I'll die if I stay up here too. I don't know where any shelters are. I'm going to die in a few minutes. I accepted the realization and ran as fast as I could down the mountain once again. 2 minutes later I came to my beloved mining unit, still mining ore. This thing, this inanimate object, was the best thing that I could reasonably spend my final moments with now. I watched as on the horizon, a bright orange line extended out of the burning, red sky as the trail of a brightly shining star. Once it collided with the ground, it exploded in a near perfect bubble fashion, expanding at over 40 times the speed of sound, destroying and burning everything it touched.

I stared in disbelief as the entire mountain was obliterated into rust colored sand in a matter of seconds. The sand and dust was thrown torwards us by the explosion, breaking down the outer layers of the automatic mining unit. Only one grain of dust hit me, breaking off my entire leg. The fields shone a brilliant yellow as they were torn and destroyed, and I stared happily up at the automatic mining unit as the explosion approached us, reducing us to disconnected and plasmised atoms.