Rain of Terror

It was Saturday, that most holy of all days. Trevor was done with his homework and his mother had told him he could go for a hike in the woods to his favorite place all by himself today. She usually made him take his younger brother Brent, he was really annoying, but he was still his brother. Trevor knew that his hometown of Hollistown was not really that big of a place, but it seemed plenty big to him. He usually liked to get away from the relative bustle of the city and out of town when he had the chance.

Trevor was wearing his hiking boots and a sturdy pair of denim shorts as he made his way through the woods to Greytop Mountain. It wasn't really a mountain, but it was the largest hill overlooking the shallow valley that Hollistown sat in. The view from the top was incredible, you could see for ages in all directions. It's as if the entirety of Fresholm fell away to the horizons and he was standing on the top of the world. He loved the feeling.

Stopping at a small brook, he took the chance to refill his water bottle from the fresh spring water runoff that ran alongside the trail. His bottle would automatically test the water for contaminants and then filter them out, but the taste of the fresh groundwater was still a luxury that he savored. He sat on a nearby log and sipped the cool water for a few minutes as he looked at his surroundings.

Fresholm was one of those rare planets that's biosphere was naturally inhabitable to the vast majority of the known races. Humans, like himself, enjoyed wide open spaces and blue oxygenated skies. The Yeown, he had been told, liked more enclosed places, big trees and dense forests. The Vinarfel liked tropical jungles and high humidity. And the grumpy Atraxses like frigid, frozen ice balls.

Trevor looked to the small shrubs and bushes that surrounded him. There were trees here, but they were small scraggly things. Only a few meters in height. His mother had told him that their homeworld, a place called Dirt or something like that, had higher gravity than Fresholm, but Trevor liked it here just fine. 'Why would anyone want to weigh more when they didn't have to?' He thought to himself.

Trevor stood as he finished sipping his water and refilled the bottle from the stream again before clipping it to his small hiking backpack. He had made sure, well, mother had made sure that he packed a nice healthy lunch to eat once he reached Greytop peak.

Trevor once more started up the narrow trail that wound its way up towards the highest part of the mountain. He looked out for roots and other things that could trip him, while his eyes were down he spotted an interesting looking rock.

Picking it up he saw that it was tan with a funny blue stripe going through the middle of it and he smiled. His father liked to collect odd rocks and minerals and would surely appreciate this find. Trevor stuck it in his pocket to give to his father when he returned later that evening.

As he walked he whistled a tuneless song, the sound of the wind as it whispered through the bushes was his only company. The native wildlife on Fresholm was mostly limited to aquatic life and small insects, most of which were completely harmless to him. Though he was always on the lookout for pinchflies. They looked like a small five segmented insect with large pinchers instead of a mouth. While they were not venomous like bees from Dirt, they did deliver painful pinches to anything that strayed into their territory.

Trevor remembered the first time he and Brent had found some of the nasty critters when they were on vacation at the coast a few years ago. They had stumbled upon a small buried hive of them as they were walking along the beach and the bugs, angry at the disturbance, had swarmed them and covered them in painful pinches. Brent and him had run crying back to their parents who had calmed them down and explained their biology to them. Trevor had been interested immediately, but Brent had not cared.

Brent was fourteen, only two years younger than him, but he was a pain. Always complaining about boredom and talking about hologames, Trevor never understood his younger brother's lack of interest in the natural world.

Trevor knelt down by the edge of the trail as he spotted a ripe brickleberry bush, he knew the berries were inedible to him, but that they were the favorite treat of his pet Groint. He had found the large insect under the garbage can behind their home one afternoon and kept him. They were large, about ten centimeters long and kind of cute. He had tried to find what they ate and had discovered they liked the native equivalent of fruits and berries.

Trevor had named his pet Groint Jerry and given him a large glass aquarium to live in. The Groint were unique in the fact that they could live to be almost eight years old and seemed to be mildly intelligent. It was assumed that they were the planet's equivalent of Dirt's rodents.

Trevor put the small handful of foraged berries in a plastic bag that he then put into his pack. Jerry would have a feast when he got back home. Trevor smiled, the way Jerry's little feeler antennae would perk up when he saw Trevor made him sure that the little bugs were smarter than people gave them credit for.

Trevor kept walking up the path, it was a beautiful day, the bright yellow sun was high in the pale blue sky. There were a few wispy white clouds skirting lazily along the distant horizon, and he could just make out the glint of the nearby gas giant Helias II in the sky. It was a lot further away than it looked, but it was big enough, and reflected enough of their star's light, that it was visible even at midday.

A new sound reached Trevor's ears as he neared the top of the mountain, a series of distant cracks, like something big hitting the ground very far away. He scrunched his eyebrows at the strange noise but kept walking, it was probably a trick of the wind.

Scrambling up the last steep bit of trail, Trevor turned to look the way he had come from. He saw the entire valley laid out below him, arranged in a small patchwork of urbanized scrubland. The city looked so much smaller from up on top of the world. He frowned again as something about the scene didn't seem right, there was something wrong but he couldn't place it.

Again those distant cracks sounded and Trevor jumped as he finally noticed what was off. The sun was almost directly overhead and should have been lighting up the valley brightly, but instead there was an ominous gloomy shadow over the city.

Trevor looked up and saw no clouds. He looked higher and gasped in shock, hanging high in the sky, almost invisible through the atmospheric haze, was a titanic starship. The ship was huge and dark, bristling with all manner of strange devices that looked like guns to him.

Trevor was mesmerized by the sight, this massive object, seemingly hung in the sky as if by magic. He knew it was probably still in space and using its engines to stay aloft but it was hard to tell from so far away. He jumped again as he heard those strange crackling thumps, each hitting like a small fist of solid air now that he was in the open. It was now that he realized something was falling from the massive ship into the atmosphere. Tiny little dots fell into the atmosphere, heating up as they passed through the air at incredible speeds, before slamming down to the ground around the edges of his hometown.

Trevor didn't know what they were but didn't like what was happening nevertheless. He pulled out his small cellular phone and was about to call his mother when a flash lit the valley in a harsh light. Trevor looked up and whimpered in fear as he witnessed a massive explosion tear through Hollistown. He saw the local supermarket get hit by another object, this one sleeker and somehow deadlier looking before the entire structure detonated in a tremendous explosion moments later as the ordinance exploded. The shattered remains of the building left burning trails through the air as they sailed hundreds of meters from the blast to cause more damage and destruction.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

Trevor felt his knees getting weak as he watched the destruction, explosion after explosion tearing great burning gouges out of the place he had called home just hours before. He saw his school hit directly as it was flattened completely, the stadium where he had been playing sports with his friends only two days before was smashed to splinters by a wave of force that traveled the kilometers to him in seconds and hit him like a hammer blow to the gut causing his eyes to tear up.

The tears kept coming, streaming from his eyes as his knees gave way and he fell to the ground. He couldn't look away from it though, by the grace of luck, he couldn't look away. A sob tore through him as he saw his dad's workplace smashed flat in a fireball and spray of burning debris. He shook his head as another explosion tore a twenty-meter crater into the neighborhood his house was in, the tiny silhouettes of entire cars and trees being tossed away like grains of sand in the wind.

Trevor saw more destruction and knew in his heart that this was wrong, who could do something like this? Something so heinous. He screamed in rage and pain as the shelling continued. He threw his hands in the air and cursed the small ship in the sky to every bad place he could think of, and a few that he made up on the spot. He tried to stand but his legs wouldn't obey him as he was rocked by more hammer blows of force. The heat from the explosions was so great that even at this distance the air quickly grew hot and dry.

Trevor shut his eyes but still saw the flashes and knew that there were screams carried on the wind that he couldn't hear from this distance. He knew his family was dead, his friends, his teachers. Hell Jerry was gone too, he shuddered at that. Jerry had been his responsibility, if he hadn't taken him in he would probably be alive and happy out in the wild somewhere. For whatever reason the realization that he was probably directly responsible for the small bug's death hit him harder than the scene of carnage played out before him.

He fell to his side and curled up into a ball, as tight as he got he couldn't block out the ground shaking explosions or eye searing flashes of light. Spots swam behind his eyes as the spots the flashes had burned into his eyes swam in his mind. Trevor didn't know how much longer it went on, or even what time it had started, he just stayed curled up like that trying to ignore the fact that the entire world was dying and he couldn't do anything about it.

Trevor awoke in a cold sweat, he didn't remember falling asleep, but he had. He shivered as the fact it was dark caught up to his overwhelmed senses. He prayed that it had been a nightmare but was hit with a fresh wave of horror as he sat up and saw the ominous glow in the sky to his east. He stood shakily to his feet and sobbed openly as he saw the cratered, burned remains of Hollistown. Nothing remained, not a single building, not even a power pole. It was all gone.

He jumped as he thought he heard a faint crack. He relaxed as he remembered there wasn't anything out there that could really hurt him, still, it was better safe than sorry. Trevor pulled out his small pocketknife that his dad had given him on his birthday last year. He sniffled as the memory brought fresh tears to his eyes. He jerked his head up as he heard another small noise. There was definitely something in the darkness, he knew it now.

"H-h-hey! Stay back… I, I have a knife!" He shouted into the gloom. The gloom didn't answer back and he stood there with his arm raised threateningly for a few more moments before he relaxed again. It must have been his imagination, luck knew it had been a traumatic day. He was surprised he was still conscious and functioning, he knew enough medical stuff to know that he was probably in some sort of shock and needed to get warm before his body began to shut down. But part of him didn't see the point anymore. There was nothing he could do, nowhere to go.

He sat down on the ground next to his pack and opened it to grab out his jacket. As he saw his small, packed lunch he smiled grimly. Good ol mom, always lookin out for him.

Trevor began to cry openly now, the tears ran down his face as he sobbed quietly, clutching his jacket to his chest. He heard another small noise but ignored it this time, if there was something that wanted him dead he was okay with that, he had nothing to live for anyways.

Suddenly a voice came to him through the darkness and he screamed in terror and tried to jump to his feet.

"Hey, don't be afraid kid, whoa hey, calm down buddy. I'm not here to hurt you…" Trevor groaned as his legs cramped up and he sprawled to the ground only a few meters from where he had been sitting.

Looking up he saw a hooded figure step out of the darkness and his heart froze in his chest. The figure walked slowly with its hands up before taking off some sort of headgear and placing it on the ground. Trevor's eyes widened as he saw the scaly head of a Slaaveth female looking back at him, her dark eyes glinting in the near darkness of the night.

Trevor looked at her warily as she spoke again. "Hey kid, I'm not here to hurt you, I'm here looking for survivors. This is a rescue mission. Can you stand?"

Trevor nodded and stood slowly to his feet, hunched and ready to bolt. The woman smiled at him and he had to remind himself that she was trying to be friendly, though her rows of dagger-like teeth made her smile feel a little less inviting.

"Who are you?" He asked the woman quietly as he inched towards his bag.

She made no move to get closer or impede his progress as she answered "Union Search and Rescue, we got an alert of a natural disaster and shipped out to your system immediately, luckily we were only a few hours away. When we got here however, we found what looked like the after effects of a war zone, not a natural disaster. We searched near the ruins but found nobody. We were about to give up hope of finding anyone when one of our drones picked up your heat signature on top of the hill. They sent us to investigate and here you are." She explained as he reached his bag and pulled out the small sack lunch.

If he was going to be here a while he might as well eat and so he pulled out the sandwich and took a big bite before asking "You said here we are, who is we?"

She smiled at him and stood tall as she said "USAR team Gamma thirty, we are here to help. Come on out guys, don't be afraid, er. What is your name? Mine is Jrulsh."

"Jrulsh?" He said, rolling the strange new name around on his tongue. She smiled and nodded, she was kind of pretty he realised. In an scaly alien sort of way at least. He smiled back at her and said "Trevor, Trevor Dean." He stuck out his hand and she looked at it curiously before gripping it and shaking.

She smiled again and said "A handshake, that means we are friends right?" She said.

Trevor was a little confused but answered "Yea, definitely."

She bobbed up and down making her frills sway as she said excitedly "Yay, this is exciting. Don't worry Trevor, you are going to be okay, we are going to take care of you."

Trevor felt tears threatening to well up in his eyes again but he shoved them down, there was no way he was going to cry like a baby in front of a girl. What would she think of him if he did that? Trying to be casual he watched as several more figures wearing brown uniforms stepped out of the shadows and turned on their head lights. "So, do you know what happened here?"

She shook her head and said "No, I was hoping you could tell me. If it's not too painful."

Trevor stood straight and squared his shoulders, he put the sandwich down on his pack as he began to recount the tale starting from when he had left his house that morning. His eyes teared up a bit as he talked about Jerry and Jrulsh stepped a bit closer to him. He reached the peak and recounted what he had witnessed, several of the team members standing around him gasped as he described the ruthless attack. The lack of mercy displayed by the orbital bombardment against a civilian population made one of the rescue team weep openly.

Trevor stayed stoic, determined to be strong like his father even as tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. His shoulders quivered from the effort of holding his feelings in and Jrulsh stepped to his side with a concerned look.

"Trevor are you all right, you are shivering…" she asked him in a concerned voice.

"I'm fine…" he croaked out through gritted teeth, but he wasn't. The shock of what had happened finally washed over him as he started to shiver violently.

Jrulsh gurgled in surprise and jumped forwards to catch him as his knees once more gave out and he started to fall. She caught him before he hit the ground, her hands were cold as she cradled him in her arms.

Trevor felt the world spinning around him as he looked into her eyes and he whispered through chattering teeth “Please don't leave me…" before darkness swarmed his vision and his world descended into welcome oblivion.

End of Story