The Outcasts' Alternate Universes & Hellscapes

6 - Earth 8141: Songs Of Exile

WRITTEN BY WANDOR

Earth is loud. Since the invention of the radio, we've been leaking sound into space for any and all to hear. Though our atmosphere has scrambled most of the signals that have come from our planet, there is no denying the reach of our broadcasts in the galaxy. For two hundred years our collective radio media has reached out in all directions and while we have yet to get any response, that in no way means the signals have gone unnoticed.

---

Falling, she was falling. The infinite void of darkness seemed to swallow her eternally as white spirals danced on the edges of her vision, leading her further to some unknown end. The vortex was a deafening silence and though she could hear her screams, there was no echo back. The vortex seemed to swallow up any and all sound as soon as she made it. All she could do was fall. Fall and scream.

"Gah!" Shakura Rose awoke with a jolt. Her heart was thudding rapidly in her chest and her breathing was labored. Her hands flailed around her, patting the rough terrain she'd called a bed for the night as if repeatedly assuring herself she was not actually tumbling head over heels through a vast expanse. When she was finally confident of her place firmly on the ground she breathed a sigh of relief and her heart rate slowed. The dream was getting worse.

It had been at least three standard months since she'd been cast to this backwater planet and yet the terrible journey that had terminated on this barren world was still fresh in her mind. She combed her fingers through the loose, cool sands as she cursed her luck. She wasn't sure why she'd been banished here in the first place but she knew the chances of her getting back were growing slimmer by the day.

A foreboding howl in the distance chilled Shakura to her bones and instinctively she looked in that direction. A wolf-like creature stalked the nearby hill. Its body was obscured by dark shadows despite the soft glow of the moonlight, though she could easily make out the long, bushy tail the creature used to swipe away its paw-prints as it stalked through the sands.

Time to go, Shakura thought to herself. Perhaps it was good her nightmare had woken her in the middle of the night. After all, there was no guarantee that the Lin-Wii would have given her fair warning itself. She gathered her things quickly into her pack and got to her feet. She looked back at the stalking predator again to judge its distance. Two eyes glimmered back to her, glowing from the reflection of the moon's light, and a low hoot came from the beast's hidden maw. With a shiver, Shakura faced front and marched into the night.

---

She walked for what felt like hours but was more than likely barely just one. The endless sands of this world had that effect on the mind, though. The landscape was so vast and unvaried that even a minute abandoned in the desert scape would feel to anyone an eternity. But she had to keep moving.

The thing hunting her was at best a feral animal or at worst a criminal. Though she didn't know why she'd been cast off here, she knew what this place was. It was The World of Banishing: a wasteland of a planet where the nastiest and vilest criminals of the Opina Eight were sent. There was a high likelihood that the creature stalking her was one such criminal so she had to keep moving. She was tired but she had to continue on. She needed something to keep her moving as the adrenalin wore off, she needed the radio.

She had found it recently. Three days ago she'd come upon a downed ship. She couldn't tell if it had been shot down over the planet and it had crashed or if it was some poor unfortunate soul's attempt at an escape, but whatever the case she'd scavenged it for anything useful. Aside from scrap metal and a bar that she fashioned into a makeshift mace for protection, she'd managed to withdraw a wide-range radio. Now, she couldn't imagine her exile without it.