Aliens | book one |

One: over the hill

I'm not usually one to help out. Honestly, after randomly getting this temporary astronaut job, I was a bit nervous about going to a planet that had murderous things on it. All I was doing was taking a walk around "Marjorie's park." My dad died when I was just eight years old. My mother died in childbirth. Meanwhile, my father died in a car crash while getting his way back to work. He was drunk also, carrying my sister. At the time she was two. Just a toddler. She was adopted by my father when I first got into kindergarten.

I grew up with my seven aunts, Michelle, Alec, Fiona, Tamia, Jackley, Miona, and Toya. Michelle was the oldest. But my other aunts still took care of me. A man, around fifty two, came up to me. He looked shocked, but also scared. "You have to help me young woman, my youngest grandchild has gone missing on that murder planet. You have to help me, she is there all alone!" he screamed. I was scared. I didn't know anything about this planet until I searched it up once I got back home. Turns out this planet was just found recently. Well, not recently. Around six years ago, they were doing research. This planet came around the solar system, it was near earth, and scientist were concerned that it might hit earth. Luckily, it went by us. So they started sending astronauts to do research on it so they can get some samples to find out what this planet has. And that's when the astronauts started going missing.

They called this planet, "Rockuo." It's not a very rocky planet I would say. Seeing by the photos, it seems pretty lively. Once I got into the lobby, everybody was doing something. And it was loud. A bunch of people came near me. One caught my eye. "Give the woman some space, don't you have any respect?" he said, wiping almost everybody out of my direction. He told me to follow him down some halls. He had a very sweet voice, it was calming. He had dirty blonde hair, dark brown eyes, and a white suit. After all he is a scientist. "I'm Condo, you must be?" he said, showing his badge. I believed him, I just don't understand why he needed to show it.

"Savanna, Savanna Govrive." he took out his hand, and I shook it while laughing happily. That was probably going to be my last laugh if I was going to get any lucky. He showed me where the rest of the scientist were. "Here, this is where all of the main scientist work. Maybe you'll be working here." he said, while smiling warmly. He pointed towards a map and picked it up to show me. "This is what our solar system looks like. We weren't sure if we had to add Rockuo yet since we don't know if it's confirmed as a planet.." Condo cleared his throat. "I mean, at least I think it's a planet." he smiles. His smile is making me weirdly uncomfortable.

He looks at me for a moment until looking back at the map of the solar system. I was already looking at the map. Finally, the head scientist comes near. "Well, you must be Savanna." she shakes my hand. "I am," I laugh. "We are happy to have you on the team, Savanna." she says. Her voice sounds a little bit deeper than what I had expected. She had brown long hair, I don't think she was too old, but she definitely wasn't around me or Condo's age. I find out where the space ship is. While I'm getting led by the head scientist, I look out the window where I can see the spaceship. It's huge! "Ah, that is spacecraft 15, you'll be on that with Molly. She's been working with us for quite some time. I'm sure you will both get along just fine." the woman continues. "It's her first time on the planet too, but she's been studying the planet as much as we have here at the lab." the woman explains as she turns her head away from the window. I stare at it before walking away. Condo walks behind me.

"This equipment will keep you safe from the air on Rockuo, since the air there is a bit radioactive. The suits we gave before we got the new equipment to the past astronauts, worked perfectly fine with the radioactive air. We thought that was the reason before we upgraded the equipment, but apparently the air had nothing to do with the death of the astronauts." I turn. "How do you know they are dead?" I asked. Condo blurts out, "W-well, we just think the radioactive air just slipped, and somehow by like maybe a tiny hole that got ripped in the suit, and that's how they-" the woman stops him.

"You seem interested. You're definitely going to like this planet." we continue our walk. After the tour, I go over to the sleeping quarters, Molly greets me. "Savanna! That's your name isn't it?" she said kindly. Her voice sounded so sweet and soft. I nodded my head. "Correct! You must be Molly." she shakes my hand. I let her. She finally lets go. "Yeah, Molly Cember." Molly smiles. "But you don't have to call me by my last name." I laugh. The moon begins to shine, and the sun sets. I look out the window of the sleeping quarters. The moon looks so pretty. I stand there at the railing. Just admiring it. Meanwhile, Molly has already went to sleep. Everybody is turning off the lights. I guess I should go to sleep too. As I turn, I hear a sound. It's coming from the basement. Nobody's allowed to go there except employees.

But now I'm curious, I don't know if I should go in the basement. I turn towards the basement and look down the railing. I go downstairs just to get a quick look. I opened the door of the basement, but it makes a loud creek. As I go down into the basement, I can hear the sounds getting louder. I'm curious of what this could be, and why it's in the basement.

Finally, I look over. I see nothing. The sound stops, and I turned back around. But then I see a black figure. It scares me so much that I scream loudly. Condo comes out of the darkness. I bring back my conscience. "Shh! Do you wanna wake up the other people?" he says. I shake my head. "S-sorry, what are you doing down here? In like the middle of the night." Condo walks over to a tube. There's a gray blanket on top of it so I cannot see what's inside. "First, it's not really the middle of the night. It's nine pm." he corrects. "Our researchers found living life on the planet." he takes the blanket off of the tube. It reveals a human like species.

It has long ears, they are red, and they are a bit taller than the regular size. But what should I expect? It's nothing like human. It has big black eyes like nothing I have seen before. "We are deciding what to call it, but I like to call it Marin." he says, looking at me as he turns away from the Marin. "Did you.. make this?"
"Our researchers created it with dna of the Marin." he explains. "The footprints, the missing astronaut equipment laying around on the planet, this is what we discovered." he turns back to the tube.

I feel like I'm going to barf. I just stare at the monster for some time. I turned away. "How.. it's horrifying. Are you going to reveal this to the public?" Condo shrugs. "Probably soon. But we don't want anybody freaking out." I felt like I was going to freak out. I was probably one of the first people here that wasn't a scientist to figure out what this thing was.