My entry into this month's Sci-Fi short story contest.
Prompte: The Comet's Tale
Word Limit: 1500 words
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The lower rings of New Lierta, Mexico were not much, with their garbage littered streets, broken down buildings and dark alleyways. Most citizens stayed in the upper levels or at least the middle ring—where it was even half decent—from fear of being mugged and killed in shear daylight.
But many good people called the lower rings their home. One of these people being Kaja Abesto, Communication Technician for SEGAO, the Space Exploration Global Astronauts Organisation, which had recently received a coded transmission from a planet in sector 5b. As the CT Kaja was tasked with decoding the transmission so they could pinpoint the exact location of the source. She was doing exactly that in her small one bedroom apartment in 23 Broxa Lane.
The apartment consisted of a living room with an overused couch and a small tv, a kitchen with a sink, a fridge that didn't work as well as it was intended to and a stove that only had two working burners and a dining room of one small, square table and four wooden chairs. A narrow hallway from the space between the dining area and the living room lead down to a small bathroom with a toilet, a shower and a sink at the end of the hallway. Between the bathroom and the main living area was a bedroom.
Kaja was diligently working at the table with the coded transmission displayed on her computer in front of her. It was 2:35 in the morning but that didn't bother her, she was used to not sleeping for long periods of time and she wouldn't be able to get much sleep on that cursed couch of hers anyway.
She was almost done decoding the transmission; her hours of painful dedication were finally paying off. She had always known that they were not alone in the universe but she couldn't help being excited about what the future would bring with this transmission; the new places, the new people, the culture, she was excited for all of it.
A tug on her shirt brought her out of her thoughts. She looked down beside her at Luca, her son. He had brown hair, hazel eyes and an upturned nose with the softness of a 8 year old. He got his eyes from Kaja but the rest of his features were from his father... Kaja quickly shook the thought from her head, she didn't need to go down memory lane at the moment.
"What are you doing, sweetheart? You should be asleep."
"I was asleep, '' he said in his childish defencive way. "But I woke up and now I can't fall asleep." He remained gripping her shirt as he seemed to think about something.
Finally looking up he said,"Mom, please tell me a story."
Kaja sighed. "It's late, darling, you should sleep."
"But I'm not tired at all! Please?"
Kaja looked almost desperately at her computer as if it could help her get her son to sleep without a story. Her eyes slid past the computer to the old clock that hung on the wall above the stove. 2:40. She looked at her son still gripping her shirt and knew she wouldn't get out of storytelling this time.
"Alright I think we have time for a short one."
Luca smiled brightly as she picked him up and carried him to his bedroom.
His bedroom was a lovely combination of scattered toys and carelessly discarded clothes typical to most 8 year olds. His bed was pushed into the far right corner of the room under the window.
She put him down on the bed and he wasted no time in crawling under the blanket and pulling it up to his chin. She thought of which story to tell, which one would be the shortest. As she thought a memory began to surface, of a time when she was a young girl and her own mother would tell her stories.
"Hm. Do you want to hear The Comet's Tale? "
Luca nodded wordlessly and got comfortable.
***
"Many, many years ago there was a king. The king cared about nothing more than he cared about his people and the people loved him as well. The kingdom he ruled was at peace. But one day a terrible thing happened. A neighboring kingdom declares war on the kind king. The years from then on were filled with fear and sadness. The king thought they would lose the fight and that there was no way to save them. But just when all hope was lost there came a signal, a signal from far, far away. The signal was from another planet. The signal said to prepare a rocketship and wait for the sight of the moving star and to follow it to safety. The king did just that and waited. When it seemed like the other worldly beings had forgotten them on the night of a new moon, when it was the darkest, there was a beautiful beam of light soaring across the sky slowly. The king gathered everyone into the rocketship and took off. They followed the beam of light for days, weeks, months, when finally they arrived to the planet of their defenders. They were green with beautiful white and pink wings that resembled that of butterflies. They were called the Nor'e and they had technology the kind you can't find on earth. The king and the leader of the Nor'e made peace and they ruled their people together side by side as friends."
***
Kaja came back to the present to the sound of her son snoring. She smiled and kissed him on his forehead before she silently left to finish her work.
She looked at the clock as she sat down at the table again. 3:06. The day was almost starting and she was almost done. Maybe I could even get some sleep in before I have to leave. She thought happily.
In an hour she was done. She was finally done. She closed her eyes and shagged against her chair with a sigh. Curiosity bubbled up inside her. What could the transmission say? What was it? Was it sound? Photos? Writing? She was going to find out later on when she presented it to her officials but she felt a burning need to find out now.
She sat up and with shaking fingers clicked on the decoded transmission. A window popped up with numbers. No. She thought. Not numbers, coordinates. These were the coordinates to the planet. She was slightly disappointed that there was nothing else but-
Bing!
Another window popped up. This one contained a message. With bated breath she read it.
We await your arrival.
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So came back to edit it a little. I keep confusing myself on what age I want Luca to be, which is annoying. I don't want him to be too young but he can't be too old either. I'm thinking somewhere between 8-11? Opinions?
Anyways. I am also considering making an actual story out of this. Not sure really how I'm gonna do that or even if I should. Again, opinions?
