QADR: Innocence of a Child

Chapter 1 | Just a Kid

"Altitude, 12,000 meters" a woman's voice announces calmly over the intercom, amidst the rumbling and rattling inside the pod as it rockets across the sky. A monitor, displaying the pod's altitude, bearing, trajectory and other telemetry, shines a dim blue light on the interior, illuminating the outline of its occupant. A single person, a boy, braces himself against his seat, fighting the G-forces pulling against him, holding on for dear life. His eyes trace across the screen, not really understanding all that it's showing him but knowing with certainty that this flight will soon reach its end. Just as the thought crossed his mind, the woman's voice blared again over the speaker, this time with pronounced but calculated urgency *MAKING LANDFALL IN 10 SECONDS!! BRACE FOR IMPACT!! BRACE FOR IMPACT!! BRACE FOR IMPACT!!*

The pod ploughed through the cloud cover, hurtling towards a forest under an overcast sky, the woman's call to brace for impact faded, instead now blaring sirens took its place. The monitor shifts then, from displaying telemetry to showing a feed of the forest below as the pod flies over it. A reticule scans across the landscape, presumably looking for a safe spot to land. Suddenly blinking green, the reticule locks on, and the pod lurches, steered by its guidance system to the clearing it just identified, and so the pod hurtles toward the ground. The boy holds his breath and grips his harness with all his might at the prospect of imminent impact, and then, mere dozens of metres off the ground, the pod ignites a battery of rockets on its fore, slowing the craft down just before it hits the ground with a tremendous crash.

*****

*SAFELY LANDED!! SAFELY LANDED!! PLEASE HOLD, PREPARING TO OPEN HATCH!!*

The pod proceeded to release a white cloud of gas into its surroundings, a fire-retardant countermeasure, to snuff out the flames caused by its landing, securing the area for its passenger and masking its own presence. As the fires died and the ground cooled, the pod's electronics runs through its paces and myriad sensors are put to task. Scanning the surroundings for any signs of movement, wary of any foreign presence in the vicinity, the pod scrutinizes every breeze, every sound, and warm body within a radius of 1000 meters. The boy holds steady, waiting, for what seemed an eternity, fearing, that the worst had happened, that after all they'd done, they were found...... that eternity however, came to an abrupt end, when suddenly, the pod flashed an "All Clear" on the screen. The hatch opens, the pod seemingly satisfied with its evaluation of the surroundings. The blinding light of the outside floods the formerly dim interior of the pod. The boy however, could only stare blankly at the now open hatch, still coming down from his adrenaline high, slowly coming to grips with his present. Just as he was collecting himself, he's interrupted by the woman's voice over the speaker;

* THERE'S AN EMERGENCY FOOD RATION THAT CAN LAST YOU FOR A DAY NEXT TO YOUR SEAT. ALSO, DON'T FORGET TO TAKE THE I.D. CARD ON THE DASHBOARD. FIND YOURSELF SOME SHELTER, AND GOOD LUCK, ADAM! *

So said the woman on the speaker. The boy obliged and pressed a button next to the seat which then pops out a box of food rations. He then checked the dashboard and picks up the I.D card. As he climbs over to the edge of the exit, he pauses, "Thanks, AUNTIE. Thanks for everything. I'm gonna miss you."As soon as he steps out, the monitors and lights shut off one by one as the hatch closes behind him.

He stepped off the pod and surveyed his surroundings. He was in a crater the middle of a forest, carved into the soft earth by the pod's impact. He proceeded to clamber out of the crater to get a better vantage of his surroundings. Just as he reached its edge, a mechanical click caught him by surprise. It came from the pod. He quickly turned around to see a series of vents opening up in the side of the craft, which then proceeded to spray some kind of substance that adhered to the soil and rocks and expanded, almost like a cloud, a foam, before it engulfs the entire craft, and then the whole crater, and began to change colour and shape. By the time this process had completed the entire area had reverted to a state before the pod had crashed into it, as if nothing happened, the sole exception being the seemingly innocuous 'earthen' mound under which the pod lay. It'd only taken a couple of minutes for this all to happen, which was honestly mindboggling to the boy, but he hadn't much time to spend gawking at it. The Sun was steadily climbing higher in the sky and he was far from any traces of civilization, he needed to get moving..... but as he took a quick look around, he noticed that he wasn't so much in the middle of a forest as he was a marsh, a plant-infested, waterlogged landscape, stretching past the trees. Fortunately, he still had his environment suit, though it was a bit cumbersome, and without power from the pod it was getting rather hot, but he could use it to ford through the waterlogged vegetation. In the end there wasn't much point in thinking about it. As he prepared his things for the trek, he wondered, "This is gonna be a difficult trek, why did she drop me here? Also, while we were still in the sky, she told me to head east until i found a city, to follow the morning sun when it rose, but why? What's there? Did she plan this? Did.....did she know.....that we were going to get attacked?" he shook the thought out of his head. While the questions were valid...he had no way of answering them, they'd have to wait, whatever laid ahead, he needed to trust her, she brought him this far after all. ".....but to think that that AUNTIE would go through all this to conceal the pod....." he felt that there might be a time when they will cross paths again. After taking stock of his rations and other items, he proceeded to remove his helmet. Short, black hair was greeted by the daytime breeze. The boy raised a hand to shield his eyes against the glare of the near-midday sun, without the helmet's visor it was a bit too much at first. He unzipped the top of his environment suit to cool himself off, and tied the sleeves around his waist, as cumbersome as it was, it would at least keep the water out. He's very far from home, and anything that he once knew, but he has no choice but to move forward. The impending trek will be one that tests what he's made of, and he knew it.