Log 79A

It's almost funny looking back, how much we like to think we know. “Terraforming a planet takes tremendous time and effort.” They’d always tell us. “It’s a process spanning a thousand years, but your efforts are imperative to its success.” They’d say. "You are aiding the betterment of all mankind!" We believed them at the time—we had no reason not to. We all knew our jobs, and we knew the risks, or so we thought. We were well aware of the process, and we knew the roles we each played.

By the time we actually got to Mars, everything was still going as planned. We started our field work there as soon as possible; setting up equipment, gathering samples, excavating sites of interest--we were good at it too. ‘Outstandingly efficient!’, they’d say in our reports. The team always liked to joke about that. We had fun while it lasted.

Sol 79 started with the same normal routine. We’d wake up, eat breakfast, and head out to our most recent dig site, near the Antoniadi crater on the banks of what would become a great ocean in the next several hundred years. Spirits were relatively high among the group, with the exception of Davison who woke up late. I will say this now, so there is no scrutiny or discussion on the question of the events to unfold: we were all healthy adults of sound body and mind with no reason to lie, and we saw what we saw. Those who question my testimony are only shaming the deceased.

Work was slow that day when we started out, but we came to a decent rhythm around noon-time. We’d often split into groups of two, with Wilson and Evans in the north, Pierce and Davison in the east, and Marlow and I in the north-east. We had planned to reconvene at around 13:00, but we received a transmission from Evans a few minutes prior and she sounded pretty shaken up. “Guys, there’s something here you’ve gotta see…” She said. “...just get over here I thin-”. The signal feed was suddenly cut short with a harsh static, and Evans’s line, along with Wilson's, went dead. That was the last we’d ever hear from them.

Marlow and I came in a rush to their location, worried they might’ve been injured. Davison and Pierce came shortly after, having gathered first aid and extra air tanks from the transport in preparation. When we arrived at their location however, they were nowhere to be found. We began looking around and calling out for them, confused as to where they could’ve gone in such short time. If they had gone back to the transport we would have seen them, but they hadn’t. Their line was still dead too, endlessly repeating the sharp lulling static. We were beginning to get worried, and as much as it made us uneasy, we agreed to split up if it meant finding them sooner.

We hadn’t split for more than five minutes when Davison’s voice frantically called out through the transmission. “Oh no no no no no” he whimpered. “No no no I just…” his voice trailed off. We told him to hold on as we made our way over to his last location. “Pierce h-he’s…” Davison stammered, his breath shaking. There was a pause before his voice rose with fear, “Oh god!” He shouted. “Oh god is that…? Is that what I think it is?” We begged him to hang on, to stay put. “They’re home.”, he said. “We’re all finally home.” Then his line cut as well, and Marlow and I began to fear the worst. I recall there was a moment where we thought of turning back, of retreating to what little safety we had at the base. But we couldn’t bear the thought of leaving them all behind, without knowing what had happened. So we walked further, and as we reached the top of the slope, we finally saw it.

Sitting at the edge of the primordial beachfront, embanked in the ground, caked with soil it shone white-hot: a great and terrible sword. It was tall with a rusted hilt and ancient glyphs lining the blade, and as I set my eyes upon it everything changed. Nearly instantly pain swept through my temples like a landslide. I felt in my sinuses the searing hum of the sword’s sleek metal, birthing a blinding vertigo which stunned me immediately. I could see them too, barking and roaring in my head; the blasphemies written in ancient tongues on the sword. Marlow was gone now—I didn’t know where but it didn’t much matter. All of time and space grew warped and mangled around me as dead vines entangle a bird, until reality bent backwards and collapsed. I could no longer hear my breathing, my voice, my heartbeat, even my thoughts. The dirt and sky stretched out before me ten thousand fold, smearing every color like paint so the whole planet swirled and heaved. I could hear plainly the sound of the cosmos; the awful and maddening silence from which every star, galaxy, and planet so wretchedly formed. My mind was opened, my thoughts silenced, and my eyes were shown, the eons of change and toil of the planet in seconds. Billions of years—winds, rocks, and sand, swept around me furiously in a timeless inferno with the billowing sword at its center. I could see it gaping beyond; the wide Martian ocean so long ago, before man, before earth, and before creation it seemed. Even then, against the vast open fields of time I could see; the blood-ivory sails of some faraway ship on the horizon. And with a growing dread I knew: I was finally home.

To this very day I still see them in the far reaches of my mind, in dimly lit shadows and the corners of my eyes when I sleep. I hear the creaks and groans of their blasted vessel gliding through the waters; their low murmurs in ancient tongues. I can see the horrible, blood-ivory sails on the blue Martian waves, and one thing remains clear: everything we know is wrong.