Final Breaths

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. The same could be said of her now, even on the surface of this planet. There was no one left alive to hear her scream, after all.

She could not feel her legs. They dragged behind her as she struggled forth. The meat on her forearms turned raw from crawling, inch by inch, upon sharp, wet stone. Within the sealed helmet of her envirosuit, she could only smell the acrid odor of her own blood, tasting it on her tongue as the scent intermingled with the stench of acetone in her breath. She wheezed hard, her lungs racked with paralyzing agony at the simple notion of taking a deep inhale of filtered air. The wind around her roared with furious fervor, as if the planet itself was happy to see its intruder dying a slow, painful death.

There was no means of escaping. Their shuttle was gone, vanishing hours ago without a word from their pilot. So why did she crawl? Why did she not just lay there, dying like the rest? What hope was there if there was no hope of survival?

Because though she may die, her voice would not go unheard.

It was standard procedure when exploring new worlds. A checkpoint would be set between their landing zone and the destination of their journey, a halfway point for rendezvous should something go wrong. There would be an emergency cache of food and water, medical supplies, but most importantly, an inactive distress beacon. She had no misgivings. There was no living through this. The food, the water, the first aid… they would do naught but prolong the inevitable. The beacon though, that had some use, even now.

It would be a warning. A recounting of their story. A cautionary tale of adventurers too greedy and too frail to ever possibly recover the rumored treasures of this world.

The beacon stood just a meter tall, painted a silver that starkly contrasted it from the dark browns and greens of its surroundings. It reminded her of the paintings she had seen of greek columns in temples to ancient gods, though smaller and made of hard steel rather than mud, brick, or marble. Lights dotted up and down the surface of it, dim and crimson to show that it had power, but was simply not yet activated.

Dragging herself up with it and the crates of food next to it was perhaps the hardest thing she would ever have to do. Her arms shook like young pines in a windy wood, wobbling violently as she pulled herself up. Everything that she could still feel on her body was screaming at her, begging her to simply lie back down on the ground and remain still. But she refused. She cried out in savage rebellion, reminding her own body that she was the one in charge. There was no point in keeping herself free of pain in her final moments. She had no doubt in her mind that the guardian was on its way, hunting the last of its prey with primordial vengeance. To waste time was to waste what little meaning her life had left.

One of the food crates, as it was not drilled into the ground like the beacon, slid by only a few inches as she was finally making some ground. Her chest slammed into the crate below it, taking all of the wind out of her in a single moment. She gasped for air, coughing a spatter of blood onto the inside of her transparent visor. But she did not let go. She did not allow herself to slip back to the ground, to lose all of the progress she had made. Adrenaline was all that fastened her fingers to their placements.

A moment passed, maybe two, before she resumed her climb, eventually making it high enough to see the pin-pad that rested at the top of the beacon. It was a four-number code, the year that humanity settled its first planet beyond their own solar system.

2-2-4-6.

The beacon whirred to life, the lights quickly shifting from muted red to vibrant blue. A small hologram appeared above it, translucent and sapphire, reflecting the top of her helmet, recording. She could not find any more strength than she already had; to pull herself up even an inch further was a task too great. They may not be able to see her face, but perhaps they would not have to.

Weakly, she spoke to the device.

“This is Nata-- Natala Smith of the ISS Newton. Our mission to…” She coughed. More blood. “… Everest-IV has been co-- compromised. Our shuttle pilot is gone. The crew is dead.” Their faces flashed through her mind, once smiling and laughing, last seen pale and wrought with permanent horror. “We found a temple. There were devices, artifacts.” The last survivor groaned, feebly. Every word meant an even tighter chest, an even stronger spike of agony in her lungs. “Some sort of… defense mechanism activated.”

A distant howl in the wind was different from the rest. Alive, alien, angry. It had found her.

Her heart raced with fear, her breaths struggling to keep pace with it. She could not turn to see it. She could not face death as it barreled toward her. She could only speak her final words.