Writing Group: Short Story: Alien Planet

The writing prompt for this week was to write about an alien planet. This could be a real planet, a fictional planet, or one based off planets in media. Whatever we wanted. This started out as a Firefly reference and turned into something that kind of Avatar-ish with some To Sleep in a Sea of Stars type exploration. I normally don’t edit my work too much but this one needed a bit of work – mostly fixing some questionable sentence structure. I was too busy chatting instead of writing.

Also, if you are interested in a manuscript update: edits and beta readers. So. Many. Edits. But generally I have gotten good feedback. So yay there!

Let me know what you think of this type of flash fiction. Happy reading!

Trigger Warning: This does contain some adult themes.

Funny enough, guns work in space as long as you have them in a space suit. When we terraformed other planets we didn’t realize that we would be going backwards as a society. Laser weapons are expensive, bullets can be reloaded, for those on the outer-rim planets it was an easy choice. We learned quickly that we needed bullets to defend ourselves from the native inhabitants. For years we didn’t meet anything with human-like intelligence, just buggers that wanted to kill and eat us unless we killed and ate them first. We learned there was trial and error when it came to eating alien meat, some of that was poisonous. But like learning to eat Greenland shark or cashews on Earth we figured out how to prepare them, it was that or starve. 

We had been living among the stars for a few centuries, the inhabitants of each planet doing their best to survive the harsh worlds, when those as intelligent as us were discovered. Not that the rest of humanity would learn of it. Since we landed on their planet to explore, I guess that made us the aliens. Their planet attracted us due to the vibrant jungle and oxygen heavy atmosphere. In the damp air our ship rusted in hours, the protective layers having been stripped by the heat coming through the atmosphere. 

The natives are vividly blue skinned, willow beings with snow-white hair and pupil-less eyes that appear to contain a whole galaxy. They are mesmerizing and beautiful, they are also far more advanced than us. We came in a ship that is the pinnacle of our human spacecraft and it looks like we are in our caveman stage still of our evolution. These beings grow their spacecraft from the trees. Their technology is so advanced it might as well be magic to our understanding.

Our research expedition also learned that while we would not be killed, we could not leave. This race was extremely protective of their home. They were aware of humanity, had been for centuries but would not fight us unless they had to. If they did it would be an extermination, humans wiped out in a heartbeat. Upon entering the nearest village we saw an odd sight. Other humans or so they appeared at first. When they turned their faces in our directions we saw they had the galaxy eyes of our hosts. We were not the first humans to land here it seemed and apparently we could interbreed. It is a bit disconcerting, I will admit but when in Rome or on a planet a long long way from home. 

We have been on this planet for a year now. I miss my parents, my siblings but I do not miss the cold dark of space. Flying among the stars had been my goal since I was a child, I had done that happily for many years, documenting new worlds. However it’s mentally exhausting and hard on the body. Now I am content to rest among the trees the arms of my galaxy-eyed lover. 

Thank you KW Photography for allowing me to use your wonderful photos!

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