Hey there! Last week I assigned a picture prompt for the writing critique group I'm a part of for the fun of it. It's due today...and I'm apparently a slacker and got it done today. (Oops.) But it's done and here it is at 7 words over the 1k mark I suggested. (Double oops.) Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy the short story hot off Google Docs!
Image by Siggy Nowak from Pixabay
DOOR
They say there is a door that leads to anywhere—any world, any time—and I’ve been searching for it for nearly a decade, the length of time you’ve been gone. I’m not giving up until I find it. I have to make it right. I have to go back to that day and fix what went wrong.
Every galaxy I’ve come across, I’ve searched. Scanned the planets from a distance to see if they had the chemical makeup for what was needed to sustain that kind of magic.
The ship’s lonely without you, all of you if I’m honest. But you the most. And I never told you the truth about how I feel. Not that you’ll get to know.
Leather squeaks under me as I shift around in the pilot's seat—your seat. It misses you as much as I do.
You always were better at flying than me. I’ve grazed a few chunks of space debris. A few might be a lie. When all is done, you’ll never know, so long as I get there.
The Fallen Star sputters now, I’ve not stopped to tune it up, Lee would kill me on the spot for how poorly I’ve taken care of her. Then again, mechanics tend to view their charge more like a child than a machine.
A blue rimmed pinwheel galaxy spins off to the left of my ship. It’s purple, then white as it moves from the outer stars to the inner. From here, it looks like any other. It probably is like any other.
I’ve stopped letting myself hope every time I scan one, hope’s crushed me enough to learn my lesson.
In a motion I could do in my sleep, I aim the long range scanner at the pinwheel galaxy, then I sag back into the chair. I close my eyes as I wait for the inevitable monotone beep that tells me this isn’t the one either.
Seconds tick by, and it still hasn’t beeped. It would’ve by now.
My heart’s thumping its way up to my throat, rising like the embers of hope I’ve doused so many times.
I peel my lids open in case the scanner’s died or some other logical answer. But the scanner’s zooming in closer and closer to a planet smaller than our tiniest moon back home. Shrill beeps chime as it settles on the planet—blue with smatterings of green. It’s there. I’ve found it.
I want to cry and scream and throw up all at once, but I do none of that. Celebrating alone only makes it lonelier.
Instead, I flick switches to engage the engines to full throttle. The Fallen Star shakes around me as I veer off to that galaxy. I don’t know the actual name of it, but the one I’m giving it is yours. And the planet? It’s Hope. Call me a romantic if you want, I don’t care.
Now that I know where to go, it takes a painfully long time. It feels longer than the nine years and two hundred days I’ve spent searching.
At a rate slower than a space slug, I near Hope. It’s a planet made up of mostly water. Landing might be difficult depending on where the door is.
The long range scanner continues its zeroing in until it stops on a field of green and white with a small building in the center. There it is.
My hands are all clammy and cool on the yoke as I steer into Hope’s atmosphere. The moment the Fallen Star hits it, it shudders. Pieces break away—the screams of the warning systems tell me as much.
Come on, old girl, make it to the door, that’s all I’m asking.
The ship’s coming in hot—real hot—to the field I’d seen on the scanner. This isn’t gonna be a landing so much as a crash I hope to crawl out of. Time to strap in so I don’t get myself killed before I make everything right.
Impact in three. Two. One.
The straps hug to me, bruising my ribs, but keeping me alive while metal screeches as it hits and grinds against the ground. More alarms go off about the damage. Smoke’s pouring out the nose of the Fallen Star.
After wrestling myself free of the buckles, I run out of the ship on unsteady legs. There’s a good chance she’s gonna blow and I’m not going down with her.
The solar system’s dwarf star burns my eyes and the atmosphere I suck in slowly shreds my lungs. It’s nothing like what I need to breathe. Good thing I don’t need to for long.
A gray building sits ahead of me that’s so unremarkable it looks like it could collapse at any second. But I can feel it, the magic hidden in there. It’s the door alright.
Green stretches out around me and my all but exploded ship, save for a patch of white like clouds hugging the ground. I shuffle-run through it to get to my only chance of redemption, kicking up white tufts of some kind of seedling as I go. The way fuzz carries off in the wind is its own kind of magic.
When I reach the door, so simple, so insignificant, it had to be overlooked by anyone living on this planet, I grab the even simpler knob. It’s warm under my hand.
Time to make this right. I take my mind back to the day it all went wrong—the day you and the crew were killed and go just a bit before that. I know how to stop the ambush. It’ll cost me, and you’ll be pissed, but you’ll be alive. The crew will too. You may never understand and you’ll never know all that could’ve happened, but that’s alright.
I love you, I always have, and I always will. I’d cross the universe endlessly for you.
My lips push up into a smile, such a foreign experience for me now. I turn the doorknob and push.