Sci Fi, 1st entry

Tiny punctures from exploding metal pocked the red soil beneath her belly. It took all her concentration to breath at safe pace, no more than four inhalations per minute. If she dared take in air faster than that, she was dead; it was one of the first facts drilled into her mind. The creatures, the ones that had led to most of the earth being turned into a giant wasteland, could somehow sense heavy breathing. They could also sense movement and vibration, so getting up and making a run for it was out of the question. Not just that, but where would she run? The nearest base was at least three miles away with several nests lying like living booby traps under the surface. There was no way to know where they were without specialized equipment, which just happened to be in several smoldering pieces ten yards away to her right. To make matters worse the scorching desert heat had left her in a confusing mix of pain and light-headedness. Through courses that had been heavily regulated by the government after The Arrival, there was no doubt of the symptoms Cat was suffering from. Soon the foggy thoughts and hazy vision would give way to a mystifying assortment of hallucinations. She had to get out of the sun, fast. But, judging by the dark figures only a few meters away, getting up and hauling it would be even more treacherous. Instead, she waited. She didn’t know what for, perhaps a miracle. Playing dead would only work for so long, they’d get curious. They always got curious. The scent of blood and already decaying flesh would soon bring them by the dozens. One squatted and rested its long and jagged claws against its sinewy legs. Suddenly it straightened and joined the other two in gazing at something in the distance. She didn’t dare cock her head to look at what had caught their attention; the movement would give her away without a doubt. Then there was a shuffling behind her, a chill rolled over her whole body and the breath caught in her throat. Was it one of them? Did it know that, as apposed to the bodies that littered the dusty ground around her, she still was alive?

Without warning a light came blaring out of the west. What the hell was it? Perhaps her distress signal had been picked up. If it was an Earth Base Omega Destroyer, they weren’t there to save her. Instead, the pulse that reverberated through unseen waves would actually be used as a target by the EBOD. Heat Guided Thermo Missiles were the human’s most devastating weapon against the creatures that had nearly conquered Earth, what was left of it. Whether or not the aliens had sensed her was no longer important and that realization became ever clearer as the light came closer. Cat took a breath and closed her eyes. It would happen fast, she wouldn’t even have time to scream.

Then, it impacted sending shockwaves and sand radiating out from all sides. Clods pelted her tattered uniform and went skittering across the dry earth with an almost a metallic resonance. The thin dust, earth that had been pulverized by the sheer force of the object impacting, swept out in a billowing form until it faded away.

At that moment, the oddest thing was that she could feel when she let the air out of her lungs. She also felt the bloodied bruise over her left eye that started to ache terribly. This was all quite impossible; she should be ash like every living thing in a square mile of the blast site. Warily she opened her eyes and looked up to an empty landscape, its continuity only broken by a mass of glittering metal. With the energy it had hit, she could only guess how much lay under ground. Above ground three meters of dark and angled surface glittered. “What the hell?” Her better instincts to survive gave way to a horrified amazement. The beasts that had been all too close to her were gone. Had they been killed by the impact? If they had, why was she still alive? Cat methodically moved her arms and legs. Except for shrapnel wounds in the outside of her right thigh, she was all in one piece. Well, if it’s going to kill me anyway, I might as well check it out, she thought. With skilled hands she ripped apart the cloth of her over shirt and tied it tightly around her thigh. Why bleed to death when you can be tortured by whoever the hell came in that craft? It was a macabre thought, she smiled and stood shakily.