Post-Nuclear - Chapter One
Inspired by Counting Stars Amongst Weeds by @/wearywheats
Contains Sonic 3 spoilers, so read with caution
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"S’just a woodpecker." You motion to the trunk above, not that Kermit really hears you. He braces on the tree, barking at the bird and jumping like he'll be able to reach it up on the tall pine branches. It hammers on, though, unfazed by the threats on its life. Seems it's used to dumb dogs with big ideas.
With a roll of your eyes, you raise the camera back up. The woodpecker pauses in its search for food to spit out the bits of wood collected in its beak. You take the chance to snap a few shots of it, hoping the sight of its tongue sticking out is caught on film. The papers and ecological sites tend to like the funnier images.
Kermit, seeing as his enemy is too far out of reach, scampers to your side instead. He braces on your leg as you fiddle with the aperture settings on your camera, whining for you to help him. However, you are not as young as he would prefer, and think better of throwing him into the tree like one would a football.
Seeing your cousin do that and then having to drive them both to get medical attention killed any sliver of consideration you could have towards the idea.
Instead, you grab a stick, slap it around at his feet, and once the dog is too overwhelmed by what's happening, throw it off into the trees. Kermit sprints after it, the sound of his feet in the brush all you need to be assured he's still nearby.
You gaze up at the trees again, finding the woodpecker turned around now, staring down at you. It's head cocks this way and that, trying to get a good look at what's causing a ruckus down below. You raise your camera again, smiling when the bird jumps at the sound of the shutter.
With a squawk of a noise, it takes flight, noisily flapping its wings so it can rise above the treeline. Before you can attempt to follow, however, something. . . happens.
You notice the light first, the sudden brightness to the sky when it should be darker. Late afternoon during this time of year means a steady setting of the sun, yet suddenly the world brightens around you, like an overexposed photo.
It's hard to see through the brambles and leaves, but high above there's a golden light burning through the canopy. You rush forward, towards your home where there's a clearing of trees, whistling for Kermit to follow. The little greyhound nips at your toes, shining bright as a star in the strange lighting, and seems unafraid of whatever phenomenon has plagued the forest.
When the trees part for clear skies, you spot it. A ball of flames scorches through the sea of blue, spiraling downwards. It cuts away at the tips of the trees, but you can tell when it hits Earth by the trembling of the ground. You stumble, knees scraping the dirt, while Kermit clumsily rolls past you.
Wow. A meteor. A falling star landed in the forest, near your home, and now you can see the smoke billowing up into the air. It's not that far away, not really, and whatever landed. . .
You bite your lip.
A meteor crater can't be safe, but then again, who wouldn't love a photo of burning meteorite still hot from its descent? You could make a decent income on some photos of that.
Without any more thought, you toss Kermit back into the house and sprint towards the smoke column, eager to make it there before anyone else can ruin the natural state of the impact zone.
A breathless laugh escapes you as you hurdle fallen stumps and small streams. Fallen leaves slick with mud send you windmilling over inclines, but you keep pace, too excited to care about mud-stained jeans and scratched up palms. You've never seen a meteorite period, much less one in its natural state. This will be thrilling, and maybe if you're very, very lucky, it'll change your life for the better.
After all, while being freelance is fun, being signed on to a nature magazine or a newspaper would make your salary not only steadier but higher too! You and Kermit could maybe even move somewhere closer to town, where the people are! Make friends and not feel like the weirdo living out on the town limits who people only see once a week, if even.
Well, maybe that's an exaggeration. After all, most folks who want wedding or birthday photoshoots call you. Still, a steady job would be a dream come true, and this meteorite could be your ticket to it.
Your shoes scuff tracks into the dirt. You wobble, nearly falling into the pit of seared earth. The grass is still smoldering, trees fluttering with burning leaves. Luckily, none of it seems like it’ll spread far, what with the wet week you’ve been having. So with that assured, you turn back to the crater, wafting away smoke.
There’s something black in the center. You catch glimpses of red too. Your heart flutters with excitement that the meteorite might still be rife with molten lava, so you quickly pull out your camera, fiddling with the exposure and such before you start snapping as fast as you can.
You take photos of the crater still filled with smoke, the burning trees, the smoky trail still burned into the sky. And finally, with your heart in your throat and enough of the smoke cleared, you approach the center of the crater.
It’s a long drop, the impact hard enough to reach a rocky layer of the Earth’s crust. You ease yourself down into the pit, wafting away the wisps of smoke that curl around your face. When the ground levels out, you ease yourself forward, a hand held out to detect anything that might be still too-hot to get close to.
You don't feel anything, even as you make it to the center of the crater. There's still a small column of smoke clinging to the meteorite. You try to waft it away too, but don't manage much. So instead, you kneel down, surprised to find that the cause of all this damage is something so small.
Your hands land on your camera, ready to get some lovely close-ups of molten space rock. You blow into the smoke, watching it curl and disperse enough to show you your prize.
Except. . . instead of rock. . . there's a hand.
You stare at it, and yeah. . . it's a hand, clasped in a white glove singed black, missing sections to reveal blistered skin. It's connected to a similarly burned arm, black fur and red stripping and even more patchy spots with burns.
Something constricts around your chest, making it hard to breathe. Your head spins, but you don't think too hard about crawling closer and grabbing the arm, fingers curling over the wrist.
It's there, a faint pulse. The soft thumps under your fingers makes everything sharpen. You stare into the clumped fur, too afraid to look farther than the elbow.
But your eyes betray you, flickering upwards to a face, slacken and covered in blood.
A fear unlike you've ever known ices your veins. You're panicking, hands fluttering now, parting fur to find more cuts, more bruises, and more burns, some worse than others. You want to turn his head, try and find where all the blood is coming from, but the quills that spike out from the back of his head make you nervous.
You're nervous. You're scared. But there's a guy-animal-thing here lying in a crater and bleeding out onto the earth, so you gotta do. . . something! And that something can be figured out when you're closer to home.
At least he's unconscious, because you certainly have no grace hauling him into your arms. He's warm to the touch, but not so hot as to hurt you. No doubt his burns are more serious than something your aloe plant can help, so there's research to be done there.
You stumble, struggling to claw your way up the crater's incline with a body half-strewn over your shoulder. There's puffs of air against your neck, hitching with each wobble of your footing. Your fingers are going to be raw from digging into the dirt and rocks, but god is your head too buzzed to care.
Kermit is understandably in a frenzy when you return with a guy in your arms. He does spins and circles around you, eager to play with the new person or new toy, whichever you chose to bring him. You stomp your feet and shuffle them at the hound so he runs away, though, expecting a game of chase. Instead of chase, however, you escape to the bathroom, shutting the door behind you.
He can cry about it for now. You can soothe his hurt feelings when there's not a guy dying on you.
The tub fills with water, and you set your new guest down on the toilet for the time being. Your camera sits on the sink, and your phone sits in your hand, pages of how to identify and care for burns trying to teach you how to save something you never knew existed.
You make sure the tub isn't too warm per the instructions of a hospital, then lower the guy down into it. You keep his head propped on the tub's edge, dunking one of your wash cloths into the water to use on his face.
Dried blood and ash clears with each pass, showing you the wound that's causing most of the mess. The gash cuts through his temple, curling up around the pointed ear on his head. You clean the debris from it best you can, and wonder if any of your first aid supplies will help bandage such a wound.
Before that, however, you pull your guest from his bath. The water is a dark grey from the ash and dirt, so you drain it quick, using the shower head to do a clean of the tub before refilling it.
You focus on the quills next, carefully pouring water over his head with the cup you usually keep your toothbrush in. You watch the debris wash out into the tub with disdain. Gross. You'll need to drain it again when you start focusing on his burns.
The article on your phone mentions cold water, bandages, and pain meds (the latter of which you have no expectations for). You have that stuff on you, but the cream they recommend, silver sulfadiazine, you don't have. Looks like he's going to have to put up with your aloe plant for now.
Satisfied that he's clean enough, you pull him from the tub and pat dry his fur and quills until he's dry enough for the couch. With Kermit screaming in your bedroom, demanding to play with the new guest, you drag over your big aloe plant, walking the heavy pot to the side of the couch before you grab your first aid kit from the kitchen.
You sit on the floor before the couch, staring at the hands and legs sporting the most serious burns, blistered and shiny. You don't know what you're doing. Your worst burn has been sunburn, and anything else is lost to the panic haze and childhood daze that covers those older memories. But you know aloe helps, and bandages are needed, so you can go from there.
"Aha," you laugh, sticky hands smacking for the remote, "I'm gonna have a dead body in my house, ha."
The TV blares to life, thankfully distracting you from your lack of confidence in your medical experience. A newscaster drones on about the upcoming weather, expecting rainy days and pollen counts, while you're smearing blisters in aloe and wrapping them in gauze, near tears with each twitch of foot and hiss of air.
"In other news, more information regarding the Eclipse Canon and the state of the moon has been released by officials, showing insight to the future that awaits us."
You pause, an arm held up by the glove you have half off. The TV shows a space station, like something from a movie, alongside a picture of a half-destroyed moon. A nausea grips at your stomach.
When did the moon explode? How did it explode?
You really need to start watching the news more often.
"Sources say that the explosion of the Eclipse Canon has caused a nebula to form within the Milky Way, close enough to Earth for us to see with the naked eye." You balk, but the stern-faced newscaster continues without fail, uncaring of your misery. "Monitoring of the nebula has shown its in a stable state, with no supernovas to occur for hundreds of years. As for the moon, it's new state thanks to the Eclipse Canon, activated by one Dr. Eggman-"
"He shot the fucking moon!?" You exclaim, only to jump with the arm drops to the couch, glove fully removed. "Ah! Shit!"
"-expected for tides to shift, due to the change in the satellite's new mass. Small pieces of debris from the moon are expected to fall to Earth as well, so if you are a part of these areas, be sure to fortify and ready for cover in case of your home is in the collision course."
You groan, flopping onto your back. You could've had a piece of the moon hit nearby, but no. You got a guy, probably an alien guy, instead.
Looks like you're going to be doing some internet searching tonight. Time to catch up with the current events, since apparently missing a few days of the news to watch game shows instead means missing the fact the moon got blown up while you weren't looking.
Rubbing your hands over your face, you sigh heavily. The past hour or so plays over in your head, settling into your bones like a heavy weight. There's an alien in your home now, more or less. An alien, hurt and alone, now residing on your couch.
You hit the floor with your fist. What are you going to do? Calling the police would end up with your alien being taken away, and you're scared of that. But you're not sure this guy isn't. . . bad either. He could attack once he wakes up.
God. . . where did you put your laptop? You need to look this shit up.
