Genre: Science Fiction

This story is a special piece for me because this is my very first attempt in writing Science Fiction. Since then, I became addicted to the genre. It was also one of the very first pieces that I made when I entered the world of competitive literary writing.

Hope you enjoy!

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The dark, gray clouds that enveloped the sky marked the impending downfall of the rain. If the skies began to fall before I reach a safe and hidden location, I'm definitely dead. The vast, barren and deserted lands provided no hiding spots and no escape routes for me. I felt like a deer in an open field vulnerable by the pursuit of hunters. Heart pounding, I raced down the wide expanse and saw a ray of hope from a distance: the ruins of a large city – a land once known as Manila, the capital of the Philippines. If I reach that city before they find me, the buildings would at least give me shelter and protection from their observant eyes. I maneuvered through the cluster of large, metal shards from fallen fighter jets scattered everywhere, throwing my body through the obstacles with just a moment to spare.

I was only a few meters away from the city when warm drops of liquid started pouring from the sky. Panic quickly ate me inside as I hurried even more to reach the vicinity before those things reach me. A loud and constant rhythm of heavy footsteps can be heard as I ran away with all the remaining energy within me. The rain should not be even called water anymore; it is purely acid. The rags of clothing covering my body slowly started to corrode. I should immediately find shelter before this rain kills me. I can feel the large legs of the mutants stomping down the ground and messing with my heartbeat. A long strand of a bluish-white and sticky substance latched on my right foot, which made me stumble down. The creature is trying to pull me towards it. I took any hard thing that I can grab – a pointed stone - and started slicing off the strand as the thing got closer and closer to me. When the bluish strand finally snapped, I rapidly got up and continued running. Just a few more miles.

At times like this, I couldn't stop asking myself the reason behind all of these.

The ecological balance of nature instantly went to a hazardous level when the Stellar Collapse happened. I could still remember everything like it was yesterday...

The night skies were filled with colorful bands of light stretching across the expanse of the heavens above, which was an unusual sight on tropical regions. I was eleven; still a small boy when it happened. I was on the roof watching the stellar show above me when my Dad grabbed me and forced me to stay in the basement. As a stubborn kid, I refused to follow his orders and decided to continue watching the skies. However, when Mom interfered as well and asked me to stay in the basement, I stopped complaining and followed their orders. That was the last time I saw them. I painfully doubt that they're still alive, though. Just the thought of my parents made my chest tighten in pain. A tear streamed down my face as I continued to recall things while escaping.

Along with some food and water enough to last me for three days, I stayed there and spent the entire time alone. When I finally decided to get out, the entire world greeted me with shock. Everything looked as if it was scorched by an intense flare for quite some time. The heat and the air felt unusually different. No plant life can be seen. A very few number of animals and humans have survived but not without drastic mutations from radiation which originated from some unknown source. I gathered some newspaper clippings from houses that received minimal damages, describing the inexplicable bursts of ions in the atmosphere that burnt the Earth and exposed it to radiation for quite some time. Theories from solar flares to UFO attacks to God's will circulated among the sources I gathered.

It's been two years from now and the situation of the planet continued to worsen at a constant rate. The concentrations of acidity and toxins in the atmosphere increased at a critical degree, contributing to the further destruction of the remaining societies. I managed to survive by moving from town to town, scavenging for necessities. My scientific knowledge also helped me, given that my parents are both prominent scientists especially in the field of matter, energy, radiation and stuff. That also explained why we have a disaster-proof basement and a laboratory underground. The rags I've been carrying all along as clothing aren't just simple pieces of cloth. These are special types of fibers made out of different materials suited for blocking off various types of radiation; a clever invention made by my parents. I always wore multiple layers of them to ensure my safety.

Recently, I found a city that collapsed on its own ground, burying its contents within and leaving it untouched by the harsh environment outside. I managed to find a tunnel that led to the unscathed preciousness of the city and gathered a lot of useful supplies. Whatever I could grab, I took it and placed it within the rags of my clothing until I can't hold anything anymore.

Unfortunately, the smell of the canned goods that I opened upon reaching the surface attracted a group of deformed and mutated ginormous spiders. The creatures hungrily chased me down. As I observed during the past few years, the acidic rain gave an unusual boost to the mutated creatures. When I finally reached the city, I immediately went down an alley and took a turn in an abandoned warehouse away from the sense of sight and smell of the creatures. When I ensured that they are gone, I quickly scanned my things and was deeply disappointed. I lost a lot of important necessities which I scavenged at the buried city earlier. I was left with three items: a metal spoon, a bamboo flute and a very hard rock coated with a thick layer of black soot.

I was startled when I suddenly heard a voice from the other corner of the room. A robed figure of a probably sexagenarian man came out from the dark with a small, gray and non-mutated cat on his right shoulder.

"Do you want to get out of here?" the man suddenly spoke.

His husky voice slightly startled me for its sudden release. Left with nothing to say, I just nodded.

"Well, then. Can I have that flute of yours?" he spoke again with his horse and husky voice. Since I don't know how to use a flute, I gave it to him without hesitation. He pressed the flute against his lips and started playing the melody of 'Baa-Baa Black Sheep' in a slow and rather creepy way.

"As a token of gratitude, here's my gift for you." He said after playing. He placed a large knife in my hands and stared at me peculiarly, or rather – hypnotically. The moment our eyes met, a vertigo attack hit me. Without knowing, I already stabbed him multiple times in the chest area, splattering blood everywhere. That was the last memory I had before I passed out.

***********

When I woke up, I felt the cold touch of metal on my back. I stood up and gazed upon my surroundings. Without a doubt, I am in a prison cell. It was just a plain metal cube with viewing mirrors on all walls. It's hard to determine which the actual door is. I noticed a man, probably in his late twenties with me in the cell lying down on the metal floor. He had long, uncut gray hair and wore a long, cyan blue hospital gown. His facial hair was also untrimmed and the bags below his eyes marked his fatigue. Before I knew it, I was already in a conversation with him.

"Your name's Kris, right? I'm Robert. Welcome to the Wings of Purgatory. I'll be your cellmate probably 'til death." he said. The sentence made me swallow hard.

"In this place, we're lab rats. Medical, physical, psychological, emotional, sexual or social experiments – you name it. I've been here for five months already and my cellmate died yesterday. So they assigned a new one for this cell. Word of warning: this place is hell, kid. Definitely not purgatory."

I took the courage to ask him even more. "Where exactly on Earth are we located right now?"

He scoffed at my sentence and said in between laughs: "Ha-hahahaha! You're k-kidding, right? Pfft...we're thousands of kilometers away from Earth! You're in space, dude. Hahaha!"

I immediately took a peek at the window and he was right: we are on a galactic spaceship orbiting around Earth. I always thought that technology like these were already extinct a long time ago. Apparently, some managed to survive. Robert explained to me that the "Wings" was administered by former government officials and that this ship was originally a mankind salvation project. But when the founder died, she was replaced by another official who turned this place into a prison. He also told me his story about how he got into this hell.

"You see, I was looking for some food back then on Earth when this old man on a robe handed me a piece of biscuit which I gladly accepted. After eating, he made me do the unthinkable: he made me kill him. I don't know how he did it, but he did it."

"Wait! That must be the same person who led me in this place!" I said. "But why? Why is he doing all of these? And how did he survive if you already killed him before?" I asked him. Before we could even continue our conversation, one of the four metal doors hissed and slowly opened up. I saw Robert trying to hide his fear but his tension was so strong that it rubbed on me as well. "What's going on?" I asked him.

"The Servants. They are the alien-like creatures who conduct the experiments here." Robert said with a sharp hint of nervousness in his voice. A humanoid-like creature with wrinkly gray skin and wide black eyes entered the room with a pair of metal rods sparking with purple plasma. The Servant stared at Robert and was about to place the rods on his head when suddenly, out of instinct, I threw the metal spoon on the creature's face. The plasma followed the spoon and electrocuted the Servant instead.

We took the portable plasma rods and immediately ran out of the cell. The alarms started to be wildly heard everywhere. Our actions caught the attention of most of the Servants, causing them to charge to us. Long, metallic nails suddenly stretched out of their fingertips, ready to slash us to death. I managed to evade most of their attacks and retaliate using the rods.

We attacked anyone who interfered with us with the rods until we reached a corridor with a signage that led to the main chamber. We marched down the hallway until it led us to a vast, circular open space that connected all the corridors. We looked up and saw the large, viewing mirror of what seemed to be a control room because of all the pipes and wires branching from it. A human-shaped silhouette was visible in the room.

With haste, we took the long flight of stairs that led to the said room on the upper floor. We barged into the room and saw the old man who started all of this, sitting idly in a swivel chair in front of the controls. The cat on his shoulder seemed to pulsate as its fur changed into a variety of colors; something that it didn't do the first time I saw it. "Shit, that's an alien parasite!" Robert shouted.

The cat, according to Robert's explanation, turned out to be an alien parasite which controls the old man's psyche, making him an experiment-freak. Apparently, the parasite regenerates the host's body every time it dies, making the host virtually immortal. Robert said that his previous cellmate had tons of knowledge about aliens, being abducted by different species many times before.

I looked around and noticed that his entire room was filled with plant and animal specimens which were already extinct on Earth, stored in neatly stacked glass cubes. The crystalline containers were filled with a very cold gel-like substance contained every specimen, all of which are still alive.

That gave me an idea.

I electrocuted the kitten on the man's shoulder with the rods, immediately immobilizing the man. I felt sorry for the body of the old man because he was used as a puppet. He's dead, anyway.

Robert saw a thick manual on a desk and quickly scanned through the book. "Hey, look at this!" he said to me as he pointed out a page with images and text saying that the cells are also programmed with an escape mode, which will send all the cells back to Earth. I followed the guidelines on the book and typed a series of commands and codes on the main computer and activated the escape pod system.

I heard a heavy rhythm of footsteps originating from downstairs. The Servants are coming.

My eyes caught on a page which clearly stated a process of turning dead humans into biotechnologically engineered individuals, which turned out to be the Servants. I quickly taught of a plan because of that. Thank God for my Ma and Pa for gifting me with this awesome brain.

With a few knobs and buttons, I activated the sprinkler system on all the hallways and closed all the cells, preventing the prisoners from getting wet. Robert checked on the heat signature map on a screen on the side. The Servants gave off a stronger heat signature than humans. The screen indicated that all the Servants are indeed at the lower floor of the main chamber. I traced down the pipes that led to the sprinkler system and with a smile on my face, I pressed the plasma rods against the metal pipes. Soon enough, the powerful current flowed through the sprinkler system. The power emitted by the rods was powerful enough to immobilize all the Servants, but not enough to kill them. I deactivated the sprinkler system and went on to our plan.

I was about to proceed to my next plan when I felt something pointed stab me in my right arm. I turned around and saw the old man, now with a syringe and a regenerated alien parasite on his head.

"W-what did you do to me?!" I blurted out of panic.

"A deadly, incurable and highly infectious pathogen is now flowing in your bloodstream." the old man uttered with a smile.

My knees felt like it became jelly. It was like my mental processors were suddenly gone off, and I couldn't think of a plan. I felt like crying that moment, when Robert suddenly slammed the old man's head hard against the now-heated water pipes, killing the parasite in a matter of seconds.

"You're welcome." he said, grinning.

Without hesitation, we quickly took the crystal-like cubes containing the specimens and placed it in our cell through a Transportation cell in the office which worked like a pipe-system interconnected throughout the ship, allowing easy transportation of items. When the timer of the escape pod system reached zero, the ship started shooting off the prisoners one by one back to Earth.

Robert and I were about to enter the cell and activate the escape mode of our pod when I stopped.

"What are you doing? Let's go!" he said as he tried to pull me into the cell.

"If these creatures won't die, they might repeat the Great Collapse. I saw it in the control room....they started it all. "

"But-"

"Look, I'm going to die anyway through that pathogen. We already placed the specimens required for the revival of Earth in this cell. I don't want to bring this pathogen back to Earth; I'll rather die here. The future on Earth depends on you."

Before he could even say another thing, I punched a code on the keypad of the cell door and activated the escape pod, sending him and the specimens back to Earth. Why am I doing this? To be honest, I don't even know. I just felt a sudden urge to do something right. Perhaps anyone would perceive this as something idiotic, but with a good cause.

Even if it meant my own demise.

Finally, I went back to the controls and hacked the main computer to activate the self-destruct mode of the Wings of Purgatory, thanks to the handy manual which helped me go through the layers of security the computer contained. Before the ship blew up and killed me along with the aliens, I checked on the rock on my pocket which turned out to be a diamond. The moistness of my clothing managed to soften the layer of soot covering it earlier, letting me see its true beauty.

The Diamond is the hardest naturally occurring substance ever known to man. It can survive even the strongest of impacts, I remember my dad telling me.

Everything in this ship will be obliterated along with the explosion except for this piece of beauty. I smiled, before everything turned to nothing, leaving the undamaged diamond floating in space; a rock as resilient as the Filipino spirit within me.

**************

The vast grassy plains looked the same as I remember it twenty years ago; the year before the Great Collapse, only with thicker and more bountiful flora. The wide expanse of the greenery covering every inch of the untouched lands of what was once known as the city of Manila merged completely with its ruined buildings and roads. The air was filled with dandelion fuzz as the sun sank at the horizon and scattered twilight that stretched across the sky. The late spring winds blew in the form of a cool, gentle breeze, carrying the seeds that floated in the air with it. The seasons have indeed changed, yes. Ever since nature's balance was thrown off, shit just went crazy. But of course, I'm not complaining about spring season in this country, especially if life is very evident everywhere.

Seventeen years have already passed since Kris sacrificed himself for the revival of Earth. I guess his sacrifice was worth it; human population is slowly starting to rise again. The balance of nature is once again restored. What a very heroic deed for a kid to do.

I hope he can see all of these.