On a planet, more than a hundred thousand light-years away from our own, signs of alien life have finally been found. The mission was successful after only a week, but as soon as we entered the atmosphere we could feel in our bones that there was a catch.
We’ve been flying for hours over this endless empty city. It seems to span the whole continent. Our ship passes street after street, weaving in between hundreds of skyscrapers that would each rival any on earth. We still haven’t spotted a single living soul.
Everything is made up of the same pristine white stone. Occasionally the masonry is interrupted by sleek glass windows. It’s beautiful and yet, so dead and empty. This city must have been home to billions of…something at some point, but now nothing remains.
I can’t stand watching the skyline pass by anymore. Every time I do I think I see something gargantuan move. It’s always in the corner of my eye. It’s probably nothing. There aren’t even clouds passing by. The vast expanse of the sky is uninterrupted as far as I can see.
We can’t possibly be alone in a city so massive. There has to be something out there, something that did this. We can all feel it, something bearing down on us. I can see that some of the boys in security are getting itchy trigger fingers. I understand wishing that the tension in the air was something you could shoot.
I had to choose the team that would touch down first. It was my assignment to make landfall so I didn’t have a choice but to go. I felt a sense of guilt each time I picked someone’s name from the list as if I was drowning and dragging other fools down with me.
The roaring engines of our landing craft make a deafening noise as we touch down. Once the ship settles I notice we’re all holding our breath to see if something will react to our disturbance. Nothing does. The air’s breathable but we don’t trust it. We keep our suits on. We walk wordlessly through the street, desperately hoping not to disturb the oppressive stillness, not to be known.
We pick the closest of the daunting skyscrapers and start clearing it. Each step sends echoes bouncing down the halls. It’s agonizing not being able to hide our presence better. One hallway we start down doesn’t end. After the first fifty feet, there are no more windows and the hallway continues into darkness. We switch on our headlamps and step forward. I feel the darkness wrap around behind us, pushing us onward.
Every fifty feet the hallway turns right. I realize it’s also ramping downward. The floor we’re walking on is made of some unknown metal alloy. It creates a squeaky clunking sound with every step. I hate it. The security officers’ hands haven’t left their rifles since we stepped out of the landing craft. One of them breaks our unspoken vow of silence to ask if we should turn back. Something in my gut tells me that this hallway leads somewhere important. We keep going.
About twenty minutes go by before we see it, a soft red light shining through the dark. Our progress slows to a snail’s pace. We barely breathe as we step forward. It’s so quiet I can hear the thumping of my own heart and a ringing in my ears. After what seems like an eternity our headlamps get close enough to expose the red lights’ source. A massive door made of some black metal alloy. The red light sits at the center. At our approach, the light turns yellow and the door screeches as it scrapes across the floor and slides to the left. Each of us winces at the terrible sound. The room inside the doorway is too deep for our lamps to illuminate. Anything could be lurking in there, still, we all know that we must step into the abyss. Eventually, I take the first step. The Security officers are behind me, their rifles raised. One by one we cross the threshold. Even as we move into the room the light of our headlamps fail to reach any of the far walls. Our cautious and quiet entrance is defiled as each of us begins to trip over some kind of detritus littering the floor. We turn our lamps to our feet to see what waste we’ve been kicking aside. It takes a moment for my eyes to focus on the brightly lit objects at my feet.
They’re bones, hundreds and hundreds of bones, skeletons not too different from our own scattered about in the throes of death. A terror the likes of which I have never felt before rises in my chest. We flash our lamps all around us and it doesn’t end. They encroach on us from every direction. Hundreds of horrid skulls with sockets enough for four eyes staring us down.
Then the door shut behind us.