Challenge #00715 - A350: The Truth is Out There
Assume the plane in prompt 00691 - A326 is the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, or another mysteriously vanishing flight. It finally lands on the planet and the pilots try to flag down a passerby to ask for directions home.
25th of May, 2003.
As soon as they were out of range, a party broke out on board.
“We did it!”
“WOO!”
“We got our own goddamn JET!”
Shrieks and whoops and general celebration lasted all of fifteen minutes before the vortex had them.
Well, that was what they called it. None of the thieves had any idea what to name a swirling tunnel of purple clouds and conflictingly-coloured skies. Or what to name the oppressive blackness that seemed to convey great speed, eons of time, and pants-wetting terror all in the same moment.
The next thing they knew, they were flying over an alien land mass.
“What the hell?”
“What the flying fuck is this?”
“What button did you press, Dave?”
“I didn’t do shit.”
“We told you not to touch anything, Dave!”
“I didn’t do shit!”
For the next five minutes, the flight recorder dutifully preserved for posterity the sound of five men asking variations of, “What the fuck is that?” before Jonno called for calm.
“Okay. Obviously, something went wrong.”
“Was the SATURN in orbit your FIRST clue?” asked the luckless Dave.
“No I reckon it was the purple shrubbery,” said Paul. “We can’t keep flying and hope we get back, that’s stupid. That’s Twilight Zone level shit.”
“Did we check the passenger list for a Rod Serling?”
“Shut up, Warren, you’re not helping.”
“There’s a field! We can do a rough landing and try to ask for directions.”
“Everyone buckle up, this is gonna be a son of a bitch.”
*
Military Sergeant Tiyibb poses with some of the alleged alien wreckage found in Slorlëw, Numekscae.
The Sergeant was clearly holding rumpled tinfoil, much to the outrage of the witnesses. They knew that whatever had crashed in a farm outside that sleepy town had not been a weather balloon.
There were four of them, Yarnethi wrote in her journal. Taller than me. All different colours in their skin. One was really dark, like he was made out of shadows. One was very pale. Almost a porcelain pale. The other two were in-between. They had strange soft growth that came out of their heads.
One was lying down. It was bleeding. Their blood was so dark and it stank and the ground underneath that one foamed and sizzled. Two were helping the one lying down and the fourth was going in and out of the wreckage, salvaging things.
They were horrible giants. Thick-limbed and loud and obviously strong.
I couldn’t understand the words they said, but it was clear they were communicating.
I saw what landed in Slorlëw. And it sure as hell wasn’t a weather balloon crewed by experimental animals or shop dummies.
I just wish I’d brought my camera with me.
Hers was just one of many accounts, written or otherwise recorded by the people who had seen or been part of the Slorlëw Incident. Rumours of conspiracy theories and aliens being held in secret government facilities persisted for decades.
But nobody knew - or was able to tell - what really happened to the wreckage or the aliens that crash landed in Slorlëw.
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