First Campaigner Challenge

Rachael Harrie is holding her First Campaigner Challenge.  Begin the story with the words, “Shadows crept across the wall.”  As an added challenge, do one or more of these:  

• end the story with the words: "everything faded." (also included in the word count)

• include the word "orange" in the story

• write in the same genre you normally write

• make your story 200 words exactly!

I did all four.  Please enjoy. 

Shadows crept across the wall, spikes and fangs protruding. 

I’m awake inside my stasis pod.  It’s happening again.  How many did we lose at Turloka 4?  Seventeen?  Eighteen?  Their dying screams echo in my ears as I claw at my chest buckle, releasing the straps. 

Too late.  The creature slithers into the chamber.  Its eyes key on motion.  I go rigid inside the pod.  But my muscles jitter after coming out of stasis.

A man and a woman enter, casual, leather armor on their elbows and knees. 

I hammer at the internal latches with my fists, kick the pod cover open.  My throat thick from stasis sleep, I can only rasp, “Look out!” 

The creature lunges. 

The man whips out a spray can.  Orange aerosol hits the creature between its eyebrow ridges.  It falls on its side, chitinous carapace melting.  The claws spasm a death rattle. 

I stand on the deck plating, struck dumb.  The woman scans my gray underwear with an instrument on her wrist.  “In stasis fifty-seven years.  We’ve had some progress since then.” 

It’s over.  I put my hand up to my eyes, remembering the ones who didn’t make it.  Everything fades.

“Dude, put some clothes on.”