Writing Prompt

The ice was the least of his concerns. John had been hired as a member of a scientific research team, embarking on a six-month mission in Antarctica. The stated goal was simple; continued research into dating the icecaps, ideally finding deep-seated soil samples. This, of course, was unlikely. Humanity had been digging into the ice for decades, never getting further than a half-mile or so. Day after day of mundane research is what he had expected, and frankly, looked forward to, after the divorce. He got exactly that, at first. The entire station had been awoken in the middle of the night, a bombastic rumbling shaking the entire facility. Scientists were not well suited to dramatic situations, as a general rule, so the hallways quickly turned to chaos. John awoke alongside his bunk mate, Peter. Sleeping on the top bunk, the shock nearly sent Peter falling to the floor. John had jumped out of bed almost immediately, his military habits kicking in out of habit. As we was jumping up, he had instinctually reached under his bed for a firearm, only to quickly remember he didn’t keep one anymore. That life was behind him. “What the hell was that?” Peter said in fluster from the upper bunk. He hopped down before John could respond. “I have no idea.” John replied. “Earthquake? Power transformer blowing?” “Slim chance of feeling an earthquake on a solid sheet of ice, bud. Good try, though.” Peter had started to put his boots on. He was otherwise still in pajamas. There was a commotion in the hallway, a young research assistant came barging through their door. “Get to the monitoring room, now! The whole base is meeting there.” He said, out of breath. “What happened? Is everything alright?” John said, starting to get dressed himself. “No time. Just get your asses there, now!” With that, the assistant was off, rushing down the hallway to warn others, room-by-room. The two men rushed out of their room, took a right and headed straight down the hallway. A sharp left, followed by a left hand entry to a door, led them to the monitoring room. A twenty-by-twenty circular room, its red insulated walls sheltering the 10 computers and two large screens from the harsh outside world. There were only a few hanging lights spread through the room, most of the light coming from the harsh monitors and screens. The head of research, a gruff old man with wispy gray hair and a thick mustache, addressed the room. “Good morning, everyone. I apologize for the rude awakening, I assure you, it was not planned. At oh-five-hundred hours, a craft of unknown origins crash landed about a klick from our present location. I have, of course, already been contacted by the United States military. Letigious lot, they are.” He walked over to one of the large screens, and tapped on it with a definitive whack. A security camera video filled the screen, fuzzy black and white. It showed a direct view out from the front of the base. Over the crest of a snow dune, a cloud of smoke was billowing in the air, the intense arctic winds blowing it in every direction. This was the first change in the landscape that John had seen since he arrived. “We are taking a scouting team to begin scouting the contact site, if you’re in this room, congratulations. You’ve won the lottery.” The head of research said dryly. “Just our luck, huh?” Peter nudged John with his elbow. “Yeah, just our luck.” John said, somewhat under his breath, suppressing a slight grin. He couldn’t help but feel a rush of excitement. He might have been here at the station to start anew, free of conflict and drama, but part of him relished it. They were escorted to the equipment room, where they were quickly outfitted with their regular kit. A triple-insulated red parka, replete with a wolverine fur hood. Equally as insulated red pants and black boots, and an ice pick for each hand. They quickly made their way out into the frigid cold, wind whipping at their faces. The sun had begun to rise as the made their way towards the snow crawlers. The icey snow crunched under their feet with each step, barely audible through the wind. It was an eight minute trip to the site by crawler. Everyone inside the vehicle was dead silent. John, Peter, the head of research and two others all exchanged the occasional glance, trying not to get too excited or frightened about what lied in store for them. As they crested the bank, it came into view. The craft was like nothing John had ever seen, outside of pop culture. It really was there. A flying saucer. Crashed into the snow at an abrupt angle, the object was lightly smoking, with flashing lights on its perimeter periodically highlighting its shape. Nothing about the metal seemed unearthly, though strangely the craft had no windows. The only entrance was a gaping hole in the side of the body, a harsh reminder of its unintentional meeting with the earth. The crawler came to a halt about fourty feet from the saucer, the size of it became clearer as they sat below it. “Right then, let’s make history, shall we?” The head reacher said to the occupants of the crawler. An awkward glance was exchanged between the rest of them, as they began to file out of the vehicle, one by one. The world had become strange. The wind whipped against John’s face, as it had prior, but the world around him was devoid of sound. He looked down at his feet and took a step. Silent. “What the hell?” John said aloud, again stunned by silence. His voice hadn’t made any noise. He looked around him, the rest of the crew had begun walking towards the craft. He tried to call out to Peter, but his friend couldn’t hear him. They all were moving slowly, uniformly. Was something drawing them in towards the vessel? Then, it called to him. His eye caught glimpse of one of the flashing lights. His mind was no longer his own, his body was no longer his own. He began to walk slowly towards the craft. He tried to open his mouth to scream, but he had no control. He took a step. He screamed internally. What was happening? Another step. The lights flashed. Step. Another step. He was at the craft. Up close the body of the vessel was slightly modulating, a single sound cutting through the silence. A light hum, emanating from the ship. He suddenly felt calm, as if he had meant to come here his whole life. He removed his right glove, unsure if his will was his own. He reached out and touched the craft. Then all was bright, and silent, and nothing.

It was surprising when the ship fell. It was a bright light that came from the sky. It shot across the bright blue sky like a shooting star at night. Everyone flocked toward the crash site, people where already there. People in red suits. Everyone stared in surprise and awe at the odd people. They wore masks as the ship slowly died, the life of it draining. We all stared in amazement at the ship. The red suited people approached us, expressing awe and surprise that there were people on this planet. All of us were confused, ‘us people?’ I thought to myself as I gazed at the red suited people. They got closer and people backed away. I blinked as some people approached and escorted the people away. I heard them mentioning they were from this planet called.. called ‘Earth?’ It sounded funny. Eearth? Earath? I shrugged and followed the people with my eyes. The planet we were on was Neptune. Some suited people where scared that we even lived here because to them, life wasn’t possible on this planet.

The soldiers are preparing, for a new clean up at this time. The natural lights of nature have dimmed to leave behind a mere illusion of the sky. Yet, the cold white snow, freezes those right now, squeezing onto their arms as their yellowing teeth clattered to make a chilling sound. It was unknown how long these peopel have been in this warp hole for, where the conditions of the natural law of humans were disobeyed and twisted in this heretical location. The men in red suits screamed above the sound of the piercing wind, they gave out orders and instructions in the hope that they will be able to remove this dangerous object. It seemed to tower over all the small ‘humans’ and the ever growing wind slammed into it and bursted the ear drums of the soldiers. She stood over the array of men, looking down at the large object they had scattered on, pondering what their intentions were with her belongings. A solider looked up, and locked eyes with the floating monster, a muffled sound was made, but was blocked out from the wind, his life ended briefly and no one else had noticed him give in. “organisation of warp cleaning…” She read the badge, as her claws crushed it into millions of frgaments, her home was to be destroyed, and they were going to end her life too. In a sense, what they wanted to do wasnt wrong, as this floating monster was destined to destroy the world. “Kill them, you evil monster, do you not see what the impudent lower beings will do to your cherished home?” A voice rang out, she placed a hand to her ear in pain, wincing her eyes as she screamed out a name, “*]>!.¥]*>]” the language couldn’t couldn’t be distinguished, yet every soldier below could hear the incomprehensible music. “A MONSTER! She’s here… MEN DRAW YOUR WEAPONS AND COME HERE.” In an instant they surrounded the evil monster, as she floated above the clouds with small wings, her face was young but her body was big. She never imagined she would be caught, she had no backup plan as she was still only a young ‘child’. The clock ticked, a loud boom rang, her home exploded as her tears soon came. She shouted in rage, yet she didn’t want to hurt hundreds humans, the race she envied, yet she was ever so stupidly curious about them. Her body in ashes, though her spur remained, she had killed many humans and this karma was expected and it came. Her ashes scattered through the cold winds, she was carried to a place without her desire. In the end she could’ve destroyed the humans, but she hesitated and still died, with the name of the evil monster.

In the cold freezing Arctic long forgotten spaceship with a new technology made from a new metal was trapped in the ice. looking outwards a chill was setting in. They had to be quick to excavate the space ship before the Chinese and Russia satellites to take their presence and start asking questions and sending their own excavation team. It was stuck in the ice huge and they and the midwest suffer for a first bite and the freezing frozen secret grip them slowly.

It watches and It waits. Peering from over a hillside pocketed within the snowfall, It observes. From the distance It can see multiple two-legged creatures in strange colors wading in and out of the fallen hubcraft. The same one It was born on, the same one that crash-landed into this planet, the same one It was launched from and now It has found once again. It shifts Its haunches side to side, curling Its lip over the rows of jagged canines, a rumble emits from deep within Its throat. Impatient. Wanting. Hungry. It prowls from Its perch, sliding down the perimeter of the site, keeping low to the snowridden ground. A swift leap and Its now beside the entry to the craft. Its many eyes peer from body to body, meal to meal, waiting for the oppurtune chance to slip back inside. With practiced stealth of a machine It wrings into the ship, delicately avoiding any unsuspecting meat-husks. It snakes through the halls of Its previous home and weaves into a large room adorned with technology only It would understand. The room is dark albeit six large tubes spread in a neat row before It. One is empty and cracked, like a shell of a recently hatched animal. The other five glow with a hazy green, something writhing within the bubbling liquid. It moves to a console and runs Its appendages along the buttons until a satisfying click sounds followed by a hiss. The tubes begin to drain rapidly, all the ooze inside is sucked away leaving only the creatures locked inside. It clacks once more on the console and the tubes slide open, revealing five fellow Its'. It are now They. They are awake. They are alive. They are hungry. And They have a feast waiting just beyond their doors.

They said it had been a while since it had crashed when they sent us out here. Given how no one saw the large aircraft go down in the secluded mountains, we had no real way of telling. It certainly looked weathered, though I suppose none of us knew what it originally looked like. There were 15 of us when we arrived at the secluded peak. The aircraft - or presumed spacecraft - stuck out like a sore thumb, even with the layers of snow that had built up over it. It had seemingly crashed at an angle, and the windows on the top of the dome half smashed from the collision. The exterior of it was covered in a thin sheen of ice, icicles hanging from every surface. None of us could quite place it, but there was a deep unease settling in our bones. Like our very nature was telling us to leave this thing alone, and maybe we should have. Maybe we should have all turned tail and ran. Yet, we didn't. It was a slow descent into the crater this spacecraft had created, giving us time to properly observe it. There were no signs of life, or at least no visible ones, like footprints or smoke. That put us at ease for a while, affirming our hopes that we wouldn't encounter anything unpleasant. It may have been a stupid hope, as not too long after, one of the men mentioned feeling like he was being watched. Once he had mentioned it, I couldn't quite shake the feeling myself. It was only natural to feel so exposed in such an open area, I suppose. This, however, felt fairly unnatural. After about an hour, we reached the crater floor. The creeping feeling pooling in our guts had only grown as we had drawn closer to the ground. No one could keep their eyes off of the impressive vehicle in front of us. The strange pull was almost inescapable as we took in the vast spacecraft. I almost lost myself staring at it before I remembered what we had come here to do. Procedure dictated that we started with a headcount, as stupid as it felt to count ourselves before we even went in. I started it, numbering myself as one for the time being. The men answered in turn until we got to number 14. 14. We had 15 men when we had begun the descent into the crater. We were missing someone. The panic that flashed between us was almost palpable, the few that had yet to look away from the spacecraft, finally breaking their stare. There weren't even footprints leading away from where he had been stood. It was like he had simply vanished. That alone made me feel bad that I had never learned the men's names, though maybe that was my own fault. I suppose none of it really matters now. It took a while for us to get our wits about us, as we knew we had to keep going, even as we so desperately wanted to turn around. We crept forward, resorting to holding the backs of each other's coats so as not to lose another person. There was a large hole in the underneath of the spacecraft, as if something had exploded out from the underside. The thought was odd, as we had presumed that something had smashed into the spacecraft and not the other way around. Debris littered the ground below the hole, various sizes of pipes, and other mechanical parts. The fortunate fact was that the weather up here was far too cold to support any life form on earth, though it is unfortunate that I can not swear the same about non-earth lifeforms. We stood for a brief moment, steeling ourselves for what we might see. As we would all find out, this was one of many mistakes. The man at the back of the line let go of the coat in front of him. I turned at the right moment, seeing a flash of orange as something seemingly swooped down and grabbed him, though I couldn't see what. He didn't even scream before he was gone from view. Now we were down to 13 men, and we were clearly being watched. It felt sickening, like we were easy prey for a predator we couldn't even see. Maybe this is what we deserved for trying to meddle with other's space tech...

I couldn‘t believe it. I still was hundreds of metres away and this ship was massive. Some of my colleagues were already at the hull. Multiple teams were just documenting the discovery. And I was right here - I almost couldn‘t believe it! I was about to inspect it in all details. I started moving towards the ship and the closer I got the more intimidating the structure was. It towered over us with its dark metal structure, partly covered by the ice. The front - I guess? - was rammed deeply into the ice wall of the enormous cavern we were in. I finally was there. Just a few feet away. I slowly hold my hand up and when I finally touched the hull, I swear I felt the ship rumbling under my skin. Startled I yelled out. But when I looked up nobody had reacted. And nobody touching the hull seemed to notice the energy. I touched it again and felt the rumbling getting stronger which each second. Suddenly I felt warmth under my palm and a second later a loud sound disrupted the rather silent area. And when I stumbled backwards a piece of the ships hull started moving. Five seconds later the was a large dark hole opening up. The hull has moved towards me now stopped as a ramp right before me. Whatever this ship was - I just had opened it…

I went inside the ship. It was huge and I mean huge. I’d never seen anything like it. There was halls and corridors and stairs. I went to the highest part of the ship and I saw the big window. There were dead people or animals or something everywhere, in the halls and the seats. I think they were aliens but I don’t think that anyone else would agree. They’d make up any excuse to not believe there are aliens in our land. I went to the middle level, it was dark and cold, but i got my flashlight and powered thru the fear. I saw giant glass jars or I guess they were like coffins. They were bigger then me. They had some weird gel-like substance in them and there was bodies in all of them. I realised this is a spaceship and these are aliens in cryofreeze. All it would take is a push of one button for all of them to wake up. I dont know what they’re like or what they’ll do if they see humans so I’d rather not be the one to push that button. I went to the lower level of the ship and saw lots of doors. They all had sensors on them so I couldn’t get into any of them. I came across one door that was open. I went inside and saw a body. I went in further and saw another bodies but it wasn’t on the floor its feet were strapped on the ceiling. There were other straps on the ceiling they were empty. There was a giant egg or something attached to the head of the alien on the ceiling. Alll of the dead aliens had black blood. None of them had any clothes on so they were completely exposed. Their anatomy was close to a human but they had 2 times everything that we have. So they had two heads, four arms and legs, and so on. It was fascinating to see how closely related we were. I saw that they had a language, it was carved into wood on the wall. The more I learned about them, the more I wanted to protect them. I dont know how I’ll do that but I’ll figure it out. I always figure things out.

“How did we miss this on the serveys before? It makes no sense how this landed without triggering our scanners.” Looking up at the pile of debris I see nothing familiar to our own tech. Bent metal of a density unlike any we have on Earth, machines that once held a purpose, but are now lumps of burnt material, none of it we could identify. The first report of it came from our scouting team early this morning, saying there was something huge that we haven’t mapped. How could that be? We mapped just last week and the frost buildup on this ship looks old, creeping into the cracks between the facets and expanding the space between the metal plates. We got a team out there as soon as the sun rose, photographs have been taken of the exterior en masse, but no one has gone further than a step inside. No one said why, they just insisted on waiting for me to arrive. I stepped up to the gnash in the metal, looking it up and down, having to take a step back to see the entirety of it. Much of it bent inward from impact, looks to have been from the crash landing, mostly. There! At the very bottom… that doesn’t look like impact damage, more of a chemical burn? Something ate away at the material here, not a lot of it, but I can easily picture the corrosion bubbles chewing small, circular holes. I look back at the field scribe and relay this, they scribble it down quickly in their notebook and look back at me with eager eyes. They wan’t me to go in, they all want me to. I hate being the “fearless” captian. But I am curious myself. Stepping inside, the air is still, frozen, and quiet. My flashlight illuminates the crooked floor in front of my foot, scanning for a clear path. I feel the cold of the ship creep through the soles of my boots as I take another step in. I make it down what once may have been a narrow corridor, now widened and twisted. To my left are flexible tubes, now shredded, once carrying some sort of liquid through the craft, which is now a solid puddle on the ground nearby. The quiet is deadly in here, the only sound my footstep echoing off the walls and back to me. The path ends abruptly at a ladder leading up, ruined, but climbable. I find myself at what I think is the control room, through a small hatch in the corner of the room. I see rows of panels of unmarked buttons and switches, Suprisingly analog to what I expected. Along the walls are what look to be indicators and status displays, not unlike those of a power plant. I see here, symbols, words? A script unknown to me, made of quick and small strokes, a mix of jagged and circular patterns, not written left to right, but seemingly written _around_ a central point. I make a quick sketch, the scribes are going to have a field day with this. A shuffling. A sound independent of my own breathing, echoes through the room. I freeze in place. _Could have been the ship settling. A panel shifting. Nothing more._ Seconds pass like minutes, but I hear no further noise. I finally force myself to move and look out into the room… Nothing. As I thought. I relax fully now and decide to retreat back to the team. Back down the hatch and through the service tunnel. The light of day shining through, I get a glimpse of the scribe walking back to the entrance. I move up to greet her, climbing up out of the tunnel, resting my hand on the side of the ship. _What’s this?_ My hand feels slick against the metal, I bring my hand back up. A slippery, green liquid now coats my glove. _I don’t remember this being here when I entered. _I turn to the scribe, “Did you notice this before?” “Oh, I didn’t! Organic material? A fuel? Oh this is exciting let me get a lab kit!” She runs off down the hill. _ How has this not frozen?_ I look back inside the slumbering ship. _I didn’t see any bodies, did I?_

Dear diary, January 15 2056 at 20:05 Today we found a UFO Frozen in time Broken down Parts missing Holes in the wall We were sent to retrieve the weird thing And to investigate it It was starting to get frozen over from the snow But we used a heat source to get it free We don’t know were the creatures Controlling the ship is And we don’t know how long it was standing there It is a strange mystery indeed Something we can’t even fathom for ourselves But soon we will find out the mystery and solve it It looks like though we might steal whatever info On that ship for ourselves I don’t want to though I want to respect privacy But it’s not my choice I think if I find these creatures that were on this ship I will help them get home The end at 20:32