1: I am devoured

I wake up to the sound of my alarm, it’s 5:00 set time which means it’s 5 for everyone not on a planet or moon. Unfortunately I can’t afford a window room so I don’t get to wake up to the comforting nothing of space but the livestream on my TV screen is the next best thing

I take two steps and I’m already in the kitchen, I get a can of syrup flavoured nutrient water and scroll through the news points. Some god did this, an ancient planet appears in orbit around somewhere. New satellite to start construction. That catches my eye, it’s a small bulletin but with a tap I read more about it, an orbit to land transference station was being set up and as always, they’d be in need of something I was selling, and even if they didnt I reckon I could get them to buy anyway. In the next few hours I’m already suited up and ready to ship off. My contract request sends through and I step onto the shuttle, standing, no seats, nice and cheap. I hang onto the railings as we rattle along.

and just as we begin to speed up and enter the widening field something emerges from the sun. We all look on in horror, struck silent by pure terror as the great winged beast as long as the sun is wide and with a jaw that could swallow a planet races towards us, it lets out a roar. we shouldn’t be able to hear it but this creature doesn’t adhere to common laws of the universe and we don’t just hear it but feel in our bones in our cartlidge. the engine cuts out and we begin to drift. As the beast glides toward us, I hear it say directly to me, not with words but with thoughts, in an impossible voice that rends my heart in two,

“Rejoice!”

and then I am devoured.