Solar Storm

By Bailey Jones

I pulled a marshmallow out of the campfire; it was slightly burned.

The person next to me turned over onto his back. We sat for a moment, looking towards the green sunset.

“Marshmallow?” I asked, sliding it off the charred branch.

“Shouldn’t we save food?” he asked.

“What’s the point, we’re going to die anyway.”

He nodded, holding out a hand. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the cut on his leg through his space suit. It was deeper now. The bleeding had slowed, only because his body was running out of blood. We both paused as the faint hum of the broken spaceship sat beside us. “You should wrap that,” I said, gesturing to his leg.

“What’s the point,” he sighed.

I shrugged; there was no point… and we both knew it. A long silence settled between us. I was numb to it by now, we kind of figured we were going to die. He shifted slightly, wincing as the blue grass brushed his wound. I looked through the bubble that surrounded us and the fire, towards the stars. I looked back towards Earth, towards home, “Do you think NASA is coming to get us?” I asked.

 “No, it is too far, and expensive. And that is if we can contact them,” he sighed, checking his wristwatch for a message anyway. “No response,” he said.

‘Please refill oxygen,’ my spacesuit beeped.

“I’ll be back,” I said, looking to my oxygen canister.

“I need the bathroom anyway.”

When I entered the ship, the alarms were blaring. I ripped off my suit and headed towards the command room. Thousands of buttons, levers, and notches around the room stared directly at me. I looked around and I saw a red panel that contained an error message. It read, ‘Error: X9FJLQ.’

“What’s this error?” I yelled into the hallway.

He glanced at it, and muttered, “Check the book.”

“Book?”

“Over there,” he said, pointing at it, “Errors, Warnings, and Codes.”

I opened the book and flipped through it. Section 4, subsection b. “It is…” I felt the colour drain from my face.

“What?”

“It... It’s a solar storm.”

His jaw dropped. I watched as he rushed towards the digital radar. It was tinted in blue, barely visible, but it was something. He almost collapsed as he saw the radar. A giant, dark red zone was just a few minutes out. Kilometres wide.

The ship grumbled as the metal was crushed from the outside. More alarms sounded throughout. We both looked at each other and knew what to do. The hallway light flickered as we made our way towards the shield room. He clicked the button designed to protect the spaceship.

Click. Nothing.

I tried this time, same problem. My body became weak.

“The crash must’ve fried the auto release system,” he said.

The ground, walls, and everything around us began to shake. “What do we do?” I asked.

He paused. That alone terrified me. “There is a manual release system. On the outside.”

The storm had become even worse; one of the eight legs holding the ship down had torn off. “No,” I said.

“Yes,” he replied.

My stomach dropped. “Wh-what! In that?” I stared at him, “If someone leaves, the airlock seals shut.”

He looked at me, really looked at me. I saw the guilt, the exhaustion, the pain in his eyes he had been carrying since the crash.

“I got us here. I ignored NASA’s warnings. Please, let me make this right,” he said.

The storm got louder, and rocks began hitting the ship. He grabbed his helmet.

“Don’t you dare!” I screamed.

He sealed the suit. The air lock shut before I could reach him. I slammed my fist on the glass. The door to the outside opened and the storm swallowed him immediately. Swirls of purple dust, red rocks, and white lightning engulfed him.

I ran to the nearest window. Vomit slowly rose in my mouth. I watched as he climbed the ladder. He pulled the manual release lever. It didn’t budge. Dark, red, storm clouds were just a minute away. He pulled the lever even harder. Finally, the shield system was activated. A blue tint surrounded the ship, and it finally stopped rumbling.

He climbed down, pulling against the harsh winds as he walked towards the entrance. I opened the air lock, and he fell through the doorway. He collapsed the moment the doors fastened. I dragged him away from the entrance. His helmet was cracked and his suit torn. His body was covered in bruises and small cuts from the thousands of rocks that hit him. I took his helmet off. His face was pale.

“You did it,” I whispered, lying him down on the floor.

He tried to form a smile but couldn’t. “I told you I could,” his voice was cracked and broken.

His breathing got shallower, each breath taking less air than the last.

“You shouldn’t have gone out there,” I said, “we could’ve figured something out.”

His voice was even weaker than before, “No, we didn’t have time.”

The alarms finally came to an end. For the first time in a while, the world was silent.

I tapped his face, “Hey! Hey! Stay with me.” A singular tear fell from my eye.

“I- I’m trying,” he murmured, “I’m just… tired.”

“I’m glad you’re my mission commander,” he said, “anyone else, I think would’ve given up.”

“I did give up. You saved us,” I said.

“Good… then maybe I wasn’t a total screw up.”

I saw the light fade from his eyes… my eyes filled with tears. I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

Hours later, once the storm had passed, I carried him outside. The ground was scorched, and cracked from the heat, but still soft enough to dig. I dug a hole and placed a broken piece from the spaceship as its headstone.

I laid down next to his grave, “Goodbye, my friend. I will miss you.”

About the Author

I have been writing for as long as I can remember.

Since the age of seven, when I started my first book, I've loved creating stories and haven't stopped writing since and I don't plan to stop any time soon.