Plane Crash
(Year 3022)
(Block A, Juvenile Prison, Mumbai)
"Ugh! What is it now? Leave me alone!!"
A 15-year-old Vermont groaned in sleep as the prison alarm made a wrenching noise.
BLARE...
[ Stasis Protocol Activated ]
With his eyes still closed, he flayed his hands to find the pillow.
Just as the roots of a tree desperately seek the soil, his fingers grabbed the grey pillow, and he planted his face in it to block the sound.
[ Urgent Announcement ]
-!!
His ears perked up at once. Right next moment, he threw the pillow aside and stared at the tainted white ceiling in bewilderment.
'HUH-!? What is wrong with me?'
The rough life of Pirating had ingrained an impulsive self-introspection in him that was borderline OCD. A Space Pirate with half a century's worth of experience like him didn't have the luxury of acting spoilt. Being able to enter the battlefield at a moment's notice was integral to being a Space Pirate in the 31st Century.
BUZZ!!
[ Prisoners are warned of 3rd-degree punishment for violating guidelines. ]
[ Repeat! Prisoners are... ]
Vermont woke up with an alarm. The shock only increased with every second. He discovered he was in a foreign area, but he couldn't place it in his memory.
A few months back, the Acremia Federation battleships were hounding him like a pack of mad wolves after lone sheep. He had tricked them into following him in a cloud of cosmic debris and landed on an orphan planet.
'Right! The Planet-!!'
A nameless orphan ball of Earth cruising on the edge of the Therera Galaxy flashed in his mind. The planet was the farthest he had ever travelled in his 40 years of Pirating career.
He remembered making a stop there in order to recover fuel and hide from the Acremia Federation's pursuit.
BLARE... BLARE...
Vermont's jaw dropped at the loud alarm ringing in his ears.
"WHAT THE F*CK!!! ARE YOU CRAZY!!!"
Fear of death travelled throughout his body and sweat formed on the back of his neck.
In his career, he had discovered many taboos of Pirating. Blatantly revealing your location was one of them. It was equal to a ritualistic suicide and also the most common way Pirates met Yama - the god of death.
DING... DING... DING
A nearby guard quickly entered Vermont's sight and struck his baton against the metal bars while glaring at him. Gou looked at Vermont as if he had kidnapped his wife.
"Stop it! If you make anymore noise, I'll put you in isolation," the frowning guard reasoned.
Gou looked like a typical young adult in his early twenties. A slight stubble of his recently trimmed goatee on his peach-pink skin was a clear demarcation of his youth.
-!!
'A Human-?'
The skin of Vermont's forehead flinched as he widened his eyes in shock.
'Wait-? Wasn't this a barren planet? Somebody already established a colony so far into the Galaxy? But who?'
Multiple questions appeared in his mind, as nothing was making sense.
'The nearest human Federation should be Sky Walkers, but that uniform…'
Vermont couldn't recall the identity of Gou's organization based on his uniform, and that was an even bigger surprise. He didn't doubt his memory. That would be even more absurd. His brain was his biggest strength, and he had no reason to doubt it.
'Is this planet occupied by an Anti-Human force then?'
He felt a larger headache coming his way.
Anti-Human factions were the only non-public organisation wanting to colonise random barren planets on the edge of the galaxies. It wasn't a surprise that he didn't know all of them. Being a space pirate didn't mean he knew every underground organization in existence.
'But how is that possible? Did the AI make a mistake?'
He remembered reading on the life-scan report of his darling ship - The Shura Vortex XMP, that the barren planet had no carbon-based life-forms.
"Beep~ Cell B32, Prisoner is acting weird and paranoid. Open the cell, I'll look ~Beep."
"Beep~ Permission Granted-! Cell will be open for 5 minutes ~Beep."
"This is guard Gou on duty. Please turn back and stand by the wall."
"It is only a procedure check. No need to panic."
The guard spoke in a systematic voice. Recently, the number of drugs in the prison had increased, and he doubted Vermont was currently hallucinating after taking those drugs.
Vermont didn't reply. Instead, he stared at the guard in surprise, as if he had suddenly seen a ghost.
"Gou!?", a memory flashed in his mind.
50 years ago, when the Cataclysm hit Earth, a teenager had slit one of the prison guard's throats with a razor blade that he kept hidden at the base of his tongue.
If it hadn't happened in front of his eyes and caused him great pain in the future, Vermont wouldn't have remembered it. He pondered nostalgically on that incident. Hair on his hand and the back of his neck stood up in goosebumps.
It was not the way Gou died that made him discomforted. He has seen a lot of deaths in his life as a space pirate. He shuddered because Gou's death was unique and life-changing. It was also Vermont's first face-to-face with 'him'.
"Wait-! Impossible!"
He finally realized why everything felt so out of place.
The prison cell with stained walls, the uproar of the juvenile criminals, the pungent smell of urine. He left this place 50 years ago. He slowly raised his gaze to face Gou.
'The plane crash will allow him to come in and slit-.'
'Wait!! The plane cras-' … BOOM!!!
An explosion occurred as he was about to finish his thought. Noisy undercurrents carrying the tone of the world-breaking-apart made their way towards Block A.
From the long horizontal window spanning across the opposite wall, Vermont saw the tsunami of fire, smoke, and wreckage rise. Within seconds, it covered the expanse of the juvenile prison in a dusty and fiery embrace.
For minutes after that, the dark night became even darker.
GRRR... GRRR
He felt the reverberations of chaos travel through his feet as the whole prison tremored because a part of the prison was flattened by the crashing Airbus A380.