The smell of jet fuel. I looked around me in efforts to distinguish it's origins and remember thinking consciously that I had no recollection of ever smelling in my dreams before. I listened, and could hear no animal life, but instead a loud siren now whined in the distance.
As I made my way to the centre of the fern-lake, I looked up into the clearing above.
Crude, smoking, bomber aircraft. Ranks of them were passing over; uncountably stacked and filling the air with a thick, black haze.
I waded further and found a path of mown grass with tidily cropped plants and trees either side that cleared the canopy as it went allowing me a clear view of the raiders.
I was then standing on the edge of the forest. A clear view of the horizon before me. Like kings of old, there sat clouds of war, illuminated from within by muffled explosions. The raid concentrated somewhere beyond distant hills. It's target unseen, but surely destroyed long ago. Yet the bombing continued, all the while the clouds contorted ends twisted into cruel smiles, and their crowns grew tall and heavy.
Muffled foot steps on the sandy floor replaced the explosions, and I opened my eyes to see everyone else was up and moving.
"Here." Someone said, handing me my allocated food and water. "We're all heading out shortly."
I felt a bucket of dread splash me awake, and sat up in shock.
"OK, alright. I'm up. I'm up." I said in a panic.
The other laughed.
"Take it easy. You're not coming, remember?"
"Yeah, I know." I replied, quickly. "I just would rather I had been up earlier, getting use to the idea some more."
"Fair enough." He agreed, and took my hand to pull me up off my hard bed.
"Is 108 about?" I asked, scanning the shelter.
"I'm 108." He said, a little hurt.
It was my turn to laugh.
"Sorry, I'm not quite here yet. Say, do you think I might fix that spearhead you found on a shaft? I've got a bad feeling I'm going to need it."
"Yeah, of course." He said with a chuckle, taking the spearhead from his belt. "Honestly, I don't blame you. I've had this distinct feeling I'm being slowly hunted by something, for a while now."
"Me too! I said relieved. "My imagination is going mad with the stuff.."
There was a summoning call from outside the shelter. We joined the group as 75 was doing a headcount. I took a step back as his finger fell on me.
"I'm staying." I reminded him.
"And I'm going that way.." Added 108.
"Right, well, we're all here. Everyone got their water?"
There was a collective nod as 75 took 108 aside for his usual pre-fight councilling session.
I struggled earnestly to soak up the remainder of the sunset. 109 was taking his mapping instructions from 63 in the foreground, and all I could do was feel awfully outcast from everything; everything except my fears that is.
Fighting the urge to cling to someone's ankle, I waved my pitiful goodbyes and watched them all disappear into the dunes until I was most certainly alone.
I remember staring into nowhere in particular for a long time before I realised I was actually was frozen in terror. I couldn't even move my eyes I was so terrified of what I might see. They've got me alone, I thought. The aliens, they're crawling up the dune from all sides to ensure themselves a meal.
And then, something magical happened.
It got to the point when I was actually patiently awaiting my demise; still unmoving, yet, somehow slightly more relaxed at the prospect of being eaten alive. The sun had long since set, and I had been staring into the same point of nowhere for the entire time. I hadn't noticed it getting brighter. Only when I had the nerve to take a deep breath did I recognise the sharpening of the mountains. Without thinking at all, I reached into my back pocket and unfolded the spreadsheet from our moon tracking the night before. I held it up beside my view of the mountains and compared it with the sketch.
With my free hand I turned on my phone and casually found the stopwatch function.
When the moon flashed a wink between the mountain ridges I pressed start.
"Good evening, Maree Three." I said aloud with a rare smile.
Copyright T H CAMPBELL 2012 All Rights Reserved.
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