A Star Reborn
My flash fiction entry for the Lunar Awards Prompt Quest #3
Hi there.
I wanted to share some flash fiction I’ve written for the Lunar Awards Prompt Quest #3. The Quest’s organiser, the inestimable
, provided both a science fiction and a fantasy prompt, and I chose the former to seed my ~800 word story.As a reward for completing this Quest, my story will also be a second submission into Season Eight of the Lunar Awards, the first being the prologue of my debut novel ‘INGRESSION’, which you can subscribe to read as a serial here.
Here’s the Quest’s science fiction prompt:
“Write a short story which takes place on a floating academy orbiting a dying star. A professor is tasked with preparing the students for evacuation, but strange anomalies are causing disturbances in time and reality. Will everyone escape in time, become trapped in an alternate reality, or something worse?"
Optional level up: The professor is not human.
You can read my resulting story below.
Wish me luck for both the Quest and the Awards!
A Star Reborn
Through our classroom’s floor-to-ceiling viewport the expanding star stirred again on its silent, gravity-warped death bed. The largest prominence from this latest convulsion was a monstrous arc of violent, twisting plasma which curved towards us along invisible magnetic flux lines.
At the desk next to mine, Bencari-5 cried out like the idiot they were. As with every other death throe we’d witnessed, the plasma warped and coursed harmlessly in a colossal, fiery loop before falling back to reconnect with the star’s roiling surface. Despite – or perhaps because of – millions of tonnes of matter and thousands of degrees of temperature, physics had once again defeated wild imagination.
“Class, there remains no need for alarm,” assured our teacher, Professor Stelat, from behind her lectern. “We continue to orbit outside of Actopar’s projected flare range, and will continue to do so for several more days. Now, please return your attention to today’s reading.” She nodded to the class swot: “Do continue, Mendal-3.”
Lung pipes flexing and wheezing, their tedious low-pitched drone refilled the room as my dutiful translator piped their words into my head. But scripture class was so dull and repetitive. I’d drifted into a daydream shortly after they’d begun.
A shiver of goosebumps dappled my forearms as an odd feeling crept over my skin and then through my body. Mendal-3’s words sounded too familiar. Identical even. But such déjà vu was meant for the Qualia and their heretics. I squished my comms button deeper into my ear. They were definitely repeating an earlier passage. Why hadn't the Professor noticed?
Then Curand-7 dropped their stylus again. It span on the spotless floor and stopped exactly as before, its tip pointing at my right foot like a dark matter diviner.
I glanced again through the viewport and Actopar convulsed once more, the prominence’s fiery features matching my memory of the same. I turned to Bencari-5 before they cried out, my eyes as wide with premonition as theirs were from fear. This shouldn’t be happening. Not to me.
“Class, there remains—”
I raised a hand. “Professor, there's something wrong.”
She smiled. “And what might that be, Andre-1?”
“I… things are… everything just repeated itself. I don't—”
“What an odd thing to say! This is an entirely new text. I very much doubt you’ve—”
“No, I meant everything. The reading, our movements, even Actopar's flares.”
“Have we had this conversation before, Andre-1?”
“Well… no. That would be impossible. I only—”
“So I doubt there’s a problem. At least,”—she looked around—“not with myself or the other students…”
My head sagged as my classmates stifled their sniggers. “Weirdo,” hissed Bencari-5. They had all witnessed my pointless rejection of an assigned number.
Several minutes passed as I absently listened to Mendal-3's repetitive recital. Then another wave rippled through me with greater intensity, accompanied by a rush of sound between my ears, like a vacuum-evacuated airlock. I clutched my ears and gritted my teeth, my forehead pressed to the desk. Silence surrounded me. When I finally dared to look up, I couldn't prevent my scream.
Propped on each desk was a skeletal head, resting on spindly arm bones. My classmates’ spines sagged from skull to chair, any ribs or pelvises empty of organs, their lower limbs dangling to terminate in bony feet.
The horrendous scene was bathed in a dim, blood-red light. Outside, amorphous eddies of flickering plasma circulated. Inside, my feet grew uncomfortably warm and the air was stifling hot. Actopar's solar atmosphere must have expanded to encompass our orbit, yet I remained alive.
The Professor hadn't moved from her lectern. But her chrome torso was tarnished and streaked, her prismed eyes dull orange. She raised a creaking arm and pointed a finger at me. “There is no need for alarm, Andre-1,” she said, her voice a distorted crackle.
Before I could reply, another disruptive, mind-bending wave coursed through my brain. I blinked and looked around again. No, no. This wasn’t happening. It wasn't real. More of my screams reverberated around the classroom. On each chair lay a new-born. The nearest twisted towards me and mewled in distress. Bloody mucus stretched between its blue lips, the sunlight painting its skin a sickly hue.
The light was tinged yellow. Actopar was younger and the Professor still hadn’t moved. But her body had morphed into shiny chrome and polished joints, her eyes bright jewels. She smiled at me.
Another wave hit me and, with a gasp, normality returned in the form of bright classroom lights, cooler air and recognisable classmates. I wiped the sweat from my brow and rose from my seat, desperate to leave the room.
“Please sit down, Andre-2. The lesson hasn't finished.”
‘Two’. She’d said ‘two’.
The whole class was staring at me. Outside was an infinite star-speckled blackness. Actopar had either gone or we’d moved on.
I sat back down without protest and waited for the lesson to finish.
I waited for another dying star to appear over our demarcated horizon.
I waited for me to be three.
I'm in awe of people who can write so confidently about future technology. I'm not certain how a bicycle works.
This had me very anxious for Andre-1! There was something especially creepy about the android teacher in the skeleton-classmate scene repeating that there's no need to panic. Really interesting tie-in to the idea of star names and the birth and death of stars. A fun read!