I’m back with another long story. Or at least, a story that would have felt long before I wrote ‘Dragonslumber.’ This story is called Compassion. My husband wanted me to write something nice this month and I mostly succeeded. Just ignore all the horror elements that have crept in. This is an old school space adventure story about humans crash landing on an alien planet and having to deal with terrifying wildlife. The twist though is that they are not the only ones facing scary aliens.
I’m not a biologist and have a very basic knowledge of cells. I learnt new stuff whilst writing this, but the timeframe of this project prevents intensive research. It’s possible I could have gotten the biology wrong, and if so I would like to know about it. I hope to one day put these stories into a collection, and there will be a chance for such errors to be corrected while I re-edit them.
For now though, please enjoy my newest story.
2026 Monthly Story Challenge #11
Compassion (Wordcount: 9337)
By Jayde Holmes
“I’ve destroyed every record of the sub-space path I could access. I know that won’t stop people for long, but I just need a little time. I know the risk I’m taking, but The World could be destroyed, and despite all that happened, I cannot bear that thought. [cont…]”
~ Final Message from Dr. Gloria Mendez
A burning scorch cut through our forest as something fell from the sky. Hundreds of trees and animals died, as well as thousands of insects and a heartbreakingly high number of microbes. We responded fast. We sent burrowers and water carriers into the area to douse the flames. We pushed the woody plants to enter a state of hyper-growth in the hope that they could regrow their bark, and those that were doomed we set to compost or germinate. We gathered hundreds of insectivores and flyers at the edge of the damage, ready to process the bodies once it was safe.
We have adaptations for making the most of fire, but it is rare for the phenomena to happen at this scale so quickly. We read the memories in the rocks and found mention of meteorites that had caused similar damage in the past, but the memories were not a perfect match. The object that had landed was not the correct shape or composition, nor had we ever seen a hole appear on the side of a meteorite that strange bipedal creatures ran out of it.
We were not in the creatures. We could not feel them. It had been horrible enough not being able to sense the meteorite, but these were living creatures of flesh whose bodies were silent. That happens sometimes, when mutations in the colony organelles create colony that communicates on a different frequency, but we don’t let that go unchecked long enough to isolate multicellular organisms.
Was their colony sufficient for them? Could it care for the creatures after such a fall?
One of the creatures collapsed to the scorched ground with foreign material embedded in its abdomen. We watched it wither and scream; obvious signals of distress, but there were no signs of healing or of euthanasia in response.
This silent colony didn’t seem to be doing anything to help that creature.
None of the other creatures touched the injured one to transfer additional; colony cells. They were all panicked as if there was nothing directing their actions. They were in such obvious distress that we could sense it even without access to their cells, but nothing was happening to help them.
It was as if their colony organelles had completely malfunctioned.
We had to help.
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I’m not quite finished with Compassion yet. The cover is incomplete, so I’ll update that later. It feels amazing to have delivered a story for eleven months in a row. Thank you everyone who has liked or commented, and even for those who have just been quietly following along with this project. It’s been a long ride, and I’m proud of the work I’ve done. I just hope there are others who have enjoyed reading these stories as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them.
There is only one more story left, and my prompt word is “Omega”. A fitting end, and I’m gonna try and make this last story as awesome as I can. I hope you all come back next month and check it out.
~ Jayde
