Young Writers Society

Two years ago, a ship, called The Albatross, found a new planet. It was the closest to earth they'd found, and with no native animal or plant life to compete with the transplanted earth ones, creating an environment for humans was no challenge. The planet was terraformed and dubbed Vesta after the Roman goddess of home and hearth.

Things went well for those two years. People flourished, the plants grew, the animals were healthy. Then, people started going missing...

Little known to the people, the planet has a force within it. It sucks away the life-force of anything living upon it. It lies dormant until two years after new life has lived on it, then starts killing.

But that's not all. What it kills, it reanimates to kill the others more quickly and efficiently. Not only that, but when it starts sucking away the lives of those on it, it's atmosphere becomes almost impossible to penetrate and storms keep any sort of teleportation out of the question.

Now, they have no contact with the outside worlds and their own dead will soon be turning upon them...

This is technofantasy, so things like gunswords are welcome. Mages, too, work. It's fantasy, too, peoples!

Natalie


Natz walked calmly, the storm had been going on for weeks now, but she wasn't worried. She could control it, vaguely, enough not to be struck by lightning, at least. She looked at the plants and animals she had kept in her private reserve, a place where the others couldn't get to them and hunt them. She knew there were too many rabbits, but couldn't let them go. With a sigh, she picked up one of the many rabbits, stroked it's fur, and began the slow march back to town. Even if she didn't tell the others where they were, she'd still have to get some of the rabbits butchered to stop their overpopulation, besides, most people at the base still liked rabbit, even after eating it for a week.

"Go to Vesta, get some R&R! There must be something you enjoy other than killing, right?" Viper rolled her eyes as she mocked the man who sent her here. Those were his words, exactly. It wasn't her fault she liked blood - she was half demon, so that instinct to kill just came naturally. Sure, it was sick and sadistic, but hey - someone had to keep the bad guys off the planets, right?

She sighed as she stared at the large spider-like creature in the cage in front of her. She'd gone to the zoo to see snakes and find if any caught her fancy, but the snake exhibit had been closed and she didn't really feel like breaking in that day. The thing rubbed its forelegs together and wiggled its fangs around.

Stupid fuzzy beastie thing. Grumbling about zoos and monsters and the lack of blood, Viper - she didn't even remember her real name - sauntered down the winding path back to the entrance to go. She'd have to find something else to do to kill time.

Haha. Kill time.

Too bad time didn't bleed.

Leila held her rifle level with the ground, aiming directly at the... thing across the field from her. Pulling her trigger, the thing fell over, a bullet wound in its chest. She smiled, wiping her brow of sweat. It was hot out on the sun-baked field, and the cloudy sky offered little protection. As a result of the eleven suns, one season was always immensely hotter than the rest. However, it was a miracle life could even be supported in such an inhospitable solar system, so Leila had few complaints.

Across the field, the thing was quickly consumed by another thing. It bent over, ripping open the chest of the first one, and indulging in its internal organs. She quickly shot at this one too, and it fell dead.

These things most closely resembles zombies, from old bedtime stories. Of course, they shouldn't possibly exist, but Leila really didn't care.

They were there. And they sure as hell were fun to kill.

Once outside, she double-checks she has all her weapons and meanders down to the road.

She could go killing, she supposes. Of course, if she were to do that, there'd be the whole thing about avoiding getting caught, and this was a holiday. Perhaps she could kill some animals? No, that didn't seem right. Humans were really her main prey after all.

Sighing, the woman plodded onwards down the road.

Bang!

A gunshot. She turns and starts heading towards the noise.

JACKSON keeps his? her? his. hand in his now-illegal vaporizing gun disguised as a TY8-46 and shuffles down the street cautiously. Something shuffled in front of him and he shot it, a huge BANG! coming from the gun.

Maybe there will be something fun to kill there, she supposes as she wanders into a large field.

A short girl of no more than 12 stood there, shooting what appeared to be zombies with a huge scythe-gun. Viper stood there for a minute, amused by the scene, before she whips out her two curved daggers. One is pure white like bone, the other deep ebony.

Her eyes glow dimly scarlet for a moment as she charges the undead.

JACKSON screams and vaporizes the zombie. "You're welcome," he gasps.

The thing he had seen earlier was a zombie. There was a whole trail, so he followed it, killing them as he went. He had come to the field with 23 zombies dead.

She whoops in delight as she spatters guts and, unfortunately, little blood across the field. This was great fun!

JACKSON yells a war cry and blasts a lot of zombies around THE WOMAN.

She cackles and dances around the battlefield, slicing this way and that.

Violet quickly landed amidst a crowd of zombies. She quickly slashed ten with her dagger, and a large black cloud of birds erupted out of her head circlet and dispatched the rest.

JACKSON was panting. "Thanks," he/she/they told VIOLET. "I needed that. It's kinda hard killing them all with just guns. I'm JACKSON. What's yours?"

"You're welcome. I'm Violet. Nice to meet you." She shuddered as her wings disappeared into her shoulders. She drew another sword out of her boot and attached it to the other sword, making it a double pointed spear.

JACKSON held out his hand in a greeting for VIOLET to shake.