There's a sound of air hissing as the airlock finally opens. The man takes a brief glance down at the interface augmentation built into their arm, before taking a step out onto the molten surface of the planet.
They look at the landscape, the rivers of molten red and orange rock flowing slowly through crevasses, where liquid water once flowed. The man feels relieved they turned off their scent receptors, knowing the air would certainly smell horrible, chocked with sulfur, smoke and ash. With a quick tap on their interface to bring the map of the surface into their vision, they set off.
As they walk through the Firey landscape, stepping over smaller streams of lava and avoiding large ones, they begin the doubt their ships readings. No lifeforms could possibly have been here. He glances up as the clouds part briefly, revealing the large red light of the star above, a red supergiant that had begun to die thousands of years ago, swollen so much even this once habitable planet was reduced to lava and molten rock.
Suddenly his interface pings, and he glances down to see that he's approaching the unknown signal. He looks up, realizing its on top of a towering mountain. At least it's not a volcano, they think to themselves. They sign as they begin to ascend, knowing that even their cybernetic legs will struggle to climb this far.
They spend hours climbing, before finding something fascinating. A building. He peers at it curiously. It doesn't appear to be particularly sturdy, but it must be if it survived this long. He moves past it, determined to find the mystery signal.
A few minutes later, he nears the location he detected the signal. As he approaches, he sees what the source of the signal must be. A large stone boulder, stood up in the top of the mountain. The man looks behind him, staring down at the mountain they had just climbed. The circuits in their legs were overworked, and the man was baffled at how any lifeform could have climbed it this far.
He approaches the stone, now detecting the signal behind the large stone. A river of lava off to the left bubbles as they walk past, mere luck being the only reason it had narrowly avoided destroying the stone and source of the signal. As the man walks around the stone, they finally see its source.
A small black box, tucked into a hollow in the rock, which was seemingly carved from the stone. He reaches forward for it, pulling it out and turning it over in his hand. It's perfectly smooth, with no indentations or imperfections. Seemingly it only emits the signal he detects, and nothing else. The man is baffled, but only for a moment as he looks up at this side of the stone, revealing markings, words carved into the stone.
His eyes widen, as the translation software in his head decodes the words. It's a single message, a single sentence, "Humans were here." He can't help but burst into a grin, and then laughter as he reads the message. As he calms himself down, he sets the box back into the hollow and begins the trek home. As he walks, he begins to recall many of his other adventures.
A planet orbiting a blackhole, surface melted due to its accretion disk. A planet so far from its sun it snows frozen nitrogen. An asteroid in a system dominated by three orbiting blackholes, constantly bombarded by asteroids. A planet with the most dangerous wildlife in the galaxy. All explored by him, and every time he wasn't the first. Every time, without fail, he finds something. A marking. A handprint left in mud which hardened into stone, a name carved into stone, a flag left behind. All left in the most inhospitable places, places where the idea of life evolving there absurd, the idea of life purposely going there almost as inane.
All locations where the universes single oldest tradition was followed, a tradition shared across species, across civilization, a tradition shared by civilizations across the entire universe from each other, as old as the very idea of intelligent life itself, something connecting the very first of the precursor civilizations harvesting black holes for power, to the tribes of primitive species barely even to the point of using stone tools.
Finding the most dangerous place possible, somewhere the mere idea of being would cause terror in most sapient life, and leaving a mark behind, something conveying a simple message, one that can be found everywhere there has been intelligent life:
"I was here."
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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140,079 Literary Works • 673,000 Reviews
My first story I've ever written, hope you guys like it!
Hello there, human! I'm reviewing using the YWS S'more Method today!
Shalt we commence with the gory S’more?
Top Graham Cracker - A cyborg being travels throughout space, collecting evidence of other life forms, because it is a hobby of his. This creature happens upon a box indicating that humans had once lived on that planet.
Slightly Burnt Marshmallow - You wrote an extra c in “choked”, but that is just one little thing.
Chocolate Bar - I like how you described the man laughing at the fact that humans were once there, it really does seem like an actual reaction to people once existing on Earth. I believe that the character is Angel, but I could be wrong. Please let me know if I am. Now, I also like how you described the environment all around them, it feels like a trip to another dimension.
Closing Graham Cracker - Overall, a wonderful short story about somebody exploring the universe! I see that you have a chapter of Angel up on your profile and I will be certain to read it! It’s great that humans left behind a box for others to remember them by and so, I wish you…
A beautiful day/night! ^v^
I deleted this, because it sent it twice, and I didn't intend for that to happen. I'm so sorry
Hey there!
So I noticed, we share a similar format with our writings. I, too, am guilty of using dialogue to end a short story, but it adds to the suspense. In this case, you used it to add a comfortable ending to your story. Which is amazing! I loved it.
Besides a few minor grammar mistakes (which can be fixed just fine) you did an amazing job! The beginning intrigued me just enough to keep me going. The paragraphs where a tad long, but each were filled with descriptions that I felt were important to the story.
Towards the end, however, I did get a little lost. I was more confused on how to picture the man in my head. I didn't know if I should've pictured him as more cyber related or more humane, and the ending felt a little empty. It was a great ending, it just felt blunt. It made me think more of "Oh. Huh.." Instead of "Oh, wow-" You know? But not all stories do that, and that's okay.
For your first story EVER, this is a spectacular job, and with improvement, I'm sure you'll be amazing, honest. You're doing wonderfully.
Keep writing!
~Taost
Hey DrRED! Great going, my fellow writer! We all support you wholeheartedly on your writing journey and look forward to reading and providing feedback on your works!
As your very first reviewer here, I am not only very excited to have that honor but I also would love to share some things I've learned so far on my journey.
One, I love that for your story you have a consistent idea of your tense, point-of-view, and you had a direction you were taking your character to his discovery of the black box. I appreciate the stylistic choice of present-tense as it is often used in contemporary/futuristic works. Those are important bones to have for the meat of a story.
I would love to learn more about your main character! I'm intrigued by what seems to be a cyborg-type man (I hope I didn't mistake that?). What's unique about short stories is that even though they are, well, short... you still can give time for allowing your reader to step into your character's mind and learn about who he is as a person - think of any novel or story you've read, you basically become the main character and experience the story as he/she would. So maybe if you kind of think about, ok - who is this person investigating the planet, what is his personality type, his worldview, his long-term goals, short-term goals, and ultimately the pressing matter at hand that is the engine of your plot - ironing out those details on paper and allowing your reader to enter his head a little adds a whole new level of dimension to your story, so that even in a short story you have painted a full, complete picture of what you originally envisioned.
Normally we will review each other on both story and writing style. But since this is your first story, your writing style is just being born! As one author put it (I don't remember who said this), the way to become a great writer is by writing, writing, writing - and writing often. I've learned this for myself as I've kept on writing, writing, writing and writing often. If you do that, and also read different authors, different genres, different styles and time periods, it gives you all kinds of resources to draw upon where you start to create your own unique writing style. You get to see what other authors do to create certain mental images, how they phrase things to speed up or slow down the pace of their story, and what types of descriptions they use to draw readers into their world and fall in love (or be really mad at) their characters.
I hope my review is helpful! Keep on keepin' on, and stay inspired! Enjoy every bit of your writing journey!
Best,
Samhain