From The Moon

Groaning, Lori begins to move; her hands skirting over rough surfaces which she ignores the sensations from because the pounding in her head is simply too much to ignore currently. That is why when she opens her eyes she does so slowly. To her surprise she doesn’t see much except for a debris strewn floor. Her brow furrows. She wonders where she is, what has happened. She was sure she was going to die. Suddenly, in a flash, the memories of what happened return to her.

With a start she bolts up, her breathing deep, the banging in her head having vanished as she looks around. Everywhere her eyes fall she spies rubble, haphazard piles like poorly conceived mountains would be her best description for a good portion of it.

She begins to cough, dust having clawed its way to the back of her throat. The spluttering continues for a while. When she finally gets it under control and manages to clear her throat she finds it feels parched. She tries to swallow but there is no spit and so all she is left with is dust which tickles and almost forces her back to coughing. At least her eyes are acclimatised to their surroundings now and permit her a view of her without merciless stinging or aggravating blurriness.

Immediately, she regrets her fortune for quickly she comes to discover strewn around, in and amongst the rubble, are the bodies of her colleagues. She gags, her jaw quivering and turns away. Her hands are shaking and she is horrified by the sights she beholds, especially as no matter where she looks there is death. Finally, unable to take anymore she vomits. It is the first of several successive reactions to the gore.

When her body no longer feels it necessary to expel the contents of her stomach, she wipes her mouth with her hand. Her belief is that she is capable of spewing no more because there is nothing left for her body to expel.

Next she concludes that she is all that survived. The weight of such a revelation lands on her shoulders like an elephant. She struggles under the weight of it but somehow manages to hold, for now. There is no guarantee it will last, she knows.

Sometime after that, she cannot say how long for time has no meaning to her, Lori checks herself over. Miraculously she has escaped this disaster relatively unscathed.

She doesn’t understand how she can have suffered only a cuts, scrapes and bruises. She should be dead, she knows that for a fact and yet she is not. Though, when she makes efforts to move her body does resist aggressively. A mixture of exhaustion and stiff joints railing against her demands and force her to slow to a crawl and only move every few seconds. Save for her neck which she finds can be moved at close to what she would term normal. She could be wrong, she is well aware of that but would rather think of other things.

Unfortunately, her mind turns towards the cause of the devastation she finds herself in the midst of. Her ultimate conclusion, her only one to be fair, is that it was the ‘aliens’ who did this. Her skin crawls in a way it never has previously when admitting that.

As if to remind Lori she is not in safety the ruin of a building creaks and groans. Some loose debris falls, small pieces; nothing to fear for the moment. Safety is a notion which is quickly dispelled when the noises intensify alongside the size of the chunks which topple from wherever they had been previously.

Panicked and convinced if she does nothing she will die, Lori scrambles across the uneven, cracked, pitted and debris strewn floor toward what looks to be a safe, relatively speaking, place to seek shelter. Still, the blonde isn’t convinced she will survive what she decides have to be tremors.

Alas, the decision does not affect the tremors which continue to shake debris which clatters about for several additional minutes. Though, once it is over Lori dares to crawl out from her hiding spot, which too sheds some chippings and shards, grasping to a vain hope of finding a way out.

At every sound she jumps, recoils, does an about convinced it will serve as the last thing she ever hears. As yet it has not proved true. Sadly, no matter how hard her efforts to ignore these fears are she cannot. Yet, the Director continues her search for a way out.

Truthfully, the ruin looks nothing like the building she remembers. It’s as if she has been sent to another world. She can’t have for there is just enough similarity for her to be sure that this is the same place and all that remains of a building she knew very well, and until incredibly recently to boot.

Alas, following a long search the Director of Foundation I is forced to admit; it seems as though there is no way out. Drained to nothing, Lori flops into a sitting position on the floor, legs splayed. A smile, fleeting and weary, flicks across her face when she catches the pants of her trouser suit stained and filthy.

This isn’t why she wears such an outfit but now more than ever it has been proved to be the most appropriate choice she could’ve made. But what does it matter because she is alone. Save for the…

Putting the thoughts of the gore liberally spread about her and who they used to be people, friends, out of her head, for fear she might return to vomiting if she doesn’t, the woman tries to think of anything else.

“What am I going to do?” The woman mutters stretching out on the remains of the floor after having cleared a patch of the worst of the debris.

It isn’t a safe place she has created for it is out in the centre of what she thinks had once been the main floor space. Yet, at the moment there are no tremors or noises which declare collapsing and so she is inclined to assume that she is ‘safe.’ Well, as safe as one can be in the collapsed remnants of a large concrete and steel building that is.

Staring up at the ‘ceiling’ Lori cannot help but replay all the events that have led her here. None of them make sense she believes.

At the time they were a struggle, but now, now they are doubly confusing to her. Still, she refuses to give up. She will find a way out of here or die trying. First, however she has to get some of her energy back. That is the only reason as to why she is lying splayed out like she is.

Hopefully it won’t take too long, she thinks.