ragnarok - rim of the world

JPL

I stood there for a few seconds, staring at Dariush as he became smaller and smaller in my vision. "Damn it," I cursed to myself. I wasn't going to convince him to let me go with him anyways; he had his mind made up.

As my mind cleared, the pain slowly crept into my back. It was a difficult thing to ignore.

The sound of slow footsteps etched nearer, and I turned to see Gabriel approaching me.

Once he saw my face curled into a frown, he hugged me. It felt nice to be embraced, but the movement caused me to retreat in pain.

I gently led myself to the ground, the energy to stand suddenly being sapped from my body. Gabriel helped me and turned to look at my wound.

"How bad is it?" I asked him.

A brief moment of silence told me all I needed to know. It was bad.

"I'll live, you know." I tried to get myself to stand up but grimaced at the pain that came with it.

"No, Hope, you're badly injured. Just rest here till Dariush gets back, which he will."

A meek smile formed on my lips at his attempt to be caring.

"Okay."

I scooted over to the edge of the railings on the bridge to see Dariush. Zhenzhen, Alex, and Gabriel at my sides.

We watched as Dariush hesitantly entered the vehicle. Our anxiety grew with each passing second that he stayed in the car.

After a couple of fear-filled seconds, Dariush climbed out of the car with the key in his hand.

"I got it!" he screamed. Relief washed over me. We could still save the world.

"Yeah!"

"Yes!"

With that, the alien seemed to awake from its slumber. 

"Hey, behind you!" We all tried to warn Dariush, screaming and shouting at him.

He didn't hear.

The alien quickly swiped at his chest, which caused a large gash. 

My eyes widened in terror. I quickly stood to my feet despite the excruciating pain I felt. No way I was letting my brother die with that abominable thing.

I ran down as fast as I could to Dariush, the others following suit.

After we reached down, we met up with Dariush.

"Are you okay? This is why I should have gone with you. I should have never let you go alone. Oh my..." The words seemed to fly out of my mouth through hitched breaths as I inspected the wound on Dariush's chest. 

"Hope, I'm okay. I'm fine."

"That cut looks terrible," Gabriel added.

"I'm okay. Let's just get this key to JPL."

With that, we continued on our journey. 

After some time of walking, the pain subsided but was still obviously there. Dariush's arm was wrapped around my shoulder. He seemed to be having it worse than me. Gabriel stood on the other side of him. 

"Yo, look, look, JPL!" Gabriel pointed to the large wrecked building. We started to run after it, excited to get this over with. 

"Man, this place got hit hard."

"The building is destroyed. Nobody can survive that."

We stopped to look at the looming building that stood in front of us. It took quite a beating. It was completely tattered.

"He's still here. Dr. Fielding's still here!" Zhenzhen said as the device beeped continuously. He must have had a pretty good hiding spot.

"This way," Alex muttered before running off with the rest of us close on his heels.

"If we get out of this alive, NASA's paying for my therapy." Good that, Dariush, good that.

"Oh, wow. They're testing plasma rockets. Those things burn hotter than the surface of the sun," Alex stated as we walked further into the building, observing the different rooms.

"Look man, all we gotta do is get this key to Dr. Fielding then you can look at all the nerd porn you want."

We picked up the pace as sparks flew from mangled wires dangling from the walls. 

"Dr. Fielding! Dr. Fielding!" Alex called out, "Dr. Fielding, we have the key!"

"We have the key, sir!" Gabriel chimed in. We all briefly split up and started to call his name but there was no answer. It was a large building, he could be anywhere.

"Over here," Zhenzhen declared.

We all rushed over to where Zhenzhen stood, coming upon a dead man. Blood was smeared over his face, his lifeless eyes staring up into nothing. Gabriel checked his pulse and confirmed that he was dead. 

It was him, his nametag wouldn't lie.

"But how?" Alex choked out.

The blood dripping from his hand connected with the morse code machine. That was what had been creating the beeping.

A gloomy atmosphere enveloped us. We couldn't do it. We lost.

"We've failed," Alex muttered.

"It's over."