The planet felt Captain Stills of rescue team N.E.R.O on its skin. The coward hid and watched while the crew was feasted upon by the alien swarm, whose napalm-like saliva melted through their suits. Their skin stretched, pulled apart in slow-motion, across the planet’s dusty landscape as the cries of the surviving crew dwindled to silence. Feed, the planet demanded, for it was a jealous being and would accept no conquerors—not even one. The swarm obeyed, nourished, reducing the captain to a latticework of viscera upon the alien demesne. No longer a man of rank or purpose.
Michael Bettendorf (he/him) is a writer from the Midwestern US. His recent work has appeared/is forthcoming at The Drabblecast, The Horror Tree, and elsewhere. He works in a high school library in Lincoln where he tries to convince the world Nebraska is too strange to be a flyover state. You can find him on Twitter @BeardedBetts and www.michaelbettendorfwrites.com.
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