Magni Space Station, just before sunrise.
Anyone, who is reading this, does not consider this document as a scream for help. Consider it as a help for those who might scream because of them.
I was about to call my family when the alarm went off. It was a third-level alarm which means fuck everything and save your life. I knew this because I am one of the guys who designed it a few years ago. I am S-4162 from the technical team. I can not reveal my real name because of the secrecy of my project. But, this document contains the top-secret discoveries of PROJECT FLORAL that caused destruction like angry Gods. Everything I saw, everything I heard, and everything I know is in here. This might save you, or at least give you a reason.
Our natural resources were dying fast. People started killing each other for a glass of water. Sunlight could not even reach the ground because of the mess people created above them. Eventually, they had to pay for it, and it cost more than any shiny stone out there. Raising a child more than one had become a gruesome crime against society that might result in a death sentence. It got worse when they introduced a law a few years ago that allows you to have one child only if you have a valuable contribution to society. What is valuable? Oh, they are going to decide that. Existence had become hard and harsh and close to evil. And that is when everyone suddenly woke up. They always wait till the end, even if it is about their own existence. A search for a new home had started. A new habitable planet. And about ten years ago, we started building a giant circular truss — a strong ring around the whole planet. The truss had provided support to four space stations: Ignis, Osiris, Tiberius, and Magni. Osiris was the largest one, nearly the size of two football stadiums combined, end to end. And Magni was the smallest one. We also made hundreds of space-crawlers (small and speedy spacecraft to search the universe with hope). Everything got completed within a year, and all the space stations got assembled and connected. We had not found anything for eight straight years, only endless darkness, until yesterday when a team of four researchers (R-2121, R-5641, R-6721, R-0897) discovered a new planet.
They were all inside the same space crawler when they saw a beautiful planet. Everyone else at the station had also seen it on a screen, including me. A bright, light yellow planet with some red patches. It was a different shiny yellow, not the yellow we see from those sulphuric acid clouds and thick carbon dioxide atmosphere. It shined like a glass ball, and it had some kind of grainy mist around it. Higher authorities had decided to inspect it. What else could they do?
Space crawler started getting closer and closer, penetrating that mysterious mist of grains. And then we saw them — the flowers! The entire planet was full of them. Flowers as big as the Magni Space Station itself. Gigantic! Their petals were so massive that we could easily land our space crawler on them. Most of them are yellow, but we could spot other colors too — some of them were as red as blood, some of them as blue as an ocean, and some of them as white as a swan. We could see them everywhere, even when the space crawler was flying nearly 300 miles above the planet. At first, It was a sight of hope and beauty. We knew that flowers meant soil that may be rich in nutrients, nitrogen, and potassium. But we were not sure — who would be? Our eyes had struck on a planet full of giant flowers and a strange kind of mist. That was already way, way beyond belief. No one who is perfectly sane could believe it without seeing it. And nobody could tell what is exactly going on inside a planet anyways. It demands lots of research. We named the project — PROJECT FLORAL.
I remember the moment when the space crawler landed on the surface, and R-2121 said in excitement, “I think this is the home of God!”
Two members had come outside the space crawler — R-2121 and R-6721. They examined those tiny grains, which were causing that mist.
“I think this is pollen from flowers,” R-2121 said. All the other members agreed, including those sitting inside the space crawler. Giant flowers and a mist of pollen sounds reasonable.
“Can someone connect me with my wife,” R-6721 said. “Even if it is not habitable, it sure is beautiful.”
R-6721 got married a few months ago. I remember a conversation with him that happened before his marriage, even before that terrible law, when he told me that he wanted a boy and a girl. I couldn’t even imagine how excited he must have felt at that time. If that planet proves to be habitable, he could have an army of children, and nobody could stop him.
The networking crew had connected him with his wife after getting approval from the executives. The visors of the spacesuits contained an in-built screen for video calling.
“Hey! Darling,” he said, with a smile on his face and tears in his eyes.
We had been watching them and their emotions.
“What happened to your face?” she asked, terrified, without even greeting him.
And then it happened. The space crawler had forty cameras, and the spacesuit had four switchable cameras inside its visor. We turned on all the cameras from our side to see him. Tiny stems had started to come out from his face, piercing the skin pores. He had not felt any pain or any sort of skin irritation until that moment.
“What is this? Is this some sort of reaction?” he asked us, puzzled and horrified.
“It looked like a reaction. Go back inside the crawler,” one of the research executives replied.
At a similar moment, something terrible started to happen to R-2121 too. Tiny flowers had popped out from his spacesuit, from everywhere. They both began to feel the pain, and they began to scream. Stems started to pop out from the corner of their eyes, right from the tear ducts. A flower popped out from the right eye of R-2121, right inside the pupil, as if it was an egg and that flower was a baby snake coming out from inside it.
I don’t know if anyone else had seen it or not — but there was pollen stuck to their throats when they were screaming. Flowers were popping out from everywhere inside their bodies. And they were getting bigger, quickly, so quickly.
We were horrified, but many questions were also dancing inside our minds. Where is all the blood? Are those flowers sucking their blood? We do not know, but it seemed like that. Then, we lost our two supremely talented researchers. First, the head of R-6721 burst like a balloon filled with thick, warm blood. And then the same happened with R-2121. Blood smashed on the visor, forming a thick, red layer on it, but only for a few seconds. A dark yellow-colored flower (the one which popped out from the eye) soaked up all the blood with its sticky bulb like a vampire. And soon, there was nothing, only them. No spacesuits. No dead bodies. Only them.
Flowers had started to grow on the space crawler, too.
“Get the hell out of there!” everyone yelled, and both the remaining researchers fled the planet.
I can still hear those screams, especially the one which came out from a speaker situated inside the networking room when the wife of R-6721 cried like a wounded animal.
Magni Space Station, two days later.
Our space crawlers were damn fast. Nearly thirty years ago from today, a trip to a distant planet would take years. Now it could be done within a week.
The flowers which had grown all over the space crawler, returning from that mysterious planet, damaged it gravely. All the cameras and communication devices stopped working. We were not getting any signal back from it. It took us two days to reach that planet. It would be stupid to consider them dead before that. We had decided to wait for them, and if they didn’t come back, we would inform their families about their death. But…
What the hell happened there? What exactly are those flowers? Why are they sucking blood? What the fuck do they do to them? Are they just flowers?
For two days, everyone was thinking about those questions. Some of us had lost all hope of finding answers. I couldn’t blame them. It was a dark, dark time for all of us.
“The sole purpose of flowers is sexual reproduction,” one of the researchers said to me while sipping her coffee. “Many flowers rely on pollinators such as butterflies and shit. They have bright colors and attractive scents only to attract the pollinators.”
“So?” I asked curiously, hoping that a different perspective might explain all this.
“So, maybe they did all this to attract us. Maybe we are the fucking butterflies to them. But they don’t need just soil. They need something else. What if they just suck life? From us, from planets.”
Then, I wouldn’t have believed her, but now I do.
Suddenly, we started getting signals from the space crawler. We were prepared to examine it. A separate giant analyzing chamber had been built on the Ignis space station with a unique type of metal. If an emergency occurred, the chamber could separate itself, travel far away, and destroy itself.
We sent the landing information to them, and they replied. The crawler landed perfectly inside the chamber. It was looking more like a flying bouquet than a spacecraft. Some blood-red flowers hung from it like pitcher plants. Some had leaves that looked like a devil’s mouth with teeth as sharp as a butcher’s knife. But they were not massive like the ones we saw on that planet, which lured us like a butterfly.
“Can anyone hear my voice,” a senior researcher said on a mic. His voice echoed inside the chamber, crisp and clear. Nothing came back from the crawler. For a brief moment, all the flowers had turned and seemed to stare at the speaker, as if they could follow the voice, and then returned to their original position. Our blood turned into ice during that moment.
“Can anyone hear my voice,” he said again, louder this time. Once again, they looked at the speaker, more focused than before, as if they wanted to eat it with their sharp teeth. And again, nothing came back.
Then someone opened the airlock, and a massive cloud of pollen released from it like steam coming out from a steam engine. The entire chamber had filled with the same mist of pollens, which covered that whole fucking planet. We had seen a shadow coming out from the airlock. It started running towards the glass, towards us, getting bigger and bigger. Everyone saw him — it — saw it, when it collided against the glass. Pollen tubes were there instead of hairs. Flowers instead of eyes and mouths. A transparent, light green stem instead of a food pipe. Blood was flowing through it. The flesh was melting like candle wax. When it collapsed on the floor, the roots and stems started to crawl all over it like a snake.
And yet, there was no scream.
And yet, there was no blood.
After some time, there was nothing. No one could ever guess what happened there. No trace of a dead body. Only beautiful flowers.
“Prepare to detach and destroy,” someone ordered someone who was out of breath because of fear, like everyone else there.
I don’t remember who ordered that and who pressed the detach-and-destroy button. But, someone did. I am glad that someone did. After getting detached, the cabin got lost in the darkness, where it destroyed itself. We all breathed a sigh of relief. A much-needed one. But…
Why would they keep him alive for so long when they could kill him in seconds? And why would we get those signals all of a sudden? Everything was looking intentional. Maybe we were just fucking butterflies for them.
Whenever something unbelievable happens, people start to come up with their theories. I had the same theory as R-0021, the girl who said — What if they just suck life?
“Are you alright?” I asked her when she was pouring a new cup of coffee for herself (she spilled the last one during that chamber-of-horror scene).
“Yeah, I guess I am,” she replied. She was not.
“What are you thinking?”
“Right now? I am thinking about my father. He’s probably drinking his tea right now, all alone,” she knew what I was going to ask next — maybe everyone asked her the same question after something like that. “I lost my mom when I was six, and I have no siblings.”
“Oh — I am sorry.”
“It’s okay! I don’t have any regrets. I was just about to call my father. You should call your family too. Horrible things are happening around us.”
“I think you are right. And now, we also have a twisted story to tell them,” I smiled a little after that. It was a fake smile. “After all, we have discovered something.”
“Or something discovered us,” she said in a calm voice that was wrapped in horror. “They are doing everything which they want. But, we are trying to find something sensible from all of this shit. Sometimes it’s better to back the fuck off.”
“Yeah. You’re right.”
“Go and call your family,” she said and went inside the room that was full of other people and other theories.
I should have called my family that day. It slipped from my mind or, I was not prepared at all. Whatever the reason was: I should have called them.
Magni Space Station, next morning.
I was about to call my family when the alarm went off. It was a third-level alarm which means fuck everything and save your life. My eyelids felt heavy because of the sleep as if someone hooked weights on them. Everything was bathed in shiny red color because of the emergency light.
When I glanced through one of the airlocks, I saw the reason behind the alarm. The entire truss was covered with flowers, and it looked like a huge garland. Ignis, Osiris, and Tiberius — all of them were already destroyed. And Magni was going to be the next. Massive waves of pollen were coming out from the truss and covered the entire planet, forming a deep mist around it. I could see huge flowers everywhere as I did on that fucking alien planet. Everything was going to be destroyed, everything. In search of a new habitable planet, we end up killing every single life from ours.
I should have called my family yesterday. I should have told them how much I love them. I should have seen the face of my newborn daughter. I should have told my mother that she’s the best mother in the whole world. I should have given my wife a goodnight kiss.
I should have…
I should have…
But now, I just hope that they kill them quickly, and I hope they don’t scream as our researchers did.
All were running, crying, and screaming, and a place full of the brightest minds looked like an asylum.
Sometimes it’s better to back the fuck off! — suddenly, those words hit me. And I did the same. I flee the Magni, alive.
Somewhere in the Universe.
All that shit happened weeks ago, weeks that felt like years. I don’t care about it anymore. Whatever happened, happened. Three fucking weeks — that’s how long I have been in space now, staring at this never-ending darkness, without food and water. Still, I consider myself a lucky guy. At least I won’t die screaming, like those researchers, and probably, like my family.
I couldn’t see any flowers inside and outside my space crawler. And I don’t feel lonely anymore.
Last night, the spirits of my family came to see me. They are still here. I discovered that spirits can travel faster than a spacecraft — what a relief!
My wife always wanted to see the space — she’s super-duper happy! I told my mom last night that she’s the best mother in the whole world. I thanked my father for all his love and sacrifices. I held my baby for the first time — she’s so cute and soft.
I remember the words of R-2121, “I think this is the home of God!”.
If that was the home of God, congratulations to him! Now he has two of them.
I am waiting for death now. Sweet, sweet death. I wanna be with my family without feeling this grievous starvation. My family doesn’t like my hungry, starved, dehydrated face. They started to cry, and I hate that.
Maybe I am just hallucinating, but who cares?
Maybe, this beautiful planet that looks eerily blue like ours is also a hallucination. Blue like an ocean.
Maybe, I am hallucinating…
From The Mount Queen News December 18, 2043
MYSTERY OF THE FLYING BOUQUET By Hugh Riggs
A team of several scientists, linguists, and semioticians finally interpreted the digital file recovered from The UFO, which struck Earth yesterday. The translated version is published by the name — Flowers from Space.
Earlier, one pilot described the UFO as a ‘flying bouquet’, referring to the flowers present everywhere around it.
The translated text is terrifying and could explain the horrors we are seeing on Earth right now. The mist of pollen has already destroyed several countries, and the flowers are spreading faster and faster…
