Wednesday Blog Hop - First New Steps

 

OK, so you guys know the drill now for this little weekly blog hop. One picture, five words, 500 words and one week to turn it all into a nice bit of fiction.

Many thanks as usual to Carrie, Nicole and Tena for hosting this, you do an amzing job of keeping it all going.

So this weeks picture:

This weeks words:    Engineer, muscle, spider, race, machine

And this weeks story:

First New Steps 

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Eleni's landing was smoother than normal, not the usual drop and bounce that made this kind of traveling so uncomfortable. She glanced down at her feet and noticed the surface she now stood on, glistening and slightly spongy. This seemed to be the reason for the landing and she made a note to mention it to engineering, they could look for this substance in the future. She took her scanner out to record its composition before moving on.

The ground beneath her became noticeably firmer as she walked onto the red and yellow carpet leading away from her landing site. As she walked she glanced around at the tunnel of green surrounding her. She'd never seen a place like it, in all her years of traveling. She came from a race of nomads, always on the move and never spending more than a few centuries in a single place.

She bounced lightly on the spot, flexing her knees and testing her muscles. The magnetic pull of the planet seemed to agree with her physiology, she certainly didn't have any discomfort like she had on the last planet. She spent days there just trying to shuffle her feet along the ground. Here she was light of foot and was sure she could've ran if she'd fancied it.

She walked a little further on, scanning the area as she did so, and her fascination was drawn to a strange noise coming out of the air above her. A series of high pitched sounds emanated from somewhere high above, regular in occurrence and with a second, lower in tone, almost sounding in response. She mused on the sounds for a while until she concluded that they could only be some form of communication. She made a note, certain that life forms were close by.

Continuing on, something caught her eye just behind one of the columns ahead. An odd thing, such that she'd never seen before. A tall creature, very pale in colour but covered mostly in an odd outer skin. Not very much in the way of fur and with only two ocular organs that she could make out. She held up her scanner for a more detailed look, curious as to what kind of machine this could be. She held its gaze for a long time before it turned and bolted.

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Jane stayed hidden behind the tree as she tried to comprehend what she'd just witnessed. She'd been heading down to the river for some water samples when she'd heard the low hum and seen the beam of light. It disappeared and in its place was an odd creature, human sized but spider-like with its four legs and wiry arms.

She watched in awe as it studied its surroundings, and almost forgot her footing as it looked right at her. She held its stare for an eternity, before turning as quickly as she could and ran. There was no way the lab guys were going to believe this.

Word count: 499

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