Roadkill

The sands here are dull, a colour as murky as the seas that surround it. Bottles, intact and shattered, surround our shipwreck. The drunken captain had done it once again. Only this time, his temerity found trouble he couldn’t stumble his way out of – it was only a matter of time till that jalopy gave up on all of us.

I don’t want to get up just yet. Sure, the sands are coarse and the seas frighteningly acerbic, but I am in no rush. My crew is dead, the company will never send help, and I can’t swim! There are supersized isopods that treat the skies as if they were their oceans, the sun is the wrong shade of yellow, and the kelp has tried to drag me into the water a few times. We had made it out of our system – seeing as the compact structure behind me didn’t seem likely to be of human creation.

My neck hurts from staring behind at it, so I will lay here a little longer, waiting to run out of scenarios to play in my head. In one, I time travel. In another, we never crash land on this planet, and hover from a safe distance to dispose of waste as written in our job descriptions. My eyes sting from the fumes of chemical waste and other miscellaneous biohazards that pollute the lands.

I have all the time in the world. I can't pass up the opportunity to pay attention to things I would have turned a blind eye to otherwise. Like how the sun actually feels on my skin, or the way clouds build upon each other. There were no roses to smell on the ship, the captain simply hadn't allowed it. Although, I am upset that he is dead. His arm, amputated, is on mine. His head, disfigured, lies by my feet. He was flawed, but he was my captain, alright! There was little need for a chef like me on a ship like his – he had the means to install food synthesizers aboard – my gratitude knows no bounds.

I put my laze to rest and get to work once again. With debris, I build gravestones for my brethren. I have no shovel nor strength to bury. As the sole survivor of our proud ship, I carry on. This newfound confidence, albeit slightly misplaced, urges me to move forward. There is no time to mope. Who says that I have all the time in the world? It is of the essence. Food is scarce, probably, I have yet to scour. The sun scorches. My tongue is dry.

The building behind me is red. It casts no shadows and only has one point of entry – one with crevices that matched mine without fault. I step into the shapely hole and shimmy my way in. Inside, you’d think the building was an edifice. The ceiling matches the height of a tower and its halls are lengthy, despite how meek this deceiving structure is from the outside. As far as technology has brought us, we still are yet to discover magic. Until myself, maybe! Even if this place isn’t magic, it sure as hell is the closest we’ve gotten to it. The walls are lined with candles, wax red and unmelting. They have been affixed by lone rods that jutted out of the clay, with fires that seemed to burn red, casting vivid scarlet onto anything it gets its hands on. They smelled bitter and faintly acidic, like the pith of a lemon.

The clay behind me shifts, slabs closing in on one another until my shadow’s doppelganger melds into the rest of the wall – but leaving behind gaps befit for my pair of eyes. I peer outside. The intact bodies and the littered limbs are gone. My crew is missing. No corpses to present the graveyard. This sure is alien. But there is no point in panicking, as my captain says. Red lights flash and sirens ring as I recall his voice. He was right, a crashing and burning ship would fare no good with an agitated team. So, I cop a sip from the flask I held as safekeeping from Capt’s body, take another for good measure, and stride forward. But quickly, my newfound momentum disappears. It seems I have run into a wall.

It is invisible, but real. The clay wall behind me has hardened, refusing to part for my body once more; the barrier I face seems to draw closer. My chest heaves. I may be more metal than flesh, but I am still far from invincible. It seems that my survival of the crash only delayed my death on this planet. I close my eyes and wait with my back pressed flat on where the entrance once was.

A soft hand brushes against mine and tugs me by my pinky – the one that still sweats – pulling me past the barrier. My vision refocuses. Despite the red cast projected onto every object or being, it is clear my saviour has pallid skin that is translucent, almost. It stood dignified, despite its stunted stature, with its nose turned upwards. The creature, my saviour, feels out of place in such a warm room. Veins, innards, and the few bones it had were apparent. I recognised its organs. The stomach, lungs and limbs were human. But its heart was akin to the horses I would slaughter for the ship’s supper. We had better, less gamey options, but my captain didn’t care for taste. This was one of the few things we didn’t see eye to eye on. He didn’t know how I felt, of course.

“Thank you for saving me…” I nod slightly, giving pause to make room for my saviour to introduce themselves.

Silence. It seems that they believe they are above doing so. Its eyes have yet to leave my body. Finally, it speaks, “It is not you who I intend to spare. You will poison the stomach of our Angel.”

My saviour has one of its own! How beautiful.

“Tell me, what plight has forced you into a metal shell?” It gestures at my body. I am decorated with metal – these modifications are a testament to my work. We flew from empty planet to planet, to laboriously dump human filth onto them. With the money I had earned, I replaced limbs and innards with their metallic counterparts.

“No plight, quite the opposite really!” I stepped a little closer, ”my first embellishment caught my captain’s eye. He said it looked good and that it was good. Chrome is the colour of the future; he pointed out, and I promptly agreed, how it is reminiscent of the work we were doing. We purge the Earth to secure our children’s places on it. He inspired me to adorn myself further.”

“No plight, you say…” It hums, finally tearing away from the metal on my body, “I cannot allow you to run free, nor do I care to quicken your fate. Do as you wish.”

It presses its palm against the clay wall, beneath and between the fifth and fourth candle, and passes through. My saviour disappears. I am alone, once more. From the inner pockets of my jacket, I clutch my captain’s flask and my pinky tells me that it is cold. The flask is of silver, like I am. I have never walked down a hallway this long, uninterrupted. Besides my flask and the wavering flames, I am alone. My kitchen was always loud and the hallways on the ship were always happening – and Earth was abundant. With people, droids, aliens and clutter. Here, I do not falter or pause behind a busy crowd. I look at myself from the reflections on my arm. For the first time, I see only myself.

I take another sip from the flask. It’ll be the last, at least until I really need it once more. I should start rationing, I reckon. That would be wise of me, right? I walked further, up until where the hallway diverged into two forking paths, each lit up with candles all the same. The bright lights shine similarly, serving as no indicator or guidance towards right or wrong. Do I flip a coin? Heads to take the right path, tails for the other. Coinflip or not, it’ll all come down to luck. Better to blame a coin than myself. Fished from my pocket, I rest a polished coin on a bent thumb and flip.

Tails.

The air feels slightly heavier this way. It isn't too difficult to breathe, but the candles waned in their scent and the alcohol on my breath grew faint. It is harder to taste, this way, I concluded. Sound barely travels either. You can barely hear your footsteps against the soft floors.

The hallway is expansive. I pause, sitting cross-legged. The ceilings are higher, and I felt as though I had been walking down a gradual slope. The walls are tighter, too. Not enough for me to reach my arms out and have them touch the sides, but the height of the foyer surpasses this. The higher ceilings made room for more candles, whereby each layer, the candles that jut out of each rod multiply. The rods must be made of iron – it leaves a gritty residue on my hands and I can faintly smell the metal, I think. The uppermost row of candles, that I can see, is a mess of wax and fire. Yet, their scents are faint. But I know that they are there, as I reckon they are the source of my tenderness. My nose is running and I am red and hot at my seams. Flesh seems to spill slightly over my fixtures.

The candles stop abruptly a few paces in front of me. It is pitch black – I cannot tell if the hallway ends there, if it is yet another trap, or simply a new room. I doubt it is salvation, unless an afternoon has passed and the nights of this planet are moonless. Again, what choice do I have? As I move forward, now fully without light, I press up on the wall to my right. The clay is soft. I feel it gently move under the pressure of my fingers. I confirm this with my pinky – my mechanical fingers haven’t been serviced in a while – and I comfort myself, saying that I must be leaving a trace, a red string of sorts. As the distance between the amalgamated candles grows larger, my sense of smell regains. I can smell the liquor on my breath again. And the metal of the candles must run deep because it is in the air I taste. Rebar must be keeping the clay upright.

I reach the end of the hallway. Candles are present, and the rust smells particularly strong in this room. In the far back there is a cavity, with its circumference rounded out. Around it, the same red candles burnt. Inside it is a vast amount of liquid, a colour indecipherable from the red sheen that covers the entirety of the building. There stood tall an angel, skin white, undisturbed from the red. At certain places of its body – waist, elbows and jaw most prominently – are imprints left by a hand. Fingerprints are left on its nose, lips and knees. Flesh, deeply marked as if its body were sculpted from clay. It must have noticed me, but pays no mind. It bends over with its hands cupped, to scoop from the pool. The liquid drips from its fingers. The red pours over its neck, chest and abdomen, fingers prodding between every jutting bone: ribs, hips and all. It reacts greatly to the ablution. It shudders, goosebumps raised and wings fluttering – the pair are patchy, areas covered in a matte velvet and others simply flesh. It bends down once more, but this time, it urges me to pay closer attention. Its eyes never leave mine. This grand effigy bends deeper than last time, where the red waters pass its elbow. From the depths of the pool, it raises my captain, a corpse reduced to a sack of flesh and skin. Bones crushed. It feasts on my captain’s flesh, sparing no moment to taste. It picks up a piece, accommodates the bite by cracking its jaw open, and swallows whole. Bits of the man I had served bulge out of its throat. This must be the angel whose stomach was spared from me.

A thing that size must not fit well into the corridor I came from. I can’t hear it behind me – but I can barely hear myself either, despite my fervent running. I knew I saved a swig for a reason. With the hefty flask, now nearly empty in my hands, I glance behind myself. I don’t see its body, only its traces. Where wings grazed the soft walls. The hallway is bent and bowed, having expanded under the hurried angel. Parts of the floor are slick with wax – broken rods jutting out from the walls. They splinter, they are wooden, sheening wet. Only upwards, could it have gone, taking bits of wax and wood with it.

Wings struggle above me in the cramped hallway. They push against the walls – it almost uses its pinions to climb rather than to fly – with its edges curling into the body of the angel. Its own erratic movement smears its blood across its body. The idol bleeds red and has the innards of an animal – this it pushes back inside itself, pinching the large wound close. Now the smaller wounds it smooths over with long strides, pushing its skin as if it were clay. It speaks with a cadence far from alien.

“You’re more wire than nerves,” it sneers, “no matter how hungry I get, I refuse to spend my time picking metal from between my teeth! It is no wonder you had not ended up in the stockpile.”

I continue to run – but it seems that with every heaving step, I near susurrations. It appears I have failed to realise how malleable these walls truly are. That hybrid creature that had saved me earlier, perforates the clay. What appears to be its kin or clan follows suit, leaving behind red clusters of holes in their wake. They swarm, bodies warming up the clay that makes the walls, to mold them as desired. I have lost my bearings, and I stumble as the lubrication on my cheap appendages runs dry, yet I force my hinges to persist. My leaps forward are clumsy, yet the distance between the seraph and I seems constant, despite my opportune state. It toys.

My left arm starts to seize – fingers freezing.

My right arm seems to work fine – I screw open my captain’s flask and throw it squarely on the angel’s torso. With its speed – and perhaps its lack of knowledge about alcohol – it pays no mind to my meagre toss. But it burns. The lit candles it flies into create a spark, and it cries aloud, wings moving fervently. You can hear the flesh of its wings against the flesh of its body strike without rhythm. I take this chance to claw at the clay. The clay here is soft but thick. I lose a few fingers in the process – my left arm, completely unfeeling, has been reduced to a wiry nub. Bits of metal stuck in the muck reflect the inferno writhing behind me. My movements get clumsy and my pace falters – but I now am reminded about the hues my metals are made of. A sliver of light breaches, interrupting the red of this deathly structure.

However, I do not hear the frantic angel. Nor do I feel the fire on my back. The angel stands behind me.

But it does not stop me. I claw at the clay and it observes. Am I of no consequence? Its catatonia only urges my hands to move faster. My hands shovel until the heat on my skin no longer comes from a wick. I bore a hole large enough to crawl through – and the angel is still unmoving. Its wings lay limp at its sides, and it looks past me. I have lost all sense of urgency. Before I leave, I must take one good look at the angel, in a perspective aside from candlelight. It squints at the way my metal reflects the sun into its eyes. Its shoulders have dropped, chin lowered, demeanour human. It looks like me.

Just as it did before, the clay falls upon each other – close.