Up, up here we go...

A lazy scorpion crisscrossed across the scorching desert sand, its spiny arachnid legs creating interweaving lines across the strangely smooth sheet of grainy particles, drawing a fleeting pattern lasting only an instant, quickly erased back to nothingness by the unforgiving wind. A human figure lay face down in the brownish grime, unmoving, unyielding, yet very much alive. With a painful groan and a forceful heave, the human raised himself from the sheetlike particles, head hung low, eyes shut. He exhaled explosively, clumps of sand mixed with saliva erupting from his gagging maw. A while later, all is calm, and the human slowly stands on his battered feet, a little wobbly at first, but managing to execute a perfect stance once his muscles regained their lifelong memories.

The human looks up: an endless clear blue sky, however marred by the dark, orange-tinged plume of thick black smoke streaking across the otherwise tranquil stratosphere. His eyes begin to track the atmospheric anomaly, making contact with a huge, burning object at the end of the smoky trail.

A starship.

In an instant, the damaged hulk made landfall, impacting into the ground several miles from where the human stood, throwing up plumes of dune sand a hundred feet high and fifty across, while simultaneously transforming into a massive fireball of tremendous heat and fiery death. Debris rained down around the doomed ship, dotting the tragic landscape with millions of sometimes-microscopic shrapnel falling at two times the speed of sound. For the creatures inhabiting that particular piece of real estate that day, the Rapture never seemed so real.

The human watched in awe, shock, and despair. He knew where that ship had come from, knew its purpose, knew its crew. At this moment however, he knew that he was lucky to be alive -probably saved an orphanage of kittens in his past life to deserve such a fortunate fate. As the flames onboard the wrecked starship started to fade, the human turned around and prepared to leave.

He paused.

A single tear dropped from each haggard eye, traversed the distance between optic and ground, and seeped deep into the shifting desert sand, never to surface, never to be found again. Steeling himself, the human lifted his head up high, teary eyes ablaze with confidence and passion, ready to face the challenges ahead. In the distance, he could barely make out the looming hulk of a Leviathan-class battlecruiser, his ride off this accursed desert, and also his only ticket off this god-forsaken land which held many terrible, painful memories.

All things must end, and new ones must begin.

The human turned to take one final look at the now smoldering carcass of the fallen vessel, a mere shadow of its former, glorious self. No matter, the new one would be better. The human turned towards the Leviathan, and began the long journey towards the magnificent starship, and ultimately, towards the stars.

Up, up here we go, where we will stop, nobody knows.

***

Feed the fish. :)