Moving To Sponin

A Story by Abdullah Saleh

A short story about a young man who has been moved to another mysterious planet.

I returned to my place from college. I'm in front of my door. I put the keys in the door. I heard a cracking voice inside. I opened the door, nothing inside. Maybe I'm imagining, or the sound came from someplace else.

I stepped into my house and, wow! I'm falling!. How! I was stepping on a solid floor. How the hell am I falling? I'm surrounded by total blackness. I don't see anything. Did I become blind? No, I can see. Are those stars? Am I in the space? Am I approaching the planet out there? It appears to be so, yes I'm approaching the planet. Am I going to die? Will the fall crush my body and bones? My heart is beating very fast. It's a gray planet like the moon but has a green and blue spots. I see something else falling towards the planet, but it's far away and it seems small, I can't see what it is. The planet is becoming nearer, nearer and neareee... Ouch, I am still alive!, How? Am I dreaming? Normally people don't fall into space when they step into their houses, also, they can't breathe in the space. Definitely, I'm dreaming. That can't be real. I returned to focus on my current situation. How am I going to wake up? Maybe if I just walked through this situation I will wake up. What is this planet? Where am I and why am I here?

There are rocks, gray rocks and high grounds that are in about a height of a person. There is no one and nothing. It's so empty, and the time is the night for sure the sky is black, blacker than the nights on earth, it's much clearer and the stars are much brighter. I don't know what the heck I should do. I'm walking in the direction of the object that I saw falling to the planet too when I was in the sky, maybe it's someone else like me, not an object. I'm walking. There is a hill, I walked on its left, I passed it and I saw an open ground. It expands about half a mile in each direction, and it's surrounded by hills with narrow passages between them, all gray. I'm walking towards my presumed direction to something that fell from the sky with me, I see a hill in my direction. It's surrounded by two narrow passages, I'm confused which passage should I take. I continue my walk towards the hill. I decided to take the right one. While I'm walking I look in each direction to check the area around. Nothing, totally emptiness except the gray ground, me and the black sky. It's beautiful and not like anything I've seen in my life before. But I can't enjoy the view since I'm stranded on another strange planet. Will I ever return to my home? The idea of me not being able to return back to home freezes my blood. I hope the idea of the dream is true. I hope I'm dreaming and going to wake up in my beautiful house

and on my comfortable bed soon. But I don't know what to do with this weird dream except to continue walking. I feel lonely in a way that I didn't feel before. Am I going to see my friends and family again or I will be stuck on this planet forever? THERE IS SOMETHING MOVING. I see it in front of the left passage that I decided not to take. It returned to the passage. I hurried towards it. I ran fast. I arrived at the narrow passage but I didn't see the thing. Am I hallucinating? I walked slowly, The two hills are getting taller, I thought whether I should continue or go back. Then, I chose to continue walking, the passage is kind of like a zigzag, then I arrived at its end and I saw another wide open ground. I saw the thing. It's a short robot walks on a wheel like a tank's wheel. His upper part that I suppose to be his face looks like a camera in a size of a hand with two squircle lenses in a rounded rectangle shape, his body parts are black and gray, and it's about three feet tall he has two small meccano hands. He has another small rounded lens above his head. He looked at me and the lens above his head, which turned to be a lamp, flashed with red light, then he looked away and pointed with his hand towards there. Apparently, he wants me to go in the direction he is pointing to. Then he moved slowly and his movement has a sound like a small electrical motor, he looked at me in a way indicates that

he wants me to follow him. I don't know this place and don't know how to get anywhere on this planet, so I don't have much of a choice, I decided to follow him, any way he is leading me to the direction of the object that came to the planet with me and maybe he will lead me to the inhabitants of the planet, his owner or his creator or something. We walked together in our direction. I talked to him in English.

"Hello."

He looked at me and made a low, short and distant from each other buzzing sounds. It's not Morse code, I'd taken Morse code lessons on the internet. Maybe he said hello in his language.

We continued walking until the end of the open ground. In front of us, there was a low hill with no passages going through it, the hill is kind of long, it's peak is around five hundred feet away and it can be easily reached by walking on foot. He started going up the hill and I followed. Then we reached the end of it and I saw a widespread low land that has a narrow river surrounded by plants and small trees on each side. The river ends in a small lake nearer to my direction. And there is a small cottage on the right side of the lake. I have Goosebumps! But I don't know what will I find, am I going to

find a friendly or non-friendly creature. I think again. If the mysterious inhabitant wants to harm me he would come to me and attack me. But he sent the robot, then he wants to communicate with me not to harm me. The robot walked towards the cottage and I walked with him. The cottage was square shaped. Its walls and roof looked like that they are made of iron sheets. its color is gray and a little but not much shining, while I walked, I looked at the small cottage, the small lake, the river, the plants and the small trees, also I saw a big cloud moving in the sky. And no one there, for my whole eyesight, no living creature. I don't know, but the scene put in me a delightful spark of happiness and reduced my worries. That can't be real. I should have been terrified.

I didn't see a sun. what lightened the planet are the moon and the faraway stars, their light is coming through a thick atmosphere so the planet is well lighted, not like the earth in the morning, but also not like the earth at night. I can see well and my eyesight extends to a long distance.

I saw gorgeous flowers surrounding the lake as I approached the cottage. I went in front of the cottage but I can't see a door or entrance in the direction that I'm coming from. While the

robot stood in his place I walked around the cottage but I didn't see a door or window or any entrance!

I approached one of the walls slowly and knocked on it as if it was a door, it's a kind of metal so if someone in there who can hear definitely will hear the knocks, but no answer, no sound, no movement. I knocked again but without any outcome.

The robot was standing on the shore of the lake, looking at me like he was absorbing me while I'm trying to enter the cottage. When I gave up I went to him. I looked at the lake, the grass, and the beautiful flowers, and I sat on the ground beside him. I gazed at the lake thinking what will happen to me and whether I will find friendly inhabitants or not, or will I return to my home or no.

While I gazed at the lake, I felt a movement on the grass in my right direction, I looked but there was nothing. I'm hallucinating. Then something moved again. I saw it! it's a flower and it's wiggling like an animal. Suddenly, something on my left touched my shoulder and scared the hell out of me. I turned to it and found that it's the robot, with something in his hand, it looked like a fruit, it was yellow and the same size of a cantaloupe but it looked like that it has a soft peel like an apple, with small green leaves on its head. The robot stretched

his hand to me, the one that held the fruit, he wanted to give it me, I hesitated, then he looked away and pointed out by his other hand to a nearby small tree, I looked at the tree and found that it had similar fruits, I realized that I'm hungry. I took the fruit from the robot. And went near the water, I stretched my hand to the water to wash the fruit. Then I took a bite, I started chewing it, it felt like chewing a tomato but it tasted like pear, ... and strawberries, weird mix but it tasted so good. I finished the fruit. Then I drank some water from the lake, it was clean and pure water.

Suddenly I heard a loud and frightening howling, I turned around and looked in all directions but didn't see anything. The howling came again and it planted tremendous fear in my chest. The sound seemed far away. The frightening howling continued and I felt that it's getting nearer, and then I saw it coming, on a height far away. While he was howling I looked at him and found that he is in the size and shape of a human but didn't seem like one, Then I heard a loud noise behind me like a garage door is opening, I turned around to look for what made the noise to see a transforming shape in a spot in the wall of the cottage, The spot looked like a mixing black and gray liquid. Then I realized that the spot is opening, it has

really opened, a spot in the size of a door, totally black and dark form the inside I can't see anything. Then someone came out while my blood is freezing from the howling creature, and this someone who got out from the cottage made me scarier. He covered his face with a loose white cloth that extends to his waist and there is only an opening in the cloth around his eyes, and he held a tall stake in his hand that looked like a tree branch. He stood in front of the door and pointed to me by his hand to come to him. Kind of I was scared of him but not like the other one who howls. I walked to the hooded man and he put his hand on my shoulder and walked me inside the cottage and the robot stayed outside. He closed the door and locked it, I wanted to say something but I was shocked, scared and astonished. So, I couldn't say anything. The man took off the loose cloth from the upper part of his body and his face revealed. He was young, not very handsome man. He had a black hair. Beneath the white cloth, he wore leathered brown costume that looked like something from the middle ages. He has a strong body and big muscles. The cottage from inside looked like an old abandoned ship. There are many control panels with lots of colored buttons and lights. The man pressed a button and a door in the ground opened. He didn't talk but he looked at me and pointed by his hand to the newly opened

door. I started to move to the door and he came with me, there were stairs leading to the underground. Stone stairs that looked like a temple stairs. he grabbed my shoulder lightly and we started to descend. The stairs led to a room that wasn't far down. We reached the room. And he pressed a button on the wall. Then the room started to move down. It was an elevator. The opened side of the elevator that we entered through stayed opened. While we descended I watched the wall from the opened side. The wall looked like a temple wall with ancient inscriptions for animals and symbols. Then the wall ended. Beneath it located what seemed like a big underground city with lots of lights and ancient buildings varied from small to huge buildings and there was flying things that I haven't been able to identify. That's Unbelievable! And the man extended his hand to me. I gave him my hand. He shook my hand and said, "Welcome to Sponin, you will live here with us from now on."

I didn't ingest what he has just said. And I had a sudden feeling that maybe I died in my apartment and I'm now in the afterlife.