“Terminal”: A SciFanSat Microfiction Compilation

I flee to the stars
light years away from my past
hoping to find me

Here I begin, at this terminal. Outside is my new moon, strange weather. I read it's lucky to be caught in this blood rain, and I forgot my umbrella.#ScifaikuSaturday #SciFanSat #vss365 #vssnature #whistpr

— Jenny Gaitskell (@JennyGaitskell) October 30, 2021

“Found you,” Death says to Mike.

The child flashed a grin under the hospital bed. “You always find me in hide and seek!”

“I find all.”

“It’s been two weeks. Is today Ally’s day?”

Death led him to Ally’s terminal ward. “She’ll be happy to see you.”#SciFanSat #2WordPrompt

— Jason H. Abbott (@Jason_H_Abbott) October 30, 2021

I'm afraid your condition is terminal, they said. It's the side effects of breakbone fever. Your bones are dissolving. No more life on earth for you. You have a choice of the stars or the sea. #SciFanSat #terminal

— Voimaoy (@voimaoy) October 30, 2021

You told me to meet you at Space Terminal 6A and we would escape this madness together.

I waited for hours, watching rockets traverse the stars, dock, #flee and fly free.

Knowing you would want me to be happy, I finally bought a ticket.
One.
One-way.#vss365 #SciFanSat

— Ellen✍K (@poeticnihilist) October 30, 2021

Deep terminal tones
echoed across
the lingering ideology
of the hurting sky
Terrified inhabitants
ran headlong
toward horizons
and away
from hissing moon
falling into a blinking
deadly star #SciFanSat #SciFiFri #vss365 pic.twitter.com/wtFWyx8a7D

— Indigenous Soul (@GeneVatow) October 29, 2021

The tone of our conversation is terminal, the topic, ourselves when the meteor scorches the skies, shattering her windscreen. Suddenly silenced, we hear distant alarms, see the impact cloud.
We step away—no—#flee our petty suspicions for the first time in years#scifansat#vss365

— John Everex (@EverexJohn) October 30, 2021

Since the beginning of time, the universe has been fleeing—running away from the monster who inhabits its center at terminal speeds. What lies beyond oblivion? It does not know, but it can’t be worse than that original terror. #vss365 #satsplat #SciFanSat

— A. A. Rubin (@TheSurrealAri) October 30, 2021

I used to mock them. Doom-mongers, rushing to get off-world. Now though, as the alien #strike force descends, and it's too late to #flee…

The #terminal is in flames, no way out. I don't want to die here. Please, Gods, someone, anyone, help me…#vss365 #vssDreams #scifansat pic.twitter.com/hm9dg1vIb5

— That Burnt Writer (@ThatBurntWriter) October 30, 2021

Acrimonious laughter trails as Zeke and Jake flee the empty station terminal. The Square Black Hat is upon them. Jump after jump w/ no discernible escape, as each portal simply leads to another, and each location sounds the same caustic alarm. Run.#bravewrite #vss365 #SciFanSat

— Occam Razor (@BeKindHumans) October 30, 2021

#vss365 #SciFanSat
They started leaving on Tuesday; right after the news, but we had to wait for the weekend. The #Terminal closed yesterday, but Sue said there's another way out, so we're with her now. Trusting her to help us #flee from whatever it is that's knocking on the door

— AllOneWord (@AllOneWord5) October 30, 2021

A nurse assigned to the terminal ward, she's accustomed to watching death claimed patients almost daily. But in time its toll dragged her down to bouts of depression. She was forced to #flee to somewhere uplifting and was reassigned to the nursery.#vss365#SciFanSat#2WordPrompt

— aran (@AranPotente) October 30, 2021

Mama finally takes me to a specialist after bony spikes start to protrude from my elbows.

“It’s not a terminal illness,” Dr. Shen says, “but you should prepare yourself. As his condition advances…”

Shen hesitates.

“He won’t be my son anymore,” Mama says.#SciFanSat #SatSplat

— Armond Boudreaux (@armondboudreaux) October 30, 2021

Alpha Terminal
disintegrates around us
Impulse to flee dies

Nowhere to flee to
The Terminal — our one hope
for stars far away

Through a veil of tears
we see their treachery, now
sure Alpha means death#SciFanSat#SciFaikuSaturday#HaikuChallenge#VSS365 pic.twitter.com/JcsvUaVDjg

— Alan Vincent Michaels (@AlanVMichaels) October 30, 2021

Being a bit of gentleman and a lot of scoundrel I did not immediately think to #flee when faced with the dragon.
Many would tremble before such a #monster, but my #xook in life is #terminal curiosity, of the type that kills cats & men#vss365 #AchtenWrite #SciFanSat #satsplat pic.twitter.com/EIbKgXXZ0h

— 🤩 Debbie Iancu-Haddad 🍒 (@debbieiancu) October 30, 2021

Karn evaded the beast's teeth, gripped its jaws, stopped them from closing on his head. A stalemate – foes frozen in a terminal embrace, the strain of muscles carved in stone. Then the monster’s teeth inched closer together. Karn’s arms shook from exhaustion.#satsplat#scifansat

— Christopher Slagle (@christopheresl2) October 30, 2021

As soon as she repairs hover-trains in the terminal, a phantasm breaks them.
She's seen it – a man rushing along the tracks who looks back, fatally.
Frustrated, she screams, 'Why?' Later she sees 'lonely' scrawled in rocks.
Hover-trains are less fatal.#366FF #SciFanSat #satsplat

— Fennel (@FennelSteuert) October 30, 2021

It was bad; self-diagnosed terminal ennui. Her family had moved. Friends, favorite teachers and monkey bars? All gone–new school had none of that. Just a dumb ghost who was also bored. So she read to him. It was a start.#SciFanSat#SatSpark#SciFiSat#SatSplat#SlapDashSat#YA

— Peter J Gilbertson (@PeteJGilbertson) October 30, 2021

Thoughts are just thoughts, I thought.
Wishes are just fishes.
In this cold space called space,
hopelessness is terminal,
imagination is the cryptocurrency,
and dreams are now real.#SciFanSat #SciFiSat #SlapDashSat

— Danielle Ste. Just (@DanielleSteJust) October 30, 2021

A terminal in a memory meadow space cube that could make your blood radiate innocence by accepting an unnaturally altered reality.
You could only flee its visions when you only trusted your past & did not live in their fictional false world. #SciFanSat #vss365 #vssnature pic.twitter.com/X3I2YiwOx1

— Polly Parker (@ParkerPolly2) October 30, 2021

space terminal case
opens since hinges broke and
the owner's away.#ScifaikuSaturday #SciFanSat

— Beth Cusack (@BethCusack9) October 30, 2021