Scenario-Writing Contest

Setting: FTL future, mysterious world

Key concepts: survival, isolation, hidden threat

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Summary: Stranded on a rogue planet millions of light-years from known civilization, Captain Arisa Hawke and her crew discover a Victorian manor, untouched by time, amidst an alien landscape. As they venture deep into its inexplicable presence, they soon realize they are not alone, and the manor's secrets might be as deadly as the universe's cold void.

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Full Prompt:

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In the unending pallor of the cosmos, the SS Exodus sliced a winding course, its purpose betrayed only by the flickering distress beacon that pulsed like a dying heartbeat. The starship, designed for navigating the elegant beauty of the celestial yonder, was on an unanticipated descent towards the surface of a rogue planet: Proxima Obsidianum. A world concealed beneath an ebon canopy of obsidian clouds, as secretive and unforgiving as its name suggested.

The ship's captain, Arisa Hawke, was a woman carved from steel and stern resolution. Her flint grey eyes flickered with undimmed courage as she steadied the trembling controls, her heart mimicking the rhythmic lull of the distress beacon. Static pricked her ears from the comms unit, a lonely wail in the confines of her dying ship. She hoped her crew — the passionate botanist Dr. Venter, the grizzled Engineer Radov, and the jocular historian Siraj — would fare better on the planet's surface than they had among the stars.

With a monstrous shudder that reverberated through the ship's superstructure, the SS Exodus belly-flopped onto the obsidian-snow-dusted surface of the planet, skidding and grinding to an untidy halt. Beyond the panes of shattered tri-plexiglass, an alien world stretched into an eternity of inky shadows, the somber stillness only interrupted by the whistling of a strange wind. No celestial bodies painted the sky, just an abyssal sheet of cosmic black.

They ventured out in hope, swaddled in their exo-suits, guided by the sharp beams of their hand lights. What they discovered amid the swaying groves of luminescent fungi and the sighs of the alien wind defied logic and the boundaries of space and time. It was a mansion, a great sprawling edifice of gargoyles, soaring turrets, and lace-patterned ironwork; a Victorian manor house straight out of a London borough, sitting inexplicably on an alien landscape millions of light-years from any known human civilization.

Arisa led the way, the mansion's facade reflecting in her visor, the bravura of her position demanding she conceals the shudder of unease rippling down her spine. One by one, they crossed the threshold into the house, the door protesting with a creak that echoed in the cavernous hallway. They stared at the elaborate frescoes, the velvet-draped furniture, and the crystalline chandeliers, all remarkably preserved in the mansion's isolated bubble.

As they moved deeper, navigating winding staircases and dust-choked corridors, the house whispered to them in cold drafts and groaning floorboards, offering up mysteries as tangible as the chill in the air. The wallpaper seemed to sigh with untold stories, the faces in the oil paintings flickered with half-seen expressions, and mirrors reflected more than the eye could discern.

In the cavernous dining room, under the baleful stare of taxidermied creatures of no identifiable origin, they discovered laid out on the table a feast untouched by time or decay. Yet, no chair bore any sign of recent occupation. The stillness was absolute, as if the mansion held its breath, waiting.

And then, a sound... something, somewhere in the bowels of the manor, grating against the all-encompassing silence. A shuffle, a hiss, a monstrous sigh, too heavy and substantial to belong to the wind. They didn't see what made the sound, but they felt it — an unseen presence, a nameless dread coiled around their spines. They were not alone in this strange, Victorian relic of a bygone era.

As the darkness swelled around them, devouring the soft glow of their hand lights, the house seemed to come alive, its secrets awakening to the rhythm of their beating hearts. And somewhere, in the depths of the mansion, their host waited.