Fight for the Rim. Or Die on the Rim

Started by Alitaria, October 19, 2015, 12:41:51 AM

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Alitaria

So I decided to try my hand at some creative writing based on a colony I did using EDB's scenarios mod where you start with only one colonist.
The following is what I imagine going through the head of one of my colonists right before the colony went to shit.
Here's what came out of that. This is very rough work as I only really put 3 days into it but I hope y'all enjoy.



Life on the Rim. It's not exactly a difficult life. But it sure as hell isn't an easy one.
On the Rim we live by a simple code. "Fight for the Rim; Or Die on the Rim."
My name is Michael Austin, but I havn't heard that name in a long time. Here on the Rim, I am simply Micro. Another pawn in the endless battle for survival that I, and many others now call a life. It wasn't a choice for many of us, it was help the colony, or die. That was the choice we were given. I'd seen countless that chose the latter, preferring to take their chances making it back to whatever slum they had slunk out of, praying to whatever deity that was out there to let them pass. For some it was a choice they made willingly, without the risk. There were those that joined this hellhole out of their own free will, I will never understand them. Why you would want to live here, on this desolate rock, is beyond me.
For 5 years now, I have awoken in my pod of a room, barely big enough to house the bed inside and ate with the 20 something people living under this one roof. Chatter would be sparse, not going beyond how well we slept or about some odd dream that occurred. We all knew we had work to do, we did so every day, that didn't mean we liked it. There were crops to be harvested, metals to be hauled and animals to be tended to. Today was just another day on the Rim. It was days like this I would almost hope that one of the local tribes would mount another fruitless assault on our walls. That they would foolishly wander across our minefield, thinking they had mapped it properly from last time, thinking they could actually reach the plasteel reinforced vault door that sealed us from the dangers of this wasteland. Of course, I don't want it to actually happen. All it would mean is another day on lockdown and more cleanup work to do for the next few days. There would be corpses to strip and haul, walls to repair, mines to relay and in Singer's case, bodies to butcher. Singer...She wasn't exactly what you would call, stable and everyone knew that, yet no one wanted to say anything. Because everyone knew her story. She was the first. The sole survivor of the Civilian Transport Ship, Neptune IX. That got caught in crossfire and crashed on this god forsaken planet. For 6 months, she was alone on this hellhole of a rock. For 6 months she had no one to talk to but the squirrels. For 6 months she survived constant attacks from pirates, tribal warriors and psychotic animals. 6 months of doing anything alone is enough to drive anyone a little insane. If the second had come even a day later, she might not have made it at all.
No one is quite sure who the second was. Singer refuses to talk about him. All we know for sure, is that deep within the catacombs of our little colony he rests, a single sarcophagus sits, sealed away. We know that Singer loved him dearly, and that she almost ended herself along with him the moment he died. Because of this, that room is forbidden by colony law. No one is to enter it, not even Singer herself is allowed down there, in fear of what might happen should she see him again.

Servos whirred as I moved my arm, dragging the massive hunk of stone that our miners had dug out of the mountain side. My true arm was lost just a few days into life on this rock. A Scyther, as we had taken to calling them had unloaded two rounds into my lower shoulder, severing the nerves. There was no saving it, no matter how hard Singer had tried. While the GlitterWorld technology gave us almost super human strength and maneuverability, they couldn't perfectly replicate the sensation of touch. Everything felt slightly off using this arm. I couldn't quite get used to it, despite having it for almost 4 years now.
I often wondered who the second really was. We all did, but Singer won't talk about him. She doesn't talk much about anything anymore. She spends her waking hours alone in the kitchen, silently preparing meals for the colony. The only time we see her even remotely happy is when she's in there. Usually carving into some previously living thing, be it animal or human. No one questions her reasoning for being happy then. We all know she spent 6 months alone here, it makes you do some things most other people would frown on.
I had just shaken out of that daze and kept trudging along, dragging the stupid rock, praying for any reason to drop it and move on.
My prayers were answered, but not in any way that I liked. Frantic messages were going off in my earpiece. The voices were jumbled due to the amount of different people all talking at once but one message stood out. Singers voice ordering everyone back into the Vault in the only way that she knew.
"Two minutes 'till armed", was the last thing said before the coms died. Everyone knew what that warning meant, everyone had two minutes to get their asses back into the Vault before it would be sealed and the minefield armed. Breaking out into a full sprint, I ran towards the Vault, rifle drawn.
Pain shot through my body, seemingly originating from my calf and I fell face first into the ground. Twisting my body, I see the mechanical monsters that took my arm. Another round hit my bionic limb, creating a shower of sparks as it twitched and spasmed. A third lodged itself in my torso. It might have hit something important. I was beyond caring at this point. Thinking there were here to finish the job, I lay, unmoving as the mechanical terrors skirted around me, ignoring my presence. They had done their job, they had brought me to a state where I would no longer fight back. Their next target was the Vault.

The Vault had been sealed. Roll had been called. One was left behind. That one was me.

It happened from time to time. Someone wouldn't make it. Whether it was a conscious decision or simply a case of bad luck and timing. Someone wouldn't make it in time and there was nothing we could do about it. Those two minutes given were carefully chosen, it gave everybody enough time to get back to at least the Vault door from all of our work sites, bar the occasional trade route with some of the local tribes. The warning is clear. Drop what you are doing. Now. Get back to the Vault. Live. Those who fail to do that. Die. We all live by these rules because no one expects it to be them on the other side of that door. From the moment that door is closed, if you are on the outside, your com link is cut and are assumed dead. If by some miracle you survive, you will be welcomed back. Though, that's just what we assume would happen. No one has survived not making it back to the Vault. Now it was my turn. Maybe I would be the anomaly in the data. Maybe I would be the one who made it back.
Maybe I would die. I couldn't be sure. All I know for sure, is now my life is is probably about to end.
My name is Michael "Micro" Austin, and these are my final hours.

Today I stopped fighting for the Rim. So today I die on the Rim.

Context is key when discussing RimWorld in public

A Friend

It's pretty neat for a "very rough work". More?
"For you, the day Randy graced your colony with a game-ending raid was the most memorable part of your game. But for Cassandra, it was Tuesday"

Squiggly lines you call drawings aka "My Deviantart page"