Random stories

David sat in his lab chewing on a stick of carrot. They said it was supposed to help you to quit smoking, but now he wanted a cigarette more than ever to clear out the taste of raw carrot. He heard a knock at the door but, before he could invite his guests to come in, the door had opened and he found himself looking at a pair of short, stocky fellows. They were dressed entirely in grey with haircuts that were at least 30 years out of fashion. One held a long metal stick.

"Gentlemen!" Exclaimed David, "I haven't seen you around here, are you in one of my classes?"

Ignoring the question completely, the larger of the two monotonically mumbled

"You are David Munting, specialist in early human language structures? I need you to come with us. I'll explain on the way."

They spoke with a vaguely Australian accent, a rarity in this part of the world.

"Sorry gents, where do you want to take me and why? I have a lecture to give in an hour, I can't just go galivanting off with strangers!"

"Come with us or we'll be forced to thromble you."

The one holding the stick suddenly pointed it at David threateningly. It began to hum slightly, a musical tone if it hadn't been so ominous. David wasn't sure what 'thrombling' was, but he was equally sure that he didn't want to find out.

"Ok ok guys, let me just find a replacement for this lecture, I'm sure Melina will be happy to cover me"

After a quick phone call, David walked out of the building and was greeted by a large silver car.

"I'm starting to think you guys are from Mars, with your futuristic kit and weird car!" David quipped. The men did not laugh. Instead, they pushed David into the car and sat on either side of him. Instead of accelerating hard like David had expected, the car simply vibrated lightly for a few seconds, then stopped. When the shorter fellow opened the door it became obvious that, whatever had just happened, they were no longer in South Kensington. On the wall, 100m from where David now stood, was an inscription.

"Where are we?" David enquired, fearing the worst.

"We are currently 700m below the surface of planet ZB677, it has been uninhabited since before the Galactic Exploration Committee was formed."

David's brain was not capable of questioning the reality he had just been told about, so he accepted it, in much the same way as he would accept being told that sausages cooked better if they weren't pricked in advance.

"Why have you brought me here?" David continued. Instead of an answer, he was ushered towards the inscription on the far wall. He now saw that the smaller of the two had an unfortunate mole beneath his chin. It irritated him for some reason, though he couldn't be sure why.

"If Earth shall ever fall, use these 10,000 embryos to continue the Human Race." That is what the inscription said. It baffled David even more than the reality of aliens existing.

"How old is this?"

"We estimate the inscription is between 2 and 2.5 teraquadlons old - that's about 100-125 million years on Earth."

"But that's not possible" David stammered, "Humans have only been on Earth for around 6 million years, how could anyone have written this before humans even evolved?"

"We wondered the same thing, David. Until we dug deeper and found that there are no embryos here."

"Bit crap as a backup plan then isn't it..."

"Clearly it wasn't such a terrible backup plan. Ask yourself David, is your Earth the first planet to be called that name?"

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Submitted by ObliviousToFlirting on Tue, Mar 15, 2022 to /r/WritingPrompts/

The prompt

On a long dead planet, an alien archeologist finds a sealed vault. Inside is a precious cargo and a message: "If Earth shall ever fall, use these 10,000 embryos to continue the Human Race."