There were five of them, huddled together in a small group under the overhang of a precariously balanced boulder. Right now the boulder allowed them shade and some small relief from the ever moving, inextinguishable wall of flame that even now crossed the rocky plains behind them, getting closer to their bolthole.
Like everyone on this small planet, they were prisoners. Sent here from one world or another to suffer their sentences. Their crimes were meaningless here, along with who they were before they arrived. Many people, these five included, had taken new names. They lied about where they were from. What they had done. Some people, although none of the five here, even claimed innocence. No one on Onix was innocent. If you were here, you were meant to be here.
There was safety from the blaze some distance ahead. They could see it. A bunker that had been built by the people who had lived on this world before it was converted to a prison planet. It was less than a mile away. Less than five minutes at a decent jog. Everyone on the planet could make it with time to spare.
Everyone except the five waiting under the boulder. They had been hounded onto the plains from the foothills of the mountains a day to the west. The foothills were also safe from the fire, but they had their own dangers to worry about. The other prisoners, sure, but there were creatures there. Hunting packs who drove their prey into the fire and came to eat the cooked meat after the flames had passed over. The five of them could see the creatures, their lightning blue streaks standing out against the beige of the rocks they were hiding among.
Every other direction was fire and death and they had suffered injuries while escaping the hunting creatures. Two of them had broken legs, and three were nursing other injuries that would not heal.
As the five waited for death to envelop them from behind, the sound of the fire became a roar. It drowned out any other noise. It sounded faster, harder, bigger than it had during the last few days since it had crossed the horizon on to the rocky plains. In truth, though, it had shrunk and slowed considerably. There was very little fuel for it here. It was still big enough that it would cross these plains easily and start on the forests on the far side which had regrown since the last time the fire wrapped around here. The cycle would start again with a large burst of power, and a brighter, taller orange flame.
The fire was certainly impressive, and besides the other prisoners, was definitely the worst thing on the world to be caught by. But it was easily avoided. The pattern it took around the planet was known to everyone.
It stretched from left to right, from the coastline of the only ocean on this world almost all the way to the mountains. A good three or four thousand miles. Behind it several rival tribes of prisoners had made a nice niche for themselves, picking up anything that was left behind. This cycle was no different, and they all followed the fire at a safe distance.
There was little contact between these groups. Each of them was only a half dozen or so people, and they came and went as they pleased. But when they did meet, the results were often violent. Sometimes fatal.
As the flames passed over the rocky plains, they were a dull red colour. They only reached about ten feet into the air, as opposed to the nearly fifty feet when they hit the forests only a few days ahead of them. In line with the boulder that temporarily sheltered the doomed, injured prisoners, one of the groups of scavengers calmly made their way through the scarred and singed rocks. There was very little out here this time. A couple of corpses of some unlucky creature, perhaps a meal for the dog things that waited just out of sight in the hills not far off. One of the scavengers was always watching for them. They came out of nowhere and were wildly unpredictable. There was only one that could be relied upon to do as expected, the one that old man had. Like a pet. Someone else to wary of as the fires passed. The old man was always waiting for an opportunity and he would be here somewhere. Watching. Waiting.
The old man was, indeed, nearby. Him and his so called pet. But they werent interested in the scavenger groups trailing the fire. Right now the two of them were more interested in protecting themselves from the fire. He was inside the bunker that stood not far from the large boulder that sheltered some people. He could see them from the window. If they ran they could make it but for some reason, they had chosen not to. The fire would be on top of them within the day, perhaps even by dawn. He could feel the tell tale waves of heat even this far away. The people under the boulder would have no chance. Next to him, his friend sat and watched out the same window. He said nothing, but there was something in his eyes that reminded the old man that this was still a wild animal and needed to be treated with respect.
The old man sighed, opened the heavy metal hatch that led down into the bunker proper and let the creature go first. Taking one last look out of the window towards the cowering prisoners, he shook his head in pity and started the climb down, locking the hatch closed as he went.
The prisoners dont, didnt and wont care about the history of Onix, the world they had been forced inhabit. They dont care about the civilisation that lives up on the moon that orbits above, with all its boring people watching the events of Onix unfold like some dramatic movie.
They dont care about the things left behind by the previous civilisation that lived on Onix, why they built a huge black cube in the middle of nowhere, how they survived the creatures that hunt or the fire that scorches everything on its seasonal pass. All they cared about was surviving. A few were there as a challenge; having undertaken a nasty enough crime to have them sent here in order to try and escape. These people were especially popular on the networks on the orbiting moon.
There were two people who did care about the history of this world, the old man who wanted to know everything he could about everything. He would die on this world, that he knew, but he could still learn as he went. Especially with his friend by his side. The creature was different to the others of his kind. Freer in a way the old man could never, would never, understand. He had been chosen by the creature when he should have been eaten, and now, thirty years later, the two of them were still learning things they could never have imagined.
The other who wanted to learn things was the man named Curry. Few people had met this person, fewer yet remembered him. To almost everyone, he was just another prisoner, suffering the same as anyone else on this world. But Curry was innocent. He had been framed and he would not rest until he had made his way back to the mega city that constantly stared down at them all, mocking them all with their pomp. He had belonged to that city once, had been a part of its workings. He knew that there were three times as many people up there that belonged down here. He would show the rest of that world exactly what he had learned. He just needed to find a way back up there.
Yet this world, this prison named Onix held more secrets than either two men had learned. And if the people of the city high above really were watching, they would have loved the moment that the old man and his friend found the door in the bunker which opened up into a long, dark tunnel.
Without speaking, the old man entered and closed the door behind him. The creature, already ahead of him, lit the way with a bright blue light from its tail, held over its head.
The tunnel was about eight feet tall, tall enough for all but the weirdest of prisoners here, and five feet wide. It was lined with what looked like electric lights, but there were no switches that the old man could see, and so they remained off.
Every so often, irregularly and infrequently, the tunnel branched off in another direction. Each branch was the same size as the main one they were in and each time, the creature wandered a few meters down before turning around and coming back, leading the old man the same way they had been going.
They werent far off the surface, maybe ten to twelve feet and the old man realised they had been heading back towards the face of the fire by the dull rumbling he could hear above.
He followed the creature for almost a week, waiting for it to say something, to make a wry comment about their situation but it never did. It led him down many branching tunnels, a winding and curving labyrinth. Eventually arriving at a sudden end. A sheer rock face, untouched by the tools which had carved this tunnel.
“Thats it?” the old man said. He laughed a noise then slumped down to take a gulp from his very nearly empty water jug. “All this way and its a dead end.”
The creature made no sound, but lifted its tail towards the roof of the tunnel where a small metal hatch had been set into the rock. It was almost the same colour as the rock itself and unless you were looking for it, it was practically invisible.
“Ah,” the old man said, reattaching the bottle to his belt. “I thought for sure this was the time you were going to eat me.”
The old man stood and pulled the hatch open. He could hear people speaking from above. Their voices were dulled by the rock and metal, but they werent far. He couldnt make out what they were saying yet, but they became clearer as he hoisted himself into the small pipe. “Stay down here,” he told the creature. “Not that you can fit up here anyway. Ill have a look, see whats up here, and if its worth it, Ill find a way to bring you up too.”
The creature rolled its eyes and curled up on the floor as if about to sleep. The old man chuckled and pulled the hatch closed behind him. He climbed the metal ladder that was set into the rock and quickly found another which opened up and let him into -
In the middle of the desert, away from the fire, there was a gigantic black cube. It pre-dated Onix’s use as a prison and it was one of a few places that prisoners were not allowed in. Not that they could get in even if they were, it was a sealed box. No one on Onix knew how to enter it, which was the point after all. Whatever purpose it had served all that time ago was forgotten. Now it was a control center for the incoming prisoners.
“Well,” the old man said as he knocked out the only two people on Onix who werent prisoners and investigated the room he had found himself in. “I guess this is very interesting.”