They all heard the cry.

Its utter human-ness set it apart from everything else around them.

It tore into Pete's heart, and he started to run towards the line of trees from where it had come. He saw movement, a human body jerking in something that looked like ropes coming from the leaves above.

Pete sprinted as fast as his feet would carry him, pulling the energy weapon from his belt. He saw one of the ropes tightening, in a jerky motion. It was the rope that was wound around the neck. The struggling ceased.

Reaching the spot below the body, he looked up. Ralph's head was at a strange angle to his torso. Blood was dripping to the ground.

The others joined him seconds later, all of them gazing up in horror.

"We can try to cut him out using our energy weapons," said Claudio, but his voice betrayed what everyone already knew.

They were too late.

Ralph, Pete thought.

Tears blurred Pete's view when he released the safety catch of his energy weapon. He approached the nearest one of the trees and started firing. The bluish-white beam of the weapon cut into the bark with ease, sending up smoke. One of the fat ropes approached from the left, forming into a curl. He turned his weapon at it, hit the trigger, and severed it with a quick motion. The thing fell, and the stump retreated into the canopy.

A low-pitched moan came from the leaves above.

Gritting his teeth, Pete shot at the other vines, cutting them down, leaving their twisting stumps burning. Later, he moved the beam of the weapon upwards, towards the canopy. The leaves caught fire with ease, and flames consumed them with a satisfying, crackling sound. When the weapon was depleted, he went to one of the men and got another one.

They all watched as he set the trees aflame, one by one.

When the second weapon was empty, too, he stood back with the others.

The trees had turned into an inferno of flames and smoke.

Ralph did not deserve to die like this. He had led them to this planet. And killing him was how it had thanked him.

Pete watched as the rising fumes obscured the face of the Sun.

He made a promise to himself, and to the memory of his dead brother. He would teach this planet about its new masters, even if he had to build a fire so fierce that its smoke would engulf this world in darkness.

A/N:

And so it ends.

Thank you all for reading this!

I hope you have enjoyed it. Let me know!

Anyway, writing it was lots of fun.

And let us never build a fire so fierce.

As you may have noted, this story is quite short. This is because it was originally written for a contest limited to 25k words.

If you're interested in something longer, you're invited to have a look at one of my other works:

- Waking the Ruins: Another science fiction story, where a group of 21st-century people is cast into a dystopian future where humanity has apparently disappeared.

- The Thorne Siblings: A tale starting out as a clichéd billionaire romance but turning into a thriller/mystery as the plot proceeds.

- The Egg at Dumstreet: A slower-paced mystery/thriller where a U.S. academic finds himself marooned in a tenement in Europe and has to cope with his slightly weird neighbors.