Witness as people whore out their personal sci-fi universes, wheee!
But it's the only time recently where I've come close to writing anything remotely fictional, and here's mines:
He was the only survivor. He had to be. He could not imagine that there could ever exist an absence of sound as devoid as this one. His only companions were his own heartbeat and footsteps as he aimlessly trudged across the plain. The silence was faintly intimidating. He silently dared anyone to find a silence that shadowed this one.
The horizon was ablaze, and the air rife with the stench of ozone. The bombardment from the previous day had literally turned the planet's atmosphere inside-out, as if the world had been forced through a blender. Ozone was the stench of destruction, and it assaulted his senses constantly.
He wondered if there were anyone else still yet living somewhere on this world. He knew it was hardly likely for the fleet to consider searching for survivors. After all, one did not unleash an orbital attack of a global scale without expecting there to be nothing left living afterwards. So for now he was more or less alone.
His foot stepped on something soft. He gazed downwards and saw an arm---probably one that had once belonged to a private. Or maybe a high-ranking officer. It's owner couldn't be found. Or rather, you wouldn't expect to find it amongst a field littered with its kind.
Ankirdia Valley. Operations Command had left this particular avenue of attack open to the enemy, for some reason. Perhaps it was a shortage of men, or simply a matter of priorities. There had obviously been some kind of contingency measure left in place should the enemy come through this valley. There were always contingencies and backups. One did not survive anywhere without them---like a pocket full of friends in case your real ones somehow failed you, or turned against you.
He tried to conceive of a contingency plan that would leave the enemy, a force of over twenty thousand, last he could recall, in pieces, their crusted blood caking the dirt underneath their remains. A massacre of a spectacular kind. Somehow it failed to move him. Perhaps he was too stunned by his entire experience in this war. A long-term shock that followed one to his or her grave, perhaps.
His thoughts too preoccupied, he could not prevent his foot from slipping, destroying his balance and sending him down a steep hill, tumbling head-over-feet. His body came to a rest at the foot of the hill. He lay there, too tired and pained to move at the moment. He wondered then if he should have a chance at surviving somehow on this world. Live off the nature of this planet that is bound to return. Hunt, gather, scavenge. Like a vermin in a hole, but alive. Or would he? Would it be nothing more than a fruitless exercise against inevitability? He would expire, sooner or later, on this forgotten world, and most definetly alone. And until he did, he would wander the face of this planet with nothing but his own heartbeat and footsteps as his companions.
He gathered his strength in a sort of defeated, absent-minded fashion, and walked on into the distance, toward somewhere. That somewhere looked pretty far away. And until he got there, his heartbeat and footsteps would keep him company.
Suddenly there was a voice. At first he thought it was merely his own, but he could now surely perceive it. He strained his eyes toward the distance and spotted a figure waving its arms at him.
So he decided to live. Struggle fruitlessly against the inevitable, with no forseeable chance of real victory at the end. His only companions, his heartbeat and footsteps. And one more. One was insufferable, two was stretching it, but three could work out. It would be a long journey toward defeat, but with three companions, it might perhaps not be so bad of a road to walk after all.
=====================
No room for plot and character, so the only criticism I'm looking for is stuff like atmosphere, flow of narrative, etc.
