They had been running for so long.

                Green and his team have jumped from planet to planet for decades now. It seemed that the black cloud was always following. It was an old bedtime story his grandmother used to tell him, meant to bring fear. “The dead will rise,” she would say, old and frail. Her gnarled hand would wave upward in a grand gesture. A flourish for the dramatic. “They will come- no one knows how or when, but they will come. They will spread across the universe and consume all that is good.”

                Green looked out the window surveying the stars. He knew that there was no escaping the story, the prophecy. It had come to his planet. He was lucky to get off the planet with the meager crew he had. He had commandeered the craft in a very illegal way. He can still see the woman’s dead eyes, staring at him as she snarled and drew back her lips showing teeth and gum. Something had taken her, took control of her body, and she seemed to move like a marionette. Tied to invisible strings, chasing Green through the house.

                He felt he would not make it out alive.