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This Week in Rust 473

Hello and welcome to another issue of This Week in Rust! Rust is a programming language empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient software. This is a weekly summary of its progress and community. Want something mentioned? Tag us at @ThisWeekInRust on Twitter or @ThisWeekinRust on mastodon.social, or send us a pull request. Want to get involved? We love contributions.

This Week in Rust is openly developed on GitHub. If you find any errors in this week's issue, please submit a PR.

Updates from Rust Community

Official

Launching the 2022 State of Rust Survey

Foundation

Welcoming Shopify as Our Inaugural Gold Member

Newsletters

This Month in Rust OSDev: November 2022

Project/Tooling Updates

rust-analyzer changelog #159

Making Dioxus (almost) as fast as SolidJS

Announcing Ksunami v0.1.x

Fornjot (code-first CAD in Rust) - Weekly Release

Youki v0.0.4 Release

Observations/Thoughts

Catch 22! Rust in Review

A Look at dyn* Code Generation

Shopify Embraces Rust for Systems Programming

Rust in 2023

Category Theory with Rust (pt2) - GATs example

Rust: state of GUI, from the perspective of KAS

A call for blogs about Rust GUI in 2023

[video] Next Generation i18n with Rust Using ICU4X

[video] Supercharging Zero-Copy Deserialization

[video] Let's write a TCP Port Scanner in Rust

[video] Rust Is Easy (The COMPILER teaches you!)

[audio] Presser with Gray Olson

[audio] Kernel Density Estimation with Seaton Ullberg

Rust Walkthroughs

Clean Code with Rust & Axum

Data-driven performance optimization with Rust and Miri

Embedded Rust & Embassy: Analog Sensing with ADCs

Sorting with SIMD

Sending Emails from the Edge with Rust

Composing an observable Rust application

Miscellaneous

[video] Meetup: Rust in critical infrastructure, Amsterdam 30 Nov 2022

Crate of the Week

This week's crate is lazy_format, a lazy version of format! for more efficient composed string formatting operations.

Thanks to Nathan West for the self-suggestion!

Please submit your suggestions and votes for next week!

Call for Participation

Always wanted to contribute to open-source projects but didn't know where to start? Every week we highlight some tasks from the Rust community for you to pick and get started!

Some of these tasks may also have mentors available, visit the task page for more information.

* impl-tools - more testing more context * time - more testing more context * Ockam - Refactor request_controller function to accept an optional Identity * Ockam - Add optional --identity argument to secure-channel create and modify implementation on ockam_api

If you are a Rust project owner and are looking for contributors, please submit tasks here.

Updates from the Rust Project

320 pull requests were merged in the last week

add LLVM KCFI support to the Rust compiler

add StableOrd trait

add help for #![feature(impl_trait_in_fn_trait_return)]

compute generator sizes with -Zprint_type_sizes

consider parent_count for const param defaults

detect long types in E0308 and write them to disk

detect spurious ; before assoc fn body

disable top down MIR inlining

don't ICE in ExprUseVisitor on FRU for non-existent struct

don't call diagnostic_hir_wf_check query if we have infer variables

don't internalize __llvm_profile_counter_bias

enable ThinLTO for rustc on x86_64-apple-darwin

enable ThinLTO for rustc on x64 msvc

enable profiler in dist-powerpc64le-linux

fix build on powerpc-unknown-freebsd

fix invalid codegen during debuginfo lowering

fix lint perf regressions

group some fields in a common struct so we only pass one reference instead of three

interpret: clobber return place when calling function

llvm-wrapper: adapt for LLVM API changes

llvm-wrapper: adapt for an LLVM API change

make VecDeque::from_iter O(1) from vec(_deque)::IntoIter

make integer-to-integer From impls #[inline(always)]

make pointer sub and wrapping_sub methods #[inline(always)]

make some trivial functions #[inline(always)]

mangle "main" as "__main_void" on wasm32-wasi

on E0195 point at where clause lifetime bounds

point at GAT where clause when an obligation is unsatisfied

point at LHS on binop type err if relevant

point at args in associated const fn pointers

re-enable removal of ZST writes to unions

recurse into nested impl-trait when computing variance

remove token::Lit from ast::MetaItemLit

remove {Early, Late}LintPassObjects

shrink rustc_parse_format::Piece

suggest parenthesis around ExprWithBlock BinOp ExprWithBlock

suggest removing struct field from destructive binding only in shorthand scenario

tweak "the following other types implement trait"

tweak rustc_must_implement_one_of diagnostic output

miri: allow configurable and platform-specific page sizes

miri: make unix path handling on Windows hosts (and vice versa) preserve absoluteness

cargo: allow Check targets needed for optional doc-scraping to fail without killing the build

rustdoc: only hide lines starting with # in rust code blocks

rustdoc: prevent auto/blanket impl retrieval if there were compiler errors

clippy: arithmetic-side-effects: consider user-provided pairs

clippy: uninlined_format_args:ignore assert! and debug_assert! before 2021 edition

clippy: add 1.58 MSRV for collapsible_str_replace

clippy: add suppress_restriction_lint_in_const config

clippy: add lint almost_complete_digit_range

clippy: add semicolon-outside/inside-block lints

clippy: don't suggest keeping borrows in identity_op

clippy: fix zero_ptr suggestion for no_std crates

rust-analyzer: compute data layout of types

rust-analyzer: add "Remove redundant parentheses" assist

rust-analyzer: add fallback case in generated PartialEq impl

rust-analyzer: allow unwrap block in let initializers

rust-analyzer: breaking snippets on typed incomplete suggestions

rust-analyzer: don't show duplicated adjustment hints for blocks, ifs and matches

rust-analyzer: fix parsing of _ = x in closure body

rust-analyzer: make make_body respect comments in extract_function

rust-analyzer: normalize projection after discarding free BoundVars in RPIT

rust-analyzer: only shift BoundVars that come from outside lowering context

rust-analyzer: show type info on hover of enum variant fields

Rust Compiler Performance Triage

Fairly quiet week with the only excitement coming from a nice improvement implemented by @nnethercote which fixed a pesky performance regressions in the linting system. This produced a 0.6% performance improvement across a large amount of the real world crates we test against.

Triage done by @rylev. Revision range: 9db224fc..109cccbe

Summary:

(instructions:u) mean range count Regressions ❌ (primary) 0.2% [0.2%, 0.2%] 3 Regressions ❌ (secondary) 1.7% [0.3%, 3.3%] 11 Improvements ✅ (primary) -0.8% [-2.2%, -0.2%] 129 Improvements ✅ (secondary) -1.2% [-4.4%, -0.1%] 97 All ❌✅ (primary) -0.7% [-2.2%, 0.2%] 132

2 Regressions, 2 Improvements, 4 Mixed; 3 of them in rollups 41 artifact comparisons made in total

See the full report for details.

Approved RFCs

Changes to Rust follow the Rust RFC (request for comments) process. These are the RFCs that were approved for implementation this week:

Support upcasting of dyn Trait values

Final Comment Period

Every week, the team announces the 'final comment period' for RFCs and key PRs which are reaching a decision. Express your opinions now.

RFCs

[disposition: merge] Add core::mem::offset_of! RFC

[disposition: close] Cargo allow running binaries from development or build dependencies

Tracking Issues & PRs

[disposition: merge] Stabilize #![feature(target_feature_11)]

[disposition: merge] Stabilize default_alloc_error_handler

[disposition: merge] Stop promoting all the things

[disposition: merge] Arc::ptr_eq does not always return "true if the two Arcs point to the same allocation" as documented

[disposition: merge] Don't normalize in AstConv

[disposition: merge] Encode spans relative to the enclosing item -- enable by default

[disposition: merge] impl DispatchFromDyn for Cell and UnsafeCell

[disposition: merge] Tracking issue for the "efiapi" calling convention

New and Updated RFCs

[new] RFC: Start working on a Rust specification

Call for Testing

An important step for RFC implementation is for people to experiment with the implementation and give feedback, especially before stabilization. The following RFCs would benefit from user testing before moving forward:

No RFCs issued a call for testing this week.

If you are a feature implementer and would like your RFC to appear on the above list, add the new call-for-testing label to your RFC along with a comment providing testing instructions and/or guidance on which aspect(s) of the feature need testing.

Upcoming Events

Rusty Events between 2022-12-14 - 2023-01-11 🦀

Virtual

2022-12-14 | Virtual (Boulder, CO, US) | Boulder Elixir and Rust

Monthly Meetup

2022-12-24 | Virtual (Linz, AT) | Rust Linz

Rust Meetup Linz - 28th Edition

2022-12-14 | Virtual (México City, MX) | Rust MX

Rust y Arduino

2022-12-15 | Virtual (Stuttgart, DE) | Rust Community Stuttgart

Rust-Meetup

2022-12-20 | Virtual (Berlin, DE) | Berlin.rs

Rust Hack and Learn

2022-12-20 | Virtual (Washington, DC, US) | Rust DC

Mid-month Rustful

2022-12-21 | Virtual (Vancouver, BC, CA) | Vancouver Rust

Show & Tell: Tableturf

2022-12-27 | Virtual (Dallas, TX, US) | Dallas Rust

Last Tuesday

2023-01-03 | Virtual (Beijing, CN) | WebAssembly and Rust Meetup (Rustlang)

Monthly WasmEdge Community Meeting, a CNCF sandbox WebAssembly runtime

2023-01-03 | Virtual (Berlin, DE) | OpenTechSchool Berlin

Rust Hack and Learn

2023-01-03 | Virtual (Buffalo, NY, US) | Buffalo Rust Meetup

Buffalo Rust User Group, First Tuesdays

2023-01-04 | Virtual (Indianapolis, IN, US) | Indy Rust

Indy.rs - with Social Distancing

2023-01-04 | Virtual (Stuttgart, DE) | Rust Community Stuttgart

Rust-Meetup

2023-01-05 | Virtual (Charlottesville, VA, US) | Charlottesville Rust Meetup

Part 2: Exploring USB with Rust

Asia

2022-12-29 | Tel Aviv, IL | Rust TLV

December Edition - xtask, macros and low level features

Europe

2022-12-14 | Trondheim, NO | Rust Trondheim

Rust Advent of Code hackathon

2022-12-15 | Stuttgart, DE | Rust Community Stuttgart

OnSite Meeting

North America

2022-12-14 | Austin, TX, US | Rust ATX

Rust Lunch

2022-12-20 | San Francisco, CA, US | San Francisco Rust Study Group

Rust Hacking in Person

2022-12-27 | Austin, TX, US | ATX Rustaceans

Atx Rustaceans Meetup

2023-01-05 | Lehi, UT, US | Utah Rust

Interesting Title and Food!

If you are running a Rust event please add it to the calendar to get it mentioned here. Please remember to add a link to the event too. Email the Rust Community Team for access.

Jobs

Please see the latest Who's Hiring thread on r/rust

Quote of the Week

... you can lead a horse to git but you cannot make it commit.

– /u/kibwen on /r/rust

Thanks to Anton Fetisov for the suggestion!

Please submit quotes and vote for next week!

This Week in Rust is edited by: nellshamrell, llogiq, cdmistman, ericseppanen, extrawurst, andrewpollack, U007D, kolharsam, joelmarcey, mariannegoldin, bennyvasquez.

Email list hosting is sponsored by The Rust Foundation

Discuss on r/rust

#rust-lang #rust #rustlang #twir #long post

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thestalkerbunny · 6 years ago

Text

"I think what I miss most of all.....is..Sugar" Marnie had said finally after what felt like hours of contemplation of the question.

The rest of the group nodded solemly. For the past 5 weeks-or what their wrist pads assumed was 5 weeks-they had been surviving solely on M.R.E Packets. The food was bland, tasteless-but assured to give them the recommended nutrients to survive. And sadly, there had been more and more of the M.R.E.s to go around. What started as a group of 20 strong had been cut down to 5. The trechrous terrain, the frequent intense quakes that took place practically on clockwork-some times just spontanious. The lack of shelter, the heat in the mornings, the freezing cold at night, it had picked them off one by one.

"I think you need to be more specific." Adra mused, placing her chin on a hand. "Like, there's so many kinds of sugars. Chocolates, fruit candies, carmels, licorices-"

"Nobody likes Licorices, Adra." Tia snapped, still in a foul mood. She had slipped early that morning and twisted her leg. She still sat there, letting her food go cold as she tried to use the scraps of medical supplies they had left to make sure her leg didn't get anyworse. Adra scowled at Tia in distain

"The cherry ones are good. The kind you pull apart in strands? The Black stuff can go off and die." Adra tried to defend herself. Tia muttered something and went back to her leg. Marnie stirred the greyish brown glop around for a minute in it's vacum sealed package.

"I just miss sugar in general. I remember Vannie-do you remember Vannie? She'd work in the cafeterias at the academy. And every now and then, when we got Sugar in, she'd give me a little bit extra. I dont know why. Maybe it was because I didn't complain or bitch about her cooking. "Marnie dared once again to put more of the M.R.E into her mouth, gagging as it slid down. "Anything honestly tastes better than these things."

"Didn't Vannie die before we left?" Adra asked quietly. Marnie bit her lip, regretting sharing her fondness. It had become a habit of Adra to recall bitter awful events. There had been contaimination out breaks more and more frequently before the mission had been launched. Those who had ventured outside became contaminated with a white pollen that smelt so sweet like the Sugar they all longed for. And it dragged whoever touched down a dark cold path into death. "They found her in the kitchen. She cut off her hands."

"Y...yeah." Tia muttered. "Vannie....Vannie was one of the good ones. She didn't deserve to die like that."

The silence took the group again, the 5 of them quietly watching the fire crackle and flick agaisnt the obsidion landscape. No dirt to press hands into, no grass, not even a soft breeze to blow against the carapace of their suits. Even the sky was empty and starless. It was like being in a giant black hole. Mix's head laid on Adra's lap, quietly and fitfully sleeping. It had been a long hard day for them all, more so on Mix. Mix's own sister, slipped and fell off the cliff side-hours before they set up camp for the night. The minute they set the fire up, she laid down and went to sleep-hoping to escape the sorrow she was feeling in the waking hours that was her new reality.

"Nobody deserves to die like that." Yi finally stated. The 4 looked at the commander, the leader of this mission. She had a face that took great effort to look at-let alone love. She was covered in scars from foolish errors and mistakes that were not repeated to scars of bravery. One eye didn't work, the eyelid sealed up with stitching, claw marks decorating it. "And that's what this mission is for. To make sure none of us have to venture out while that contaimination is still surrounding our colony." The group nodded in affermation.

The Mission. With the contamination surrounding their colony of only a few generations old-everything was at risk. The inhabitants were starving, babies where weeping and crying to be fed, tensions were rising among the ranks from soilders to commanders. Everyone was turning against each other out of pure starvation. It was the portal that was their saving grace. It appeared in short sparatic periods during the day, appearing for long swaths of time at night. On the rarest occasion it spat out nutrients that kept everyone calm. Not big chunks, but small tidbits, like a stingy ungrateful god. It was something to keep them satisfied, but it was never enough.

Tia, Adra, Marnie, and Mix had been hand picked into the group of 20 to go on this mission by Yi herself. Tia, a member of the enhanced solidjer training program, Adra who had been one of the surviving scientists that came, Mix the scout, Yi their commander and Marnie the Linguistics and historical artifaces expert. All that was left after 16 deaths of friends and comrades since they entered this damned portal in the hopes of finding the source.

"Look. It's a long day tomarrow. We make the home stretch." Yi rolled out the map that their cartographer, Stevie, prior to her being taken by the heat, had made. Yi had taken up the mantel and was filling it in as they went. "Stevie and Yonie said that according to the mineral trail and the carbon they found on the nutrients that came thru the portal it's less than a few more hours away. We make it to the source, we take what we can and we get out. We've lost too many good women on this venture. I dont want anyone else lost." Yi's one good eye cast over her few remaining crew members. "I want everyone of you to be careful. And I'm not saying this to be a nag. " Tia rolled her eyes as Adra nodded solemly. "Marnie are you listening to me?" Marnie had been sitting there silently as Yi spoke, tearing a part the reminants of her M.R.E. Package into small shreds.

"hmn." She looked up. Yi's one good eye stared intently at her. "I'll be careful, Yi. I was listening." Yi turned away from the artifacer.

"Good. I want you all to get some good sleep tonight. We need all the strength we can muster to make it tomarrow." Yi watched quietly as her girls laid down one by one. Tia made her place a bit farther off from the others-her training demanding isolation to assure her strength. Adra gently laid down Mix on the group, Mix fitfully turning over. Adra sighed and submitted and curled up against Mix, acting as a teddy bear in place of a twin sister who dutifully was always by Mix's side. Marnie shuffled and prepared to settle in for the night.

Marnie had only been asleep for maybe less than an hour before she felt something shake her awake.

"Hmnn? wazut-"A hand shoved against Marnie's mouth. Yi placed a finger, shushing her to silence. "Yi??" Marnie wheezed quietly. "Yi what's wrong?"

"Nothiing, I just wanna show you something" Yi whispered. She pulled Marnie up off the ground. "This way, Marnie." Marnie stumbled as her commander tugged her hand along. Yi led Marnie down thru the blackness for the longest time. Marnie was still blinking, trying figure out if this was just another stress induced dream brougth on by the mission and the M.R.E's mixing in her stomach poorly. Yi finallly stopped pullnig her along, stopping before a slate against the black void wall. Marnie took a tenative step forward, her hands covering her half agape mouth.

"My god, Yi-it's.....it's so beautiful." Marnie whimpered. "I....I think im going to cry." She rushed to the slab running her hands over the sleek surface and the indented ruins, the massive holes along the horizontal side. "Look at this thing, it's HUGE! How long do you think it too them to carve this? And look at these massive holes-the edges are so clean and sharp it's like they were PUNCTURED! And the paint-oh god the paints!" She flinched as she ran her fingers along the marks and runes that ached to be dechipered and decoded. "Yi, this is the best thing I've seen this entire TRIP! I gotta take pictures I can spend the whole trip decoding it, this is thing could tell us what the beings of this world had been like-are like?! I DON'T even KNOW! I thought this entire plane of reality was empty and abandoned, but this is proof that some sort of life has been here and left it's mark! I-" Marnie stopped her excited chatter as she felt Yi take her hands again. Marnie looked up at her commander. So rarely did Yi smile, back home and on this mission. But she smiled at Marnie.

"I'm glad your happy." Yi said quietly, running her thumbs over the palms of Marnie's unscarred hands. "It's....so nice to see you smile again."

"Ptthph-what are you talking about, Yi, I smile."

"Not since we left. You were so excited to come on this trip and you seemed to dissapointed the closer and closer we got to our destination. You never found anything along the way." Yi let go Marnie's hand and placed her palm against Marnie's cheek. Marnie pressed the hand against her cheek wit her hand, feeling the scarred skin of her commander. She closed her eyes briefly, in bliss. "So every chance I got, I went out looking for something, anything really-any sign that there was life at one point. And I found this thing. An-and I dont know what it is or what it means, but you probably would." Marnie looked up at Yi who immediately turned a bright red color.

"Yi, this means the literal world to me. You can be.....really sweet. When you're not stressing over the well being of others to the point of exhaustion." Marnie leaned up on her toe tips and lightly pressed her lips against Yi's tattered scarred ones. "And you know what." Marnie whispered after breaking the chaste kiss. "You mean the world to me too. So I want you to be careful tomarrow, too. You said you dont wanna lose the rest of us....well.....I dont wanna lose you. I'd rather come home with nothing and you alive than to come home with everything but lose you."

Yi made a sharp tittery noise a cross between an akward giggle and her weak attempt at clearing her throat. "oh uh-well then. If-if you say so." Marnie pulled away and pulled up her camera off her wrist pad and began to immediately clicking picutres of the slab as her commander waited for her to finish, still giggling and tittering quietly to herself.

The minute day broke, they left the encampment. It didn't take long for their remaining memebers of the mission to catch on how insufferably hot it got during the day. Sometimes the pitch black scaled ground burned to the touch. They were making double time, the few perks of suddenly going from a group of 20 to a simple set of 5 in only the span of a few days. Yi and Tia led up in front as Mix and Adra tailed in the middle. Marnie kept lingereing back behind, still trying to study the pictures on her wrist pad, running to catch up and make sure she wasn't left behind.

"Come on, Marnie, KEEP UP! Or we're leaving you on this black shit stain of a plane of reality." Tia snapped angrily. Marnie snapped to attention again, scowling at Tia's scolding. The super soilder program had it's perks, but Tia just seemed angry all the time.

The blackened plains gave way to a vast silver smooth surface eventually that shone and blinded them in the sunlight. In the far distance, there seemed to be giant pillars that reached twords the heavens and a swirling black storm that surrounded them, crackling with electricty and life.

"It's like it's made of solid mercury." Mix whispered softly, sheilding her eyes from the reflection. Adra tapped away at the Wrist Pad.

"The Chemical count in the air says it's at least 70% plastics. It seems solid and safe to walk on."

"Is it though?" Tia growled, tapping the edge of the silver with her boot tip. "70% isn't a lot. Look, follow in direct line after me, step where I step. MARNIE, PAY THE ATTENTION"

Marnie jerked back up out of her daze. She had been staring at the storm high above in the distance, looming and encircling their destination. Something about the way the clouds moved mesmeriszed her so much that she was almost stuck in a trance.

"YEa-YEAh." She studdered. "Follow you, step where you step." Tia's glare lingered for a long while before turning to the horizon ahead. Tia immediately slipped and stumbled after the first 3 steps, her boots unused to the slick smooth texture of the silver ground below making her look like a new born baby deer learning how to walk. Mix laughed, the noise startling the party at first. It had been weeks since they heard anyone make a remotely positive happy sound since this started. Tia snarled and found her footing.

"Alright, alright, laugh it up. Come on we're burning daylight."

The procession began their cautious treck twords the pillars, only slipping once in a while against the ground. It felt like ages, time passing so slowly. The air grew cold and stale after awhile, the heat giving away to a coldness that the group had never truely felt before.

It was then when Adra's body began to shut down.

It started with a slip here and there, Marnie running back to help her up. And then it turned to a stumble. Then into Adra barely making a few feet ahead at a time. The Mission had been running her ragged, every waking hour she had spent trying to analyze the plane, she was running on fumes and what remained of her hopes and dreams. She eventually submitted to riding on Tia's back. It was when they were only a few hundred feet away that Tia suddenly stopped in her tracks, frozen in place for several minutes.

"Captain Tia, what's wrong?" Yi demanded. "Why have you stopped?" Marnie watched as Tia slowly swallowed and took a very slow breath.

".......Dr. Adra........Has......left us."Tia whispered slowly.

"What?" Mix quivered softly. Tia shrugged Adra off her shoulders and laid her on the ground. She looked like she was asleep, something she truely deserved. There were still dark rings around her eyes and her face was so hollow. Tia got down on her knees and placed an ear against Adra's chest.

"She's gone." Tia murmered quietly. "I felt her stop breathing. No....no gasping. No sudden movement. She just slipped away while she was sleeping." Mix crumbled to her knees and began to obsessively shake Adra's unmoving form.

"No- NO. ADRA. ADRA WAKE UP! PLEASE ADRA. ADRA-ADRA-" She began to hysterically scream. Yi and Marnie watched as Tia pulled back her hand and struck Mix clean across the face.

"GET AHOLD OF YOURSELF, SCOUT." She practically had to scream over Adra's wails of pain and misery. Tia grabbed Mix by the shoulders and began to violently shake her "She's GONE. SHE'S DEAD. SHE ISN'T COMING BACK."

"Captain." Yi snapped. Tia pulled back immediately away from Mix who immediately threw herself back over Adra's now cooling body, sobbing into her friend's shoulders. Yi turned her attention to Mix. "Private Mix, we have to keep going. We will have time to mourn for Dr. Adra later. Right now, we are so close to completeing our Mission."

Mix made a few more heaving noises before finally pulling her face up-eyes ringed red and snot dribbling from her nose as fat tears covered her face. She looked like a child. Sometimes Marnie forgot that Mix had been one of the youngest of them.

"It's....what Adra would have wanted." Marnie said gently, getting down on Mix's level. "Complete the mission. Make sure she didn't die in vain. That.....none of them died in vain. Comon." She wrapped her arms around Mix and pulled her up. "Let's keep going." Mix choked and sniffled as Marnie led her on twords the Pillars. Yi and Tia hung back for a moment.

"Commander, what should we do? Shall we burn the bodies like the others?" Tia inquired flatly. Yi had knelt down by Adra's cold body and was pulling things out of her pack. Notes, pictures, flash drives to her Wrist Pad. Commander Yi stopped as she pulled a locket off Adra's neck. It had the royal crest on it in beautiful white engraving ink. She felt a lump fill her throat at the single sight that brought her such comfort and memories of home.

"Yes. Burn her." Yi finally managed to say. "Catch up with when we're done. We're heading on ahead." Tia pulled out her lighter as Yi turned on her heels and jogged ahead to catch up with Marnie and Adra. Tia bit her lip. This would make around the 12th person she had to burn on this damned mission.

The smell still was so sour no matter how many times she smelled it.

The towers were sleek and white with bright marking along the entire circumfrance. Numerous towers stuck out of the base, tall and proud. Almost organic looking. Had she not have her arms wrapped around Mix, still comforting the now deadly silent Scout, Marnie would have gotten just as excited as she had the night before when Yi showed her the slab. Yi and Marnie stared mesmerized by the tower and the organic pillars.

"What are they?" Marnie whispered softly. Yi consulted Adra's wrist pad and her eyes grew wide and white.

"Food." She said, jogging a bit ahead. "They're FOOD." She practically screamed.

"Wait-COMMANDER, oh shit, comon Mix" Marnie unwrapped from around Mix and grabbed her hand, pulling her along as she ran after Commander Yi. Yi had reached the tower and practically flung her arms against the base and hugged it's sleek surface.

"It's NUTRIENTS. It's what we've been hunting for." She practically shrieked, giddy. Marnie looked confusedly at the slender organic trees, vaugely yellow with large malformed crystals growing out of them.

"It's food?" she echoed dumbly. Yi excitedly pointed at Adra's wrist pad, numbers and figures that didn't make sense to Marnie.

"It matches the coding sequence perfectly to the crumbs that came thru the portals. This is the SOURCE of all the food we've been recieving." Yi giggled practically giddy with thrill and excitement. "If we can just get some seeds to take back or even some fragments of the trees, we can regrow them back at the colony."

"Then that's what we'll do." Tia said, finally making her apperance, smelling of campfire, her face still grim. "Everyone load up on seeds and fragments." She pulled the grappling gun out of her pack and shot it up twords the tall edge of the slick pillars. It made a satisfying 'Kch-CHNK!' noise as it looped around something far in the sky. Tina gave expermintal tug. "We're gonna have to climb up."

"Mix are you okay to climb?" Marnie asked quietly. The Scout turned away for a minute before slowly nodding. "Okay. Good. It's almost over."

The Climb took what felt like hours, the sky above changing to a soft pale orange as they got higher and higher. Marnie felt like something was coiling around her throat and worming it's way into her lung the air was so thing. By the time she managed to pull herself up to the edge where Yi and Tia were already waiting, she was completely out of breath.

"God......Dammit......." She gasped. "I'll......never..........get used to.....climbing like this....." Marnie struggled as she pulled herself up to her knees. "What's......wrong?"

"It's Mix." Captain Tia said flaty. Marnie looked around and saw Mix standing at the edge of the pillar, gazing out at the empty blackness that they had traveresed. The wind whipped around her for a minute and she looked up at the sky. She made a soft gasping noise as she gazed up into the heavens.

"Oh god........Oh God.........Oh God.........."She whispered over and over again. Marnie watched as tears welled up her already swollen red eyes, trickling down her cheeks. "There's no way back."

"Mix, come over here away from the edge." Commander Yi ordered. Mix didn't move. She stood frozen, staring at the sky. "Mix?" The scout raised a foot forward. "TIA!" Yi screamed as Mix took a step forward into the abyss. Tia had already darted before Yi had even gave the order and flung herself across the ground, scraping her stomach as her hands wrapped around Mix's dangling over the edge. Marnie screamed and ran and half stumbled over to help Tia pull Mix up

"DAMMIT MIX, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!?!?" Tia snarled trying to heft Mix back up. Mix's body was limp and quiet and when Marnie had reached the edge and held out her own hand for Mix to grab, the Scout had finally looked up. Marnie stared at those red ringed eyes that had cried so much. Truely mourning for every loss this mission gave to them. The loss of all her friends, of her own twin sister, of Adra.

"Don't look at the sky." She whispered. Mix then grabbed something from her boot and Tia began to scream as a hunting knife was embedded into her wrist.

She let go.

And just like that, Mix was gone.

Marnie felt the tears burst out of her eyes as she had watched Mix's saddened face dissapear into the blackness and minutes later, the tell tale thump of her comrade's death. She couldn't make a sound, not even a squeaky sob no matter how much she wanted to. She felt like she had just run out of sadness, run dry of tears.

Tia was still howling as she ripped the knife out of her wrist and immediately began to try and lick it clean like she was an animal. Yi stood there, frozen by what just happened. In a single day, she had lost 2 more subordinates, one to the sheer exhaustion and the other one who simply tossed herself over the edge. She felt that knot well up in her throat again as she watched Marnie pull herself off the ground and turned to Yi.

"What did she mean, 'Dont look at the sky' ?" Marnie whimpered. Yi shook her head slowly and for the longest of times, the two stared at each other, afraid to go first.

"One." Yi started.

"Two" Marnie whispered

"Three." They both said and turned their eyes up to the skies above.

It was then when Yi threw up everything she had in her stomach. The rations burned as they came up in a greyish bile and the commander ungracefully gagged it all up a the feet of her subordinate. Marnie didn't even seem to notice. She stared up the way Mix did, transfixed and hypnotized.

"Those......Those are........."She finally wheezed. The tightness in her lungs constricted even more and she almost felt faint. Tia who had finally stopped screaming and licking her wrist also had looked up.

"Teeth." She murmered quietly.

Numerous flat plates hovered into the muted orange sky that began to turn black and clouded again. The Darker the skies grew, the sharper and brighter those teeth grew in neat rows that spread into the most mencing of cresents. The mouth seemed to stretch for miles, high above. It eventually pulled a part and wheezed and suddenly a blast of hot air nearly knocked Marnie off her feet. It smelt putrid, it smelt like death and it smelt like the bodies that Tia had burned 13 times in the past 5 weeks. The way the black clouds moved and squirmed reminded Marnie of worms in a garbage bag, pushing and pulling-trying to release themselves from their imprisonment to no avail. It was nausating to watch, but like a train accident, she couldn't find it in her soul to tear her eyes away.

Marnie watched as one, two-no FOUR-eyes blinked slowly into existance. Pupils rolled around the whites of the eyes trying to focus in on something before finally zeroing in on the organic pillars. There was a loud noise that almost sounded like whistling as numerous tentacles-about five of them shot from the skies. The tendrils wrapped around the pillars and the ground shook violently as the organic pillars were ripped up. The tendrils retreated into the massive maw, already salivating and dripping massive droplets that splashed into the ground, turning it almost grey and weak. Tia struggled to her feet as she also watched this giant beast, this abomination dine upon the nutrients they had sought for so long like it was nothing. The pupils began to roll about against in all directions, trying to take in everything all at once.

Then it zeroed in on them.

"Run." Tit hoarsely coughed.

"uhuhh." Marnie moaned, still entranced. Yi spat into the ground and struggled back up to her feet, legs shaking.

"GODDAMIT, RUN-RUN FOR YOUR FUCKING LIFE, MARNIE!" Tia screamed at the top of her lungs as the tendrils shot down again, striking meters away from where they stood. The ground shook so violently as the tentacles hit the tower's surface. Everything began to crumble at once at the impact, the tentacles squirming around, seeking out anything it could to destroy. Yi grabbed Marnie by the hand and began to run. Marnie barely snapped out of her trance as Yi pulled her along before she could find the brain connects to make her legs move. She looked back in absolute horror as the tentacles reached Tia and Tia, god oh Tia.

Tia had whipped out the hunting knife that Mix stabbed her with and lept upon the tentacles. She shived the squirming creature repeatedly only for it to throw her immediately. Tia had barely bounced back from the impact when a single tentacle reared up and slowly pressed down on Tia's body and all that followed was a whimper and sickening popping noise.

Marnie could feel the rations crawling up her own throat, now ready to throw up. Yi was frantically pulling Marnie along, trying out run the shaking of the ground and the tentacles that suddenly caught on to the fact that there were 2 missing. The slithering tentacles moved after them in an alarming pace, it's vibrating pulsating flesh catching them in minutes. Marnie and Yi began to hysterically scream as the tentacles wrapped around them and pulled them up in the heavens, the air practically crushing them against the pulsating flesh.

"Yi-oh god YI!" Marnie screamed, looking over at her Commander. The impact as the tentacles had grabbed them left Yi in a limp rag doll like safe, ragged breath pulsating in and out of her body. The Tentacles finally stopped moving and the air pressure released her from her imprisonment. Marnie laid on her back and stared in the 4 eyed abyss that stared back with judgemental slit like eyes, as if it was struggling to see the insignifagant speck that was Marnie and Yi's body. At the far distance, the abomination simply looked like something trapped in a garbage of sorts trying to get free. Up this close to it now, her tune had changed. It wasn't trapped. It was the opposite.

And Marnie couldn't stop screaming.

Commander Yi stirred awake 8 days later. The sound of hospital noises filled her ears, nurses heels clacking about as they scurried, the intercom system asking for a Dr. Nadia to come to the ER, the sounds of saline drips, resperaitors and the common wheezing and drone of a hospital. It was all so familiar to her, she had been in hospitals numerous times before.

She just never expected to be in one again after the Mission.

"Marnie." She croaked. Her throat felt try and tattered, every fragment of her body burned when she tried to twitch her muscles.

"Oh god, you're awake." Whispered the nurse that had been checking on the saline that had been hooked up into Yi's body. Yi's one good arm shot out and grabbed the Nurse violently by the wrist. She squeaked out in surprise.

"WHERE'S MARNIE." She tried to scream, but only came out again in a hoarse broken whisper. "Is Marnie okay? Did she make it-"

"Commander, please. Dont move so quickly." A familiar voice chided. Yi turned her head. Dedria sat in a plastic grey chair in the small hospital room. Dedria had been head of the department that worked to open the portals and study them. It was with their smooth talking that they even got the money for the mission. Dedria nodded slightly at the Nurse who quickly finished hanging up the saline and scurried out, shutting the door behind her.

"What happened?" Yi croaked again.

"Well. We manged to get a pin point on your location. I mean, after we lost it week 4. It took a bit of work, but we finally managed to get a bead on you and force open a portal underneath you. You could imagine our shock when you fell in. We could have sworn you were dead Yi." Dedria stood up and walked over to the wall which had instructions for the nurses to follow. "A broken arm, shattered ankle, rib cage completely caved in, a concussion so severe that it could put the best of our military to shame. Your internal bleeding was so rampent that you were basically just a sack of broken bones and blood. We manged to pull a 3 nighter and put you back together, Humpty Dumpty." Dedria chuckled softly. Yi's one good eye blinked slowly.

"How long have I been-"

"8 days. Solid week. Doctors said you were already showing signs of extreme fatigue that they essentially had to put your body into a drug induced coma so it'd get the proper repair time that it needed." Dedria slowly rubbed the back of her neck. "I didn't think you'd wake up so early. I thought you'd be out for another month."

"Where's Marnie?"

"Hmn?" Dedria blinked confusedly for a few minutes.

"Dr. Marina of the Artifacers and Linguistics Department." Yi said slowly and deliberately. "Where is she?" Dedria sighed slowly.

"Yi, you were in pretty bad shape when you fell in. You were borderline dead. We dont know what happened while you were in the Black Plane....but.......Marina......" Dedria pinched the bridge of her nose as if this was extremely difficult to think about, let alone explain. "Marina is broken."

"Broken." Yi flatly ecohed.

"She was awake and concious when you two fell in. And she's been awake for 8 days straight. She's stopped sleeping, Yi." Dedria looked away from Yi to avoid the Commander's single intense gaze. "I dont think she could if she wanted to. She's been admitted to the hospital's psychological ward."

"I want to see her."

"Yi, you still need time to heal up, your ribs are still basically mush-"

"DEDRIA." Yi snapped. "Please. Please Dedria."Yi began to sob quietly. "I need to see her." Dedria bit her lip, her brow furrowing. She hating seeing people cry, especially people like Yi.

"Alright........I'll.....I'll see what strings I could pull."

"Thank you, Didi." Yi whispered.

"Dont call me that. Yi-Yi." Dedria snorted as she left the room.

Dedria made good on her word. It took 3 days of smooth talking, bribery and Yi behaving for once in her long track record of numerous hospital visits, but she was finally confirmed wheelchair ready. Yi winced as Dedria and a nurse helped her into the chair. Everything still felt sore and they were already trying to ween her off the painkillers that had been helping make this entire ordeal bareable. Yi was on a cocktail of drugs, sleeping pills, tranquilizers, painkillers, antibiotics. Yi had begged Dedria to get a drink repeatedly during her visits, only to have her superior wave her away and say 'Maybe when your pee can get thru a drug test clean, Yi.'

Needless to say, Yi was starting to develop a worse temperment than usual when confined to one place. But for Marnie she behaved. That was the only thing that kept her from going absolutely apeshit on the nurses, doctors, on Dedria. And it was the promise to visit Marnie.

Dedria wheeled Yi down the long white corridor, patients waiting out in halls being tended to by doctors-some obvious victims of the white poison that still was spread around the colony.

"Things have tapered off a bit."Dedria explained as they turned. "They've been working on some strong counter agents against what they're calling 'White Death'. People that have been exposed to it have at least a 70% chance of survival now."

"That's good." Yi muttered, trying keep calm. Dedria wheeled her into the elevator and pressed the button for the psychological ward.

"Yi.....we need to talk about Marina-I mean....Marnie."

"What's there to say?"

"She......she's worse than I intially let on. You think you're on a lot of stuff right now? Dr. Marina-Marnie, I mean, she's on everything this hospital's got. Painkillers, anti-psychotics, anxiety medication, stomach pills, she can barely keep food down and she can't sleep without borderline overdoses of sleep medication."

"She's been thru a lot." Yi mumbled. "That.....place.....that Black Plane. It was Hell, Dedria. I'm pretty sure you sent us to Hell."

"Look. I'm just saying." Dedria chuffed a sigh as the door slid open and Yi was wheeled down to Marine's room. "Just....get ready for the person you're about to meet."

The room was dark. The windows drawn and the only noise was the sound of saline drip and the snow of the tv. static. Yi could barely see the outline of Marine sitting up hunched over in the bed. She slowly rocked back and forth.

"Marnie?" Yi whispered softly. The figure jerked around and stared at Yi with wide awake eyes, ringed red and sleepless. Marnie gave a ragged inhale and exhale.

"It was on the outside." She croaked. Yi tilted her head, confusedly. "It's insides. Where on the outside. It had no skin. It was like a living mass of meat tissue. There was no carapace, no exoskeleton, everything just exposed to the elements and it was that size. It was that size. And we were eating it's scraps. It's Insides were on the Outside."

"Marnie-" Yi wheeled a bit forward as Dr. Marina of the Artifacer and Linguistics department began to cry, burying her face into her hands and screamed again and again thru the tears.

"ITS INSIDES WERE ON THE OUTSIDE, ITS INSIDES WERE ON THE OUTSIDE. ITS INSIDES WERE ON THE OUTSIDE."

"So yeah, we had ants in the car." Reeda said taking a sip of her sprite. Her mother raised a slight eyebrow as her daughter regaled her with the tale of her school day.

"It's all that junk you and your brother leave in the car. I keep telling you if two vacumed it once in a while"

"It's fine." She waved off her mother's scolding. I mean, I think like some of them got near my french fries. I smooshed like one and I let the other two get away. I threw 'em outside"

"You should have just killed them both."Her mother sighed, pulling the ant poison out from under the skin. The Ant problem was just getting worse around the part of the yard where they parked the cars.

"Yeah. But I like to leave at least two alive." Reeda took another sip of her sprite. " 'Go tell your people what you saw here' Kinda thing you know?"

"They're ants, sweetie. It's not like they're that complex"

"Eh. I guess you're right." She shrugged. "I just want them to think twice about trying to steal my french fries like that."

#TSB talks #short story #science ficiton #horror #story #writing #creative writing #Marnie #Adra #Mix #Tia #Yi #I wrote this for my class I hope you like it

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