Weekend Getaway
Jayme Antrim
Random forays into the unknown were all the rage. Download a list of planets, a list of activities, roll the dice and your weekend was set. Not that Perryn used actual dice. She left that sort of thing to the computer in her humble weekend cruiser, just large enough for her, her cat, her stergg and whatever equipment she could fit in the trunk.
What will it be this week? Time to find out!
She hit the Random Foray button.
Destination: Planet ???
Activity: Freediving
Undiscovered worlds were always a risk, but no more than climbing without a hover-belt or trying to keep Cat from stealing malted milk balls out of Stergg’s hover-tank. Cat never ate them, fortunately, she just fished them off of the surface, much to Stergg’s dismay. The shy, snail-like creature would tuck into its shell, enduring the bullying until Perryn came to the rescue.
“All right, no problem,” Perryn said to herself. “Off to the unknown.”
After changing into suitable diving attire, she carefully tucked Cat and Stergg into the back seat and dove behind the controls. Time was of the essence, but fortunately traffic cleared up once she got through the first of six slingshots. Each branching path carried her further away from more probable destinations.
Perryn endured an eye-roll from one of the slingshot operators, a guy who looked like he was tragically born without the ability to enjoy life.
“Business or pleasure?” he asked.
Perryn looked down at her swimsuit.
He glared and waved her through the final slingshot.
Light surrounded her in every sense of the word. She felt lightheaded, lighthearted, light filled her eyes, and then she was there, orbiting Planet ???
Would you like to name the world? the computer asked.
Perryn shrugged. What did it matter? The universe provided so many options; it was doubtful anyone else would ever land on this planet. She dismissed the prompt and set down on Planet ???’s equivalent of an island getaway: blue sand speared by dark rock formations that looked like trees dripping with oil. The shoreline slipped into an endless black sea.
Surface scan complete: zero life signs detected.
“Great,” she said. “What about underwater?”
Cat meowed.
There was no reply. That itself wasn’t cause for concern; she just had to wait for the rest of the scan to complete. Everything else checked out – air, gravity, all the qualities one looks for in a continued existence.
“Anything?” she repeated.
Microbarom interference detected. Approximate time for subsurface scan: 34 minutes.
Perryn groaned. Each slingshot ate a significant chunk of her weekend. While it seemed to her that only an hour had passed, back home the clock was ticking. It had taken six hops to get here. Which meant she had, at most, two hours on the island before the return trip would leave her with barely enough time to shower before work.
She glanced at the back seat. Cat was curled up in a hate ball, glaring at Stergg, whose eyestalks peeped cautiously out of its high-spired shell.
“What do you two think?”
Cat yawned, showing lazy fangs.
Stergg retreated further, two googly eyes floating in the dark cave of its protective casing.
“Yeah, good thoughts.” Perryn popped the cruiser’s bubble and stepped onto midnight-blue sand, which sparkled in the yellow light and ground dryly between her toes. That was a relief. She didn’t want to step in alien goo. The rock-tree-fountain-of-oil things looked dripping wet, but on closer inspection the frozen geysers didn’t glisten, they reflected light, sort of like onyx.
“Neat.”
The island was roughly the size of a one-bedroom apartment. Her cruiser was parked in the middle, nestled among rock trees, which left only a small clearing of shoreline on which to place her things. From the trunk she pulled out a collapsible table with just enough surface area for Stergg’s tank and a designated spot for Cat, who did not deign to set paw on alien soil. The last time she had, the ground had reeked of mustard. After tasting the dirt on her toe-beans, Cat silently vowed, never again.
Perryn looked across the smooth, dark sea. Not one ripple or sign of life. According to the readouts, the water was full of fulvic acid, which sounded worse than it was. You could drink it; not that she planned to. She was here to swim, not sip the ocean.
She returned to check on the timer.
Life scan will complete in approximately … 32 minutes.
Perryn drummed her fingers on the dashboard.
“All right, babies, no fighting till Mom gets home. Stergg, you’re in charge.”
The beagle-sized snail-creature looked unnerved. But, to be fair, that was its default state since the day they’d met. The computer had sent Perryn off to a satellite pet shop orbiting a green planet. She strolled past parrots who could sing away insomnia, moths that existed between moments, appearing every other blink, and trendy fuzzballs famous for their habit-forming purrs. A half-lit aisle caught her eye, cages and tanks of animals that did not do well in a crowd. When she saw that scared little weirdo, it was love at first sight. It took months before she could lure Stergg out of its shell, thanks mostly to a happy accident involving a jar of chocolates knocked into its tank.
Each day, she tried to help Stergg build a little confidence.
It was a work in progress.
Perryn gave a salute and walked to the shoreline. The dark blue sand slipped clean into still black water. She pulled the freediving mask over her face, then lifted a bare foot, hesitating before stepping into the unknown. It was hard not to imagine worst case scenarios: skin bubbling off, setting foot onto some poisonous coral hidden below the surface, all that fun stuff.
Aw, well. Here goes nothing.
The sea claimed her feet, sliding higher with each tentative step. The effect was like sinking into black glass. She had to resist the urge to lift her feet out of the water to prove they were still attached. Fear gripped her insides, but that was the whole point of a random foray. You never knew what you were getting yourself into.
Perryn soldiered forth, with no way of knowing—
Ah, there it was.
She fell through the ink-dark sea. Impossible to judge how far, so she counted seconds.
1 … 2 … 3 … 4 …
Perryn plunged through the black to a layer unseen; a murky abyss lit deep from below. Apparently, the silt only went down so far. It floated atop the sea like a layer of oil. Below that, a hidden world. She was overcome with a sense of vertigo. Holding her breath, she looked at the starless sky above her head, then down at vast, distant hills of faintly glowing sand.
Shapes darted, seal-like, some distance away – so, there was life. Fortunately, they hadn’t seemed to notice her. Best to not push her good luck much longer.
Her gaze settled on a mountain directly below. It had none of the luminescence that lined the seabed, creating a vast dead zone, a formless negative space.
Weird.
The growing tightness in her lungs told her it was time to go.
She cast a final look down. The mountain moved. Surely, it was some trick of light and shadow, a bit of water in her swim mask distorting the scene.
The mountain roared.
Nope. Nope nope nope.
Perryn kicked hard as she could, rising head-first into the thick layer of black. If it took five seconds to sink, how long would it take to swim?
How long would it take the mountain to reach her?
Blinded by the nothing, she could feel the deep rumble of something vast rushing towards her.
5 … 4 … 3 …
Perryn burst from the sea, two seconds ahead of schedule. On the island, all was as she’d left it. Cat sat on her designated table spot, bathing herself. Stergg backed against the corner of its tank, blowing nervous bubbles. The weekend cruiser idled inches above ground, safe behind its protective bubble.
She scrambled onto blue sand, palms digging into grit, scraping something hard; shells or rocks or bone, she didn’t care.
Cat looked up, alarmed, pink tongue frozen mid-blep.
Perryn got to her feet and ran to the table. All she had to do was grab her pets, get in the cruiser, hit the emergency retreat—
Something burst from the sea behind her. Cat arched her back, hissing. Stergg blew bubbles from its silly snail mouth, swimming backward circles of alarm around its tank.
Perryn felt something wet and cold wrap around her calf, halting her progress just before she reached the table. Her outstretched hands caught the edge, as if a folding table could be of much help. She was beyond rational thought.
Whatever this thing was, it was going to eat her.
“Nononono!” She kicked with her free leg, skidding off the cold tentacle that held her. Cat hissed. Stergg looked on, horrified, cartoon snail eyes wider than she’d ever seen.
The mountain reeled her in. She face-planted on blue grit, pulling the table down with her. Stergg’s hover-tank flipped and crashed onto its side, spilling water and soggy malted chocolates across the sand.
Her last view of the world above was of her pets. Cat rushing under the cruiser, Stergg’s shell skimming across the sand on some wild trajectory. As stupid as it was, in that moment, the thought of them slowly dying on this island was worse than the thought of being swallowed whole.
Perryn only got in half a breath before the ink closed over her. It was just a matter of time before the alien sea filled her lungs. The mountain reeled her in much faster than she’d originally sunk. She was through the dark in an instant.
She finally got a good look. The mountain’s tentacles were like waterlogged tree trunks. Its cavernous mouth yawned beneath a pale, unblinking eye that stared up at her hungrily. Perryn didn’t want to see anymore. She looked at the starless sky.
From below, another roar, strangely triumphant.
Well, as far as weekends go—
Something shot from above, almost too fast to see. Pierced the layer of night, propelled by a jetstream of bubbles. It arced gracefully, circled around and rocketed right towards her.
Perryn could have laughed.
Stergg?!
The snail shot backwards towards her legs, the pointed rear of its shell aiming true, and sliced clean through the tentacle that held her.
The mountain howled.
Perryn wasn’t going to stick around to see the monster’s next move. She swam as fast as her limbs could carry her, hoping that Stergg would follow her to the surface. Before she hit the black, she risked a final glance down and saw an image she would never forget: Stergg, hurtling towards the giant white eye like a spiral meteor. But before it hit, the mountain twisted, sending Stergg sailing towards an everwidening mouth.
Perryn burst through, coughing and charging for the cruiser. The protective bubble popped, allowing her to enter. “Cat!”
Cat didn’t have to be told twice. She dove inside, huddled in the back seat, fur spiked out in combat mode.
Subsurface scan completed ahead of schedule. Life signs detected.
The weekend cruiser’s emergency return button blinked red. It was big, clearly labeled and easily accessible. One press and the tether would snap them back through a half-dozen automated hops, carrying the two of them home.
Perryn’s heart hammered in her chest. Her skin dripped gray water onto the cruiser’s pale interior. She looked out towards the sea.
“Come on,” she whispered.
From behind her, Cat meowed, the voice of reason.
“Come on!”
Perryn tried to will a happy ending into existence. One in which, instead of being swallowed whole, Stergg’s pointed shell ripped through the back of that giant bastard’s throat. And then what? The mountain would deflate like a balloon? There was no way Stergg could have triumphed over that giant monster. She had to leave. Now. In a minute, the mountain would rise and it would come for her.
She waited, counting seconds.
5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 …
Nothing.
Perryn swore. Grabbed a fistful of malted milk balls. Stared down at her hand.
“All right,” she told Cat. “You hang tight. Mom’s gonna go get your brother.”
Jayme Antrim is an author and tabletop role-playing game designer from the misty coast of Northern California. He spends his days writing about Dracula and his nights worrying that Dracula might find out.
Find more of his work at jaymeantrim.com
© 2026 Jayme Antrim. All rights reserved.
Without in any way limiting the authors’ and publisher’s exclusive rights, any unauthorised use of any part of this story to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited.
This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, locations or general circumstances is entirely coincidental and/or used in a fictitious manner.
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