Silver Pen Winner: LEFT BEHIND by Kat Brauer

Mighty Pens co-founder, humorous sprinter, and human encouragement machine Kat Brauer has reached the Silver Pen level! 🙌🎉🍾

If you’ve somehow missed following her, you should go catch her on Twitter. Of course you can also catch more good spirits joining her sprints on Discord!

LEFT BEHIND

In 2052, as global warming ravages billions on Earth, governments and scientists send 5,000 souls in a Hail Mary to the nearest goldilocks planet. Two years later, the ship’s communications with Earth go dark, and five strangers uncover the dark secrets threatening humanity and their real, last, Hope.

“Sorry,” they said. Lips were wide and curved in a half smile. “I’m Juliette. She-her. Who’re you? Where you from? Paid-in, scientist’s kid, or lotto?”

Warren blinked. As he processed that, a couple people weaved around him and Juliette. Traffic was starting to pick up, even though they were near the base of the ship. The loading bay would be busy today with the drone flights. A lot could go wrong trying to land breakable, almost irreplaceable equipment on a ball of space-dust hurtling 60,000 miles-per-hour through the asteroid belt. That meant a lot more people around to double- and triple-check work.

But also, Paid-in? He’d never heard Richies called that before. “Warren. Uh, he-him? And,” he wiped sweat from his upper lip. His towel was cold now, almost icy, from all his sweat. “Lotto.”

Her lips spread in a wide grin, revealing sparkling white teeth. A piercing glittered at the bottom-left of her lower lip. “Cool. Paid-in. I’ve never been on this particular side of the ship, hope the bump didn’t hurt you too bad.” Her voice was low, but with a playful lilt that Warren wasn’t sure how to react to. And the way she just tossed out statements like paid-in, as if it were normal for a Richie to be down here. “Wanna show me around?”

“I have to go to work?” ‘Have to’ left his lips like he was choking. And honestly, he kinda felt like he was. He rolled his shoulders back and tightened his grip on the handhold. Forced his voice to modulate. “And you just ran into me in a clearly marked hallway. Why would I ‘show you around’?”

That sounds like an amazing story! Keep the words coming!