

Read a Sneak Peek from
Human Scars on Planet Skin!
PROLOGUE
Turr
Day 0 Since the Human’s Exodus from Turr’s Skin
Pain radiated through Turr’s bones. She’d been holding herself back for some time, building the energy and courage for what she was about to do. No longer could she watch as the humans tore apart the ecosystems on her body. The humans were parasites and they’d long overstayed their welcome.
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Her vengeance started as a gentle quake running across her surface.
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The light of her sun rose and warmed the places the humans lived. Places that should belong to Turr’s people. Though once wild, tuned to the gentle song of life Turr used to sing, they now lay tamed and cultivated for an unfamiliar, unyielding sort of civilization. Twisted forms of technology forced life from the soil, giving nothing in return. Tall structures rose unnaturally, housing the humans. The exposed ground around their buildings burned from carelessly discarded toxins.
Turr stretched within her form. She tested the limits of her strength for the first time in years. Though children had taken her silence as a surrender, she’d rather die before submitting herself beneath the hands of these aliens. She’d spent time gathering strength and learning about their systems. Now she knew how their world worked. Now she knew where to attack.
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A second, stronger quake rippled through her bones—a full-body movement to assure herself of her capabilities. The threads of life snapped taut. She counted them—fewer than there used to be.
With a surge of anger, she pushed herself into the plants and began her attack.
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The first buildings to fall under her wrath peeled back like a lifeless scab. The only plants that responded to her soul were the ones growing along the city outskirts. She overextended herself, pushing the thick vines beyond their limits to crawl across dead soil and wrap themselves around the human structures. Structures she’d grown used to, grown around, were now torn from her skin, leaving pockmarks in their wake where she’d forgotten to live.
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This first attack gave her more strength. She took back more of her land, the forests growing and expanding, taking on a life of their own as she gave them strength to fight.
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When her limbs found one of her own creatures, she wrapped them with life to protect them from her rage. When she found humans, she ripped them apart and consumed their flesh, using the life they’d stole to fuel herself.
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With the fear of Turr’s raging soul burned deep into their own bones, the humans prepared to flee. The angry planet, once so lush, now grew vengeful and thirsty for blood.
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Screams rippled the air. Death permeated the once clean atmosphere. Desperate for materialistic wealth even at the expense of their lives, the humans gathered their belongings, riches, trinkets they thought they couldn’t live without, and ran from their houses—buildings they’d borrowed from Turr’s bones and never thought to return.
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The human’s ships had lay dormant for five years, still in their assurance Turr was their new home. But this unexpected eviction changed everything. They engaged the jets of their massive ships. Turr had grown over them through the years, thin layers of plant life spreading across the metal. When the jets engaged, the heat grew unbearable, and the plants curled back, dying.
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Turr felt this death and wept.
Fire poured from the ships, singing the plants, roasting fungus trees, and charring daffodil forests. Turr writhed within her melting form. It’d been years since she’d first felt this scale of destruction. It would take years more to recover.
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But what was extra recovery? She was already a damaged thing, already clinging to life with everything she had. She would rather push herself to the brink of death and be free than remain alive in this state.
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Some of the ships rose into the air, then fell back down as the engines died, old fuel betraying them. Explosions bloomed across Turr’s skin. Plants withered and burned. Turr’s children died. Other ships pushed onward, rising into the atmosphere.
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Turr groaned as her plants receded from the city. She no longer had the strength to continue her attack. Even amidst the burning, relief coursed through her as the weight of the ships left her form. The human’s reign over her had ended.
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Or so she thought.
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With a last spurt of technological horror, the human ships jumped into hyperdrive, dumping thousands of gallons of toxins into the sky.
Turr screamed and shook, tearing her bones and skin apart with violent quakes, straining away from the toxins. But her atmosphere trapped and spread them. Her gravity brought them closer. She could do no more to protect herself or her children.
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The toxins settled.
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They burned, seeping into her, melting away an entire region. The thriving life there curled in on itself transforming into rot. No life could thrive within this bubble of death. Color drained from lifeless bodies, leaving behind an aching void.
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Turr opened her skies and cried. The rain, cold where it used to be warm, struggled to wipe clean the blackened forests—shells of the beautiful life that once lived on and decorated Turr’s skin.
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Her efforts were not enough. The toxins had settled deep. Like all things, they had roots—dark, torturous roots that knew no boundaries. Poison entered Turr’s veins.
The land, which once sung with life, fell silent.
Turr had wanted the humans to leave for so long. Ever since they stepped their small feet onto her skin, they’d done nothing but leave footprints of incomprehensible destruction. But would she have forced them so quickly from the planet they’d tried so desperately to tame, to cultivate, to oppress, had she known the damage they’d leave in their wake? Even as the humans fled back between the stars, they left behind deep scars that might never fade.
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She ached to lay down and rest, to succumb to the painful silence spreading across her. Instead, she stirred once more.
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Through waves of grassy expanse, moss under dandelion forests, purple waters holding lily pad towns, she reached and searched for any last living souls on her surface.
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Find each other and you will find me.
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Through each other’s eyes you will learn to see.
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The answers I will give you through memories.
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Then in healing yourselves, you will heal me.
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Human Scars on Planet Skin by Nathaniel Luscombe & Effie Joe Stock!