The place where hope goes to die..... It looked so beautiful from space. A paradise, the best one found yet by humanity. The Dream Isles would be a new home, a place to found a fresh civilization away from the slowing dying earth. From space they gazed in awe upon the spires of the alien life peircing through the clouds. The eight crew members of the advance survey vessel are left spell bound by the beauty before them. The word was given. Land on one of the lush islands near the pole and begin to catalog this new world. How wrong could they be, the surface seemed peaceful, the lifeforms so benign. But within days, the first two disappeared. With six left, four more were dispatched to search. They too quickly went missing. The survivors should have done the smart thing and return to earth for help. But it is so hard to abandon your shipmates. Afterall, this world was a paradise. There must be a error, search they must for the freinds. So it has come to this. With great trepidation, the final survivors now peer from the entrance of the tunnel. The last known position of their freinds.... ********** The place where hope goes to die....... The brood mother is hungry, food grows scarce during the hottest season, food needed if a new generation of her kind is to be born. Entering her cave, she goes, what are these? Two more of those strange little creatures have entered her den. The little alien bipeds slowly move into the murk that is her home. She senses their growing aggitation, for they've seen the others of their kind. The ones she's already prepared for the nursery. More food, more food...... Must be quick, cant let these strange delicious morsels escape. Afterall, already some youngs ones have hatched and four more are brooding in their crystalis eggs. ************* Yes indeed, all hope is dead. Their fate sealed. The last two crew memebers will soon be placed within their own crystalis along side their comrades. Paralysed with toxins but very much alive, they can only move slugishly in the embryonic liquid. Kept alive by the fluid and fully aware, the humans can only float, watch as a baby grub is implanted in the egg beside them. Yes indeed, their fate is sealed, they've become living food for the brood mothers young. There will be no one to the rescue, no calvary to the charge. Lightyears from home in a uncharted star system, no one else will be arrive here for decades. You can almost hear their silent screams. Mouths filled with the life sustaining gel, they can only contort slowly in a hopeless scruggle to break free. It is then that they realize the truth.... this is the place where all hope goes to die.