The Autumn Plague Gardener

I stared through the habitat window to see a god, but she was nothing I expected. Intricate tree vines hung from her shoulders forming an elaborate cobalt and brown organic fabric full-body outfit. I closed my eyes and exhaled in relief.

Life on Condor, a rogue planet in a fairly small solar system about 6 light-years from Earth, orbiting Tau Ceti in the constellation Cetus, was nothing but an endless unfortunate chain of events leading to the colony's nearly complete annihilation.

After our landing on the lush planet, everything seemed as planned and our colony allocated massive fields for growing fruits and vegetables brought back from Earth. In the third year as the Autumn harvest neared, the virus we called The Plague hit us hard. By the time we sealed the habitats, It had wiped out half of the population and disappeared 3 months later. Unattended, our crops were destroyed – we left with no food and survived the following year running out of the last supplies from Earth. We replanted the fields and like clockwork, as the autumn harvest was near, the virus arrived with it. We sealed the habitat once again, living off last supplies when the Gardener appeared, walking calmly out of the surrounding forest.

We watched in wonder as she tended the fields and fruit gardens for the next two months, unaffected by the deadly virus, the Gardener harvested the crops and left them at the habitat entrance, turned back, and disappeared back into the lush forest.

Since then, the Gardener never failed to arrive each Autumn to tend our crops while we sealed ourselves from the autumn virus. We wanted to know who she was, to tell her she could stay, but we were scared she might never come back, or that's what we told ourselves and just let her dissolve into blackness.