It was like something out of an ancient nature show, the same game played out a thousand times -- predators, prey, scavengers. Every time the bright star of an exploding ship lit the sky, a feeding frenzy began.

Before the light had even gone out I and dozens of others like me, were tapping into military lines, grilling our sources, lying and cheating and stealing to get the information any way we could. And then, pulses pounding urgently in our ears, raw and sick with excitement and disgust alike, we raced each other to the crash site.

Picking over the carcass of some poor soul's brave, foolhardy attempt to escape this prison of a planet, we scavenged for food, clothes, weapons, even the shredded metal of the craft itself. Anything we could possibly use or sell, we fought each other for, like beasts.

I'm tired of being a beast.

In my hands, a few shards of jewel-bright glass catch the light, melted and deformed though they are. Who knows what they were once part of, it couldn't have been anything practical, not glass this fine, with precious minerals wasted in the colouring of it. No, these are bits and pieces of someone's dearest possession, maybe even memories of home, from back when people like us could have such things.

Home. The word makes me ache, makes me long for somewhere to truly rest, curtains drawn to block out the world instead of thrown open to the sky, lest I miss a single salvage opportunity. Even beasts deserve homes, don't they?

I put the fragments of glass away in the drawer I reserve for such things, useless bits and pieces that caught my fancy, made me think of better times. When the drawer is full, I think it will be my ship the corpse-eaters will find, twisted, torn and gutted, burned out in a feeble attempt to find a way home.