I ended up landing on a small patch of relatively flat surface, the bright, bluish headlights of my…

30 min readOct 20, 2021

I ended up landing on a small patch of relatively flat surface, the bright, bluish headlights of my ship illuminated the dark void that came before me. Thousands of medium to small rocks and boulders surrounded the hull of my Aurora Escape Pod-Model 8. I decided to get out and explore the landscape before I set up the radio and survival shelter. The suit that was provided in the craft was luckily very stretchy to accommodate most body types, I quickly put it on and checked the atmospheric samples to see if it was safe. The light-up display read: hydrogen -63%; oxygen-26%; other-1%; atmospheric pressure-1/12-earth-pressure; Hazardous substances- none.

I put on my helmet, which was conveniently fairly light, and opened the hatch to the outside world. The ladder dropped from the small craft and softly penetrated the ground. As I climbed down I noticed the hull and legs of my escape pod had been scuffed and dented, probably due to the rough impact.

The ground itself was a powdery substance that looked to be similar in texture and color to the familiar sight of the Mojave Desert that I knew all too well growing up.

Looking back on my experiences as a kid I now realize how desolate and alien that place was. The coral-like red and beige colored sand that covered over the vast valleys and jagged hills and mountains. The way that the limestone had layers of coloring and the different textures of random spikes and lips that protrude from the overwhelmingly calm, steady, peaceful climate. I could almost see the highway and smaller roads that we would often speed upon while blaring music. It was certainly something strange that I was not ready to feel, knowing that it had all been destroyed along with all of its inhabitants; all of those poor creatures, the countless lifeforms ranging from small bugs, to mountain goats, to snakes, and so much more.

It still frustrates me, knowing what they did; it always had. They could have stopped it, if only they had listened. Those idiots couldn’t get enough of themselves. They didn’t even bother talking to us because they knew we would bore them. We ended up stopping; we knew they wouldn’t listen so we just stopped trying. Maybe in a perfect world if we kept going we could have stopped it, but by that point the damage was already irreparable. There was no way that we could have gotten back to normal in the first place but at least we could have stopped the onslaught that was to come.

I knew some people who didn’t believe in it, they said that “there was not enough evidence” or even such a simple excuse as “I don’t know enough about the topic”. It was sad in a way, they either chose to reject it or they just were raised in a way that didn’t bring upon pressing scientific topics. Those who came too reliant on transcendence of spirit ended up completely abandoning the topic. They said that it went against their beliefs and just passed it by them without a thought. Those who chose to oppose used incorrect evidence and could not distinguish facts from the lies fed to them by previous generations.

No one got along; there was always some heated debate about spending or a war for depleting resources. Oil was one of the biggest arguments, everyone fought over where they can or can’t drill oil; where they can greedily exploit the growing nations. Never did they mention reusable energy, those who did were discriminated against and laughed upon. The power came into the wrong people’s hands and they so carelessly used it for horrible purposes.

Nevertheless, the Earth deteriorated, rotted, and eventually we were forced to leave. Leave our home, leave my home. The dessert I knew so well, it was gone. It still has never gotten past me. What I wouldn’t give to go back and make a change; make a change before they even took over. But it’s in the past and there’s nothing we can do anymore but live and carry on the best we can.

I reached down to grab a handful of the sand. It sifted through my fingers fairly quickly and slowly fell to the ground where the rest of the red dust awaited for its fellow grains. The near silky texture brushed through my hand. It seemed to be so smooth that it must have been manufactured. There seemed to be iron in the sand as some of it stuck to my boots as I picked up my legs, forming little towers of magnetic material just as you would see if you were to run a magnet through filings of iron.

There was no way to tell where I was in relation to the Stargate Network, that place was ironically as elusive as a snow fox in its powdery home. They only shared data in 10 Parsecs of each terminal. Do you know how difficult it is to get around with such limited information? I swear, they are trying to keep us locked in. Well, I say ¨us¨ implying myself but I cannot go back after what had happened. It’s a miracle they weren’t able to catch me, almost suspicious. My inventions and identity were quite clear, I made sure of it.

Point is, there’s nothing for me to find my location. That is, of course, only in relation to the Stargate Network itself. You see, there’s a reason I mentioned the radio. If I can get a signal then I may have the chance to find my positioning. Stargate relied itself on sent out communication transmitters relying on the use of quantum entanglement. I won’t bore you with the physics behind it, but essentially the device allows direct communication with a receiver without any sort of wave signals or noise to break the signal. It is immediate, faster than light, and most importantly, stuck within the bounds at which its range has been given.

With the radio however I can utilize other signals outside of Stargate to give me an idea of where I am. Not to say I want to leave, well I do, but not because of the planet itself. In the meantime, however, I need to focus on surviving.

I looked around to see what I could use to my advantage. Not much. Just a bunch of rocks and sand. There wasn’t too much to see when I was making the landing especially due to the nightfall of this planet. The dead of night was quite calming, there were no external lights thus leaving the entire sky of stars and nebulae to be on full display. Of course my ship’s headlighting was on but that did not compare to the spectrum faced above my head.

The lights did, however, create somewhat of an eerie feeling when being shined upon the landscape. The display seemed almost like one of those old horror flicks where a truck’s headlights would illuminate a landscape such as a cornfield only for a creature to pop out and commit some horrible scene. This brought chills to my skin as I wasn’t quite sure what was out there, if anything at all.

I decided it would be best to go ahead and get a shelter set up and get some rest.

Thankfully the emergency shelter was quick to set up. I had the opportunity to set one up previously, giving me the ability to speed through this as fast as possible.

I opened the “trunk” (if you could even call it that) of the escape pod. Well, I tried to open it, that is. The thing got stuck somehow and the latch wouldn’t turn. The poor design was now becoming clear that it wasn’t meant to deal with impacts such as this. The hull must have been made of aluminum or some alloy of sorts. Can you imagine? No wonder they stopped making these things 20 years ago…

After about 5 minutes of agonizing shoving and pulling (and punching and shoving) something clicked and I somehow managed to open it. I made one last pull to the handle and the latch began to open, the hydraulic gas lifts pushed open the rectangular metal. With much relief, I took a look inside

Thank the lord it was vastly stronger on the inside. The interior must have been made of a steel-like substance, there was virtually no damage, and that for sure put a smile on my face.

I began to unload the emergency shelter from the storage compartment. Parts and pieces of thick specialized canvas connected with aluminium poured out with directions and labels written on them. I got everything out from there and pushed myself through the little opening of the compartment to reach an inner storage compartment for necessities like water and foods. I pulled the handle on the hatch and it opened up nicely into a cooled cell, everything was pushed in there and nearly burst out upon opening. I reached for a string attached to the outer case of water and pulled. After that was out, mostly everything flowed out like a waterfall, for some reason they tilted the thing so all that was stored came out without any effort. Why they had not utilized something to hold back, I have no idea. Again this thing stopped being made 20 years ago, and I guess for good reason.

I made sure to leave some things in there, just in case, by pressing them up against the back facing edges next to the compartment door. I closed it up, hobbled my way out of the initial storage compartment and set out to get the shelter constructed.

Thankfully I had made my landing right next to a flat bed which the shelter could be laid upon.

After 2 hours or so of working over this monolith, the thing was ready to be lived in -temporarily that is. Inside of it formed a bed and a small kitchen which I could leave everything in. The thing itself must have been 10 feet wide and 15 deep, no larger than a small hotel room.

Vastly too tired to eat, I dropped everything and plopped down in the bed falling asleep almost immediately.

A few hours had passed when I was awoken by the sound of an alarm of sorts, I´m unable to replicate what I heard into words but I knew it was from my shelter’s light detection system. The sun was up and I had slept for maybe four hours, if not three. I forced myself out of the bed with a silent rage, even though the bed might have been the most uncomfortable thing I´ve ever slept on, it served its purpose. And that purpose had not been fulfilled. In any case, I stumbled to the kitchen to see what I could get that might wake me up. My stomach growled with veracity as to signal that it’s time to eat. I had not consumed anything in the past few days except for water and a par (which I had eaten on the first day of my ¨fast¨). Luckily there was a coffee machine in the kitchen and a breakfast package that I had thrown on the counter the night before. I pressed the button on the front panel of the display and a noise began to ensue. With the inside smelling of fresh coffee, I set up the breakfast platter and bagan to eat.

After taking 15 minutes to gain the life back that I lost over those few days, I put on the hazard suit and helmet and looked at the display on the side of the shelter next to the door exposing the same light-up display as in my ship. Everything was the same as when I landed, there were no hazardous substances, however the temperature was already 33 degrees celsius. I had no idea how long the days were going to be so that was a concern but if it was too dangerous I could always get on the extreme weather protection suit.

I needed to find a place to set up the radio, the one on the ship was outdated and I could not imagine being able to reach wherever I am. So I opened the door, grabbed the radio set-up bad, and started outside.

The sun was really beating down on me, there must have been low pressure in the atmosphere, maybe that’s why it was so cold last night compared to now.

I had started out in the sand and rock to find a high spot to place the radio, thankfully there were some high hills a few ways next to my spot. there must have been low pressure in the atmosphere, maybe that’s why it was so cold last night compared to today.

I had started out in the sand and rock to find a place to set up the radio. Thankfully, there were some high hills close to my landing spot, maybe about a 40 minute walk, I assume.

Moving through the environment was not too much of a challenge. With the sand not being too fluff and in conjunction with rock, I found walking to be the least of my worries. My main concerns were with the heat and the distance/ endurance required.

Looking up to my destination, about a quarter of the journey in, the corners of my eyes glistened with the intensity of the morning scorch. Mirages abound lay in front of me, awaiting to take me away to a better life. By nature of my awareness of its inticeity, I knew there was little reason to distress. The thought of such a journey fills me with fear, confusion, and anguish, on fault of myself and my conscience, of course. What was I to know about the point past physicality -and do I even know this is what occurs? My point is that I am not ready to encounter this. I had water with me and had no need for such a false paradise, so I tried on.

As I found myself closer to the radio spot I reached the beginning of a slope. My back surely would have been fine with this, besides the thing was like 40 pounds. Okay, this sounds like a lot but when you have worked on the space which I have, it becomes not too terrible. And not to mention, it was on my back, I was fine.

I made my way to a high edge of this slope, peering over the other side, past and in the shadow of the mountainous formation, there lay craters- no, holes. Not one, not a few, not dozens, but hundreds, maybe thousands. They layer the surface of the plane past this peak, tens of miles covered in these large holes. It looked almost as if there was a drilling operation. They were near perfectly circular, fit for the body of a large drill, 20 feet in diameter perhaps. I thought for a second in distress as to what could have caused them however I had noticed they seem to be very similar to sinkholes. There was no record or information of this place I could find anywhere, sinkholes seemed to be the most likely option, which is very good as this means there must be water under the surface, maybe harboring conditions for life.

With this on the back-burner of my consciousness, I made my way up to the peak, the highest in the region. Observing my horizon I saw much of the surrounding geography. My landing spot lay in a valley, a large one at that with similar mountains such as this one grazing on the other side. Looking to the side of the sink-holes, there seemed to be a similar formation however the space between mountain sides was much less, more narrow.

I removed the bag from my spine and let it fall to the ground with a gashing thud. Opening the zipper I saw it came in three portions which I promptly put together. Drilling the base into the rick below was the best idea so I made sure to use all of the required equipment. Spreading the pointed bars at the top I got it structured. Power seemed to flow correctly from the solar cell on top, all I had to do was get back to the shelter and hook up the signal to my computer.

So, I made my way back home, the exact same way I came. The same 40 minutes, glancing at the same things. I, again, saw the sinkholes and the mirages. Each passing five minutes or so, I took a sip of water, the straw being hooked to a pouch in the back portion of my suit.

Stepping through the door was a great relief, the refreshing cool air rushing out as I worked my heart out to close the door behind me as quickly as possible. Taking my helmet off, the smell of two hour old coffee hit me and the beads of sweat seemed to absorb back into my skin, I was out of the sun and in my new safe space.

I got settled, changed out of my suit and opened up my laptop to at least try and get a signal from the radio. The computer booted up with a fresh, alerting, blue light. With the login screen before me I typed away. I opened up the program and waited for it to load, not long after an option box displayed before me read: “Aurora Radio Transceiver-LDC-2401” with a check box indicating that I am to pick it. So I checked the box. A myriad of graphs and lines and data showed before me.

I spent hours analyzing what was on the screen looking for any sort of signal of nearby objects to connect to. The displays went back and forth with any predictions and calculations, all sorts of data sets, line graphs working almost looking like a heart monitor. I grabbed a bar for lunch in the process and was able to hold my hunger off until dinner.

Surprisingly, the day went by similar to the timing of earth. Of course we did not run on the earth time out in the middle of nowhere space, we used a universal time system, UTS. It was essentially a clock based on 24 hour time, similar to earth, but it has no need to adapt to certain motions of earth. There is typically an additional clock for each populated planet but there was no one to be found here so all I could rely on was the UTS.

It was about 20:30 by the time a signal popped up reading: “connection received”. I was filled with joy of course, however, I needed some rest, there’s no way I could get through all of this at the moment. So with the computer still on, I went to bed ready to look over my possibilities tomorrow.

It was about 2:30 when I was awoken to the sound of rumbling almost like an earthquake. I peeked out the door to see what was going on but it was all too dark to see. So I grabbed a headlamp in an attempt to find what was making the sound. Unfortunately, there was nothing but a static haze of sand and dust outside surrounding me.

I was stunned by the new intensity the rumbling took. The ground felt like it was about to crumble and I could see my shelter violently at frustration with the force.

There then came a sudden stop, nothing, radio silence. My lights in the shelter flickered on in the quake, red and white hazards flashing as to indicate something was severely wrong. About a minute or so had cleared when the dust began to settle, things began to return to a state of somewhat normal.

I began to step back inside still with fear of the movement. Whatever it was it seemed to cause those sink-holes I saw the day before, there was no other reason. I knew I had to do something so I grabbed my personals when I began to feel another rumble emerging from below. It was less of a rumble and more of an intense vibration. Almost as it was getting closer. If this was the sinkhole, it was coming fast and I needed to get to my ship as soon as possible.

I grabbed my personals and ran out the door with my laptop in hand. I was nearly a foot out the door when I felt the crust of the earth begin to vibrate with such veracity, it would have to be destroyed before it would calm. And to my left, that is exactly what it did, but not as to cave in on itself but rather be torn from underneath.

An enormous ribbed worm-like creature burst forth from the rock and sand like a breaching great white attacking a seal. The seemingly longer-than-100 feet creature, blackened only seen by the array of the stars above, raised from the ground like a cannonball. A cannonball which was headed right for me and the shelter.

I sprinted to my ship faster than I have ever ran before, hopped into the cockpit, threw my bag and computer down, and as I started up the old machine, the worm crashed head first into my shelter. It was gone. The earth beneath was gone. All that remained was a hole, the exact hole which I attributed to being a sinkhole. The entrance and exit wounds of the ground are so familiar. It remained calm for 20 seconds until I felt it return, it was coming for me. With the ship booting up, I felt it approaching, this time from directly under me.

The thrusters flared and I saw a cloud of dust emerge from under me. I quickly rose but not long before, I could see the worm burst from the ground once again. Just beneath me, rising quickly, came the thing to strike me down, almost like a guardian of the planet, acting like the grim reaper. Something only to keep me attached to an eternal slumber.

I merely escaped the entity, seeing it beneath me fall back to the planet only to go back into its crater from which it came.

By this time, I was on track for leaving this place. I had nothing left to keep me alive there. I made sure to escape the atmosphere keeping myself in motion so as to not fall back to the desolate rock. I turned to grab my computer and thankfully it kept all of the data and information of where the closest transmission spot was from the radio.

With little supplies to keep me alive for no longer than 3 days in the ship, I set a point and worked my way out of the planet’s field of gravity, entering into the uncharted territories of empty space.