Sunday - October 19th, 2121:

My head was pounding with a piercing pain that stabbed into the back of my skull. I reached instinctively to touch it, but my hand caressed only the dome of my helmet. "Where am I?" My muffled words came out in a rasp, part dehydration, part confusion.

"Sunday? That's impossible!" I blurted out after lowering my eyes to the SmartScreen embedded into the wrist of my suit. My breaths quickened, exiting the voice projection box like gravel scraping against steel. Was I unconscious for four days? No, but that's not the problem! Where am I?

My eyes darted immediately to scan the environment I found myself within. All around me, bright blue bio-luminescent fungi grew like overgrown stalks of broccoli. Their presence was a suffocating sting as they surrounded the small flattening I lay in. My hand reached up to my visor and tapped on a small in-built button.

'Scanning Commencing - Unidentified Matter.'

'Unidentified - Unidentified - Warning Critical Failure Detected.'

"What the f-" My words choked in my throat as I gawked at the fungi. It began to sway and move. Drifting away from my position. Though, it was more accurate to say that it picked itself up and walked away. "Did I scare them off, huh?"

My question was rather poorly timed. As the moment I spoke, the fungi sped up, tumbling over one another.

...

"This can't be happening..." I forced the incredulous thought out as I stared blankly at the charred ground that remained around me. Craggy rocks jutted in deformed shapes, crooked, and bent over one another. 'The rocks won't start walking too— will they?'

I laughed at the notion but couldn't help but walk away— just to be safe. As I turned around and took a few dozen steps— behind, stomping noises sounded. 'Shit— did I jinx myself? Is this why they say careful what you wish for?'

My steps hastened, and I darted away— I didn't know where I was going— all around me, all I could see was charred red rock that resembled Mars more than it did Earth. Was this even Earth in the first place? How the hell was one supposed to know?

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

All around sounds amplified, unsettling, and foreign. The noises trilled and thrummed, sometimes closer, sometimes further away. "HELLO? IS ANYONE THERE?" My impatience overcame me as I blurted the words out.

I made a mistake.

The ground shook tremendously— I could barely keep my feet on straight as my body wobbled side to side. I ran— desperately. Behind, stones bounced and rolled, their craggy bits digging into the ground like the plowing devices our ancestors used a hundred years ago. There was no emotion or feature visible on them— they were nothing but stone, yet that fact became a dreadful realization.

'I don't think I'm in Kansas anymore...'

"Damn you, Geezer, you've ruined my sense of humor even in a situation like this!" I scraped the words out as I pushed my body beyond what it should have been capable of.

I had no time to think, not as to why my body was moving so well nor why the normally cumbersome spacesuit felt so light against my body. All I could do was run. After a few minutes, I saw a tree whose branches perched upward. 'Could I climb it and get away from them?'

The stones were catching up, but none surpassed a meter in height. 'Surely, they can't climb trees...'

It was a silly thought, but— I jumped.

As my hands reached for the branch— the stupid thing moved away from me. Maybe I should have expected something as absurd, but instead, I tumbled forward. The ground split before me like the parting red sea of stone, and my body rolled violently into the unknown.

When I reached the bottom, I sprawled out like a starfish bent over itself. "Check birth certificate," I muttered as I tapped my visor.

'Error - Error - Critical Malfunction Detected.'

"Damn you— I just wanted to check if my name suddenly became Dorothy, Alice, or Charlie." I groaned out dryly before picking myself up into a seated position.

"Am I finally free of any more animate objects coming for my ass?" I really wanted to scratch my head in contemplation, but by this point, I was too scared to risk taking the helmet off. My scanner was busted, and if the atmosphere was breathable or safe was left up to my own guesses. But seeing how the environment itself was already attacking, risking it seemed silly.

I had to figure out what was going on. Four days passed since I was on the O.S.S, and the light erupted from Earth. So, surely I must be on Earth, right? But everything I'd seen thus far did not resemble Earth whatsoever. It was maddening to think so much.

"Mhm, yeah! I think I'm absolutely screwed." I nodded self-deprecatingly.

'Maybe it was the alien armada finally reclaiming Earth after they deemed an ancient colonization attempt a failure.'

Despite my irrational thoughts, I still picked myself up and patted my suit off from the accumulated dust I picked up along the way down. "There's no use in whining. I'll only figure out what's going on if I continue searching."