A plethora of swear words in just as many languages passed through Avakian's lips as the land mass approached him, gradually speeding up and encroaching his field of vision. He didn't know what any of them meant, but his repertoire of untaught knowledge seemed to think them appropriate for his current situation. Just as his entire vision was taken over by the strip, a bone-shaking rattling begun to take hold of the pod.

Avakian had just about changed his mind about meeting this entity being a good idea when a beeping sounded, and an artificial voice filled his ears.

"EMERGENCY DETECTED. REMAIN CALM. COUNTERMEASURES ARE BEING DEPLOYED!" The voice blared in a harsh baritone.

"Phew.." Thought Avakian. 'To think that I was actually worried there for a second'.

He immediately relaxed, and even started humming 'Ode to Joy' in his newfound jubilation.

"Clearly this mysterious land mass has seen sense and made sure neither of us come to harm, I wonder how much it can teach me about polygons!"

Avakian's reverie was unfortunately disturbed by the application of the physical laws of the universe. An ear-splitting crash reverberated throughout the entire pod and the forest around. Unless of course no one was there to hear it, in which case it didn't.

---

Avakian awoke for the second time that day with an incredible view of the forest sky above, and an equally incredible pain in his stomach. He looked down to see a large triangular piece of glass embedded in his abdomen, and a pool of his lifeblood congealing beneath his left elbow.

His first thought was to trust the promised 'countermeasures' the voice had informed him about earlier, however he quickly realised they could not be entirely trusted.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"The voice didn't stop me from getting stabbed before." Avakian thought with a grimace. "I can't expect it to help now."

Avakian took stock of his options, he could either leave the glass in his stomach, or remove it; to him, it was an easy decision.

"Obviously glass isn't supposed to be there." He thought. "Removing it should definitely be the best choice."

Avakian's right hand was freed by the impact, and he used it to wrench the shard out his stomach. Removing the glass did not seem to help however, with the pain remaining and the amount of blood flowing from the wound even increasing. Avakian started to panic.

His head was once again assaulted with a salvo of numbers he had little context for, most of them dropping rather rapidly. The most concerning one was the one Avakian noted as 'time til exsanguination,' something he very much wanted to avoid.

He recalled back to his realm of thoughts, where he was God, and could manipulate any aspect of reality on a whim. The real world could not be changed that easily, but there was one thing he could change; his body.

Using his right hand, he freed his left from the restraints and put them both together over the wound. He then closed his eyes and willed his wound to close, picturing his blood around the wound clotting, his torn veins reconnecting and his dermis contracting to staunch the blood loss.

Avakian continued this way for a considerable period of time, until the pain had dimmed, and he was no longer at risk of bleeding to death. He opened his eyes to see a jay balancing on the edge of his almost-coffin. It cocked its head to one side and glanced at him curiously.

Avakian suddenly had the sensation of being perceived by another being. He instinctively knew that this bird was definitely sapient, unlike the land mass, which he was now having serious doubts about.

"Hello." said Avakian. "My name is Avakian, do you wish to discuss polygons?".

The bird flew away.

---

Sitting up to assess his wounds, Avakian noticed that despite the quantity of blood still sticking to his stomach, his wound had closed and become an inflamed red slit between his abdominal muscles. He realised that the shard could have injured him internally, but the best he could do, given the situation, was hope that it hadn't.

Avakian decided to vacate his pod, and clambered through the broken viewing-window into the forest outside, wincing as he stepped on a piece of glass with his bare sole.

Looking around he realised his pod had crashed onto a small hill of sorts, surrounded from every direction by a tapestry of trees and smaller shrubbery. Avakian picked a direction at random and arbitrarily decided that his destination was somewhere over there, and since his destination would be wherever he ended up, he was technically correct.