Log 1 /

Logging date: 16-4-2388

I guess I should write this down, I don't think I'll be retrieved anywhere in the next decade and remembering everything is going to suck. Also I don't really have anything else to do.

I'll start by introducing myself.  Hello, my name is Salt. I am a junior researcher aboard the GHU Hawking, the ship assigned to studying the primitive civilizations of Alastar c. Or yaknow, I was a junior researcher. Right now I am one of only a handfull of humans on Alastar c.

The ship exploded. I don't exactly know what happened, both cause of the head-trauma and because I'm not an engineer. All I know is that I was woken up very rudely by an alarm which called out to get in the escape pods and that this wasn't a drill, something about the core having a meltdown. So I got in one of the pods and ejected myself. My junior sleeping compartiment was located practically next to the pod-bay, so even in my sleepdeprived drunkenness I managed. Fucking stupid head-researchers placed their compartiments next to the research bays so they didn't have to walk far in the morning.

I remember thinking it odd only seeing like ~15 people rushing to the pods, but it wasn't untill after I got in and ejected myself that I saw the ship imploding. My hypothesis is that one of the experiments went catastofically wrong and ate all the head-researchers and most of the other staff. I only really woke up when the implosion ate all it could eat and released its energy in a shockwave which obliterated everything that was left of the ship and shook my pod violently. Ofcourse, being awake didn't last long cause my pod collided with something, which promptly knocked me unconsious.

All in all, one of the worst mornings of my life.

Next time I woke up, my pod had already deployed its parachute and landed. I took the time to get my bearings before the pod gave me a warning I was about to run out of air, and opened the door using the override.

I have to say. Planetary air is different than I thought. Less oxygenated isn't actually all that bad, at least so far I've not had any issues with breathing nor with thinking. The gravity is a lot more of a problem. Who knew walking at 110% of the gravity you're used to would be so tiring! I've never had this much trouble lugging around my body. Surprisingly, my mechanical arm hasn't had any issues so far, and has been a lifesaver. I am quite sure I never would've been able to lift the standard survival pack without it, altho my legs were on fire after a few minutes.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I sat on my pod for a few minutes, just taking in the sight of having an actual skyline (so much prettier than I'd imagined), hearing animals make noises (holy shit they make a lot of noise!) and feeling wind brush against me (such a strange sensation, altho not quite as wierd since we had air-showers on the ship)

After that I got out the planetary map on the display in my arm and looked for any nearby villages. I hoped I could get food and shelter there, with the indiginous population.

Before I set off, I collected all the survivally things from my pod (A knife, 2 weeks worth of rations, a flare gun with 2 flares, a simple water purifier capable of turning most water into drinkable water, with an approximated lifetime of 15 years of water for 1 person, a crappy plastic cup, a simple multitool with which I can take apart and put together pretty much all human machinery, which also has an electric lighter, a solar generator (thank fuck for that, else my arm and multitool would run out of power), a  set of standard civilian clothes, a simple flashlight with handcrank, and a standard civilian backpack to carry it all in). Together with my arm, thats all I own.

I'd estimated that to walk to the closest village, which was about 50 km away, I'd have to walk for ~7 hours. That turned out to be a gross underestimation for a variety of reasons. First off, my legs turn out to be weak pieces of shit. I could only manage to walk for an hour before I collapsed and had to wait for my legs to stop being on fire. Secondly, during the first 10 minutes off walking the reality of my situation set in. I'm practically the only one of my kind on the entire planet, my girlfriend has most likely died and been turned into pure energy. All my hopes and dreams aboard the ship have been nullified. I won't be able to play any more boardgames with my friends, ever. Cause they're also dead. Everyone is dead. I didn't even try to save anyone. I WAS ASLEEP WHEN EVERYONE DIED. As you can imagine, the only things I was thinking about were my shitty weak legs and my memories of all the events. I stumbled and fell a few times, got scared by random noises every few minutes and walked face-first into one of the tree-type things 3 times before I gave up and sat down for a bit. I felt I should at least try and deal with everything by writing about it. I'd done that in the past as well, and it was effective then. So yeah thats what this is.

Since my legs seem to be somewhat recovered, I'm going to continue walking now.