“Stay close to me son, ever since the war started the forest hasn’t been the same as when I was a boy.” A man that looked like he was in his mid-fifties with a full head of white hair wearing a tactical camo shirt and pants along with steel toed boots with an energy rifle over his shoulder said.

“What do you mean sir? How was it different?” A young boy that looked to be about fourteen years old asked, his clothing the same as the older hunter’s but noticeably smaller and newer. He then pulled out a canteen of water and tilted his head up towards the sky as he drank deeply.

The two of them had been out hunting the entire day for something to bring back to their village to eat or sell to support their families but so far had been not having very much luck this morning. They were just about to call it a day when the boy spotted something above the tree line amongst the clouds as he finished the last of his water, proceeding to choke on some of it in shock before dropping his canteen and coughing before pointing out the anomaly out to the older hunter.

“Sir! There is something burning in the sky!” The boy shouted and pointed in the direction in which he saw it, to which the older hunter immediately grabbed his binoculars and used them to look in the direction the boy pointed in.

“I can’t believe it… Hurry son we either just won the lottery or found someone in distress!” The old hunter shouted before breaking into a sprint in the direction the flaming object was falling towards, the boy quickly grabbing his canteen and running after him.

As they ran they watched as the flaming object in the sky grew in size as they approached its trajectory before observing it impact with the ground a short distance away before exploding in a massive flash of brilliant rainbow light, the trees all around them flattened as they were surprisingly only knocked off their feet. As the two of them recuperated from the shock of the strange explosion they looked around them at the five mile wide area of flattened trees with a smoking crater in the middle, the badly damaged space craft filling up the crater surprisingly intact.

“W-w-what just happened?” The boy stuttered as he just stared in the direction of the badly damaged shuttle.

“It’s a Solarian shuttle… but what’s it doing on this side of the world? And how did it survive getting past the Gaiaburg defensive?” The old hunter muttered as he propped himself up before pushing himself to his feet and taking his energy rifle from his back before slowly starting to approach the crashed ship, the boy scrambling to his feet and quickly following after he snapped out of his stupor.

As they approached the badly damaged ship they were slowly able to fully realize how badly damaged it was, and how much of a miracle it must have been to stay intact like this after the crash landing. It was difficult to determine the original shape of the ship but it still maintained its features that signified that it was a Solarian ship. That being the vaguely remaining geometrical hull design combined with white, gold and blue paint of the remaining parts of the hull that wasn’t either warped from the heat from the uncontrolled atmospheric re-entry or ripped off from what one could only assume to be missile or turret/cannon fire. The old hunter winced as he remembered what modern day turrets and “cannons” if they could even be called that anymore used for ammo nowadays as they finally got close enough to find the surprisingly in-tact airlock door on the side of the ship.

The old hunter then decided to signal for the boy to stay right where they were as he approached and began to inspect to see if there was a way to open the airlock door. The ship was only eight meters tall so it wasn’t that hard to climb up to the door but he suspected he would be hard pressed to search the whole ship and leave with something valuable before the authorities arrived to inspect the area since it was about thirty-seven meters long and twenty meters wide if he had to give a rough estimate just by looking at it. That and he had never been inside one so he was factoring in the possibility of sealed doors and forgetting where he had or hadn’t been.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

On the third unsuccessful attempt to manually open the door he took his energy rifle and jammed the front end into where the lock should be on the busted door and began pulling the trigger till he blew out the lock and was able to pry the door open. At this he was certain that this was no combat ship because of the lack of external weapons in the wreckage let alone the ease at which he was able to blow open the door, so he took this as his cue to go in and start searching for any surviving crew members first. He was pretty surprised to find the doors inside the ship to be mostly open and the ship mostly empty exept for some spilled or ruined rations in what he assumed was a kitchen or storage room and a bedroom with the sheets and everything scattered all across the floor as if they had merely been tossed in there with no time spent to put them on the bed or placed in drawers somewhere. So what he now had to wonder was is this possibly a civilian shuttle? And what was it doing here as well as why was it so badly damaged? He was starting to get a bad feeling about all of this.

As the old hunter slowly approached the front of the ship, not knowing if he finished checking the rest of it yet but determined to see if he could find the pilot at the very least to learn what happened he began to hear a coughing sound. Realizing he might have found the pilot or whatever surviving crew had been on the ship he ran twards the noise, only skidding to a halt when he turned a corner to find a dark haired woman in a blood soaked lab coat coughing blood as a little girl looking no older than sixteen with shoulder length silver hair and faintly glowing silver eyes matching her pale skin with a white medical gown being the only thing covering her youthful body.

“Im sorry my little Avery… I wish I could have given you a normal life…” The woman tried to say through her coughing, bags forming under her eyes as she gave the little girl a mournful smile.

“Mo- Dr. Eden, you did nothing wrong. You simply did what you thought would best help everyone.” The little girl, Avery, said with a matter-of-fact like tone as she tried to wipe away some of the blood on the woman’s face with a strangely emotionless face.

“… Hey, are you alright?” The old hunter suddenly said, not thinking as he stepped closer causing the woman to seemingly flinch as the two females looked in his direction.

“wha… w-who are you? What are you doing here, and how did you get in the shuttle?” The woman said, sounding worried and causing the little girl to strangely take a stance as she got between the older woman and the hunter.

Taking a breath the old hunter began by introducing himself and explaining who he is and what he was doing here. as well as everything that happened starting from when him and the boy spotted the ship entering the atmosphere up to this point, but he kept it as brief as he could while including as much detail as needed at the same time due to what he realized was happening to the woman.

“I… See. It’s alright Avery, you can stand down. *cough cough* I’m sorry about this, but please could you take my daughter with you when you leave this place… And if you could Mr. Laurel… Give her *cough* a better life than… I… did…” The woman said causing Avery to back up before kneeling back down next to her before asking for the favor with her last breath, the old hunter watching silently as the life drained out of her.

“Dr. Eden? Dr. Eden what do you mean by have him take me with him? Dr. Eden wake up!” Avery said as she turned to face her mother and with a confused face tried to wake her, only to be stopped by the old hunter placing his hand on her shoulder.

“She’s gone, she isn’t going to wake up.” The old hunter, Mr. Laurel, said to her while shaking head.

“What do you mean? I don’t understand.” The girl said looking even more confused now.

“You will one day… come on, it’s not safe to stay here long.” Mr. Laurel said as he put his rifle back on his back before proceeding to coax Avery into coming with him.

“Sir! Your back! Did you fi- what’s with the girl?” The boy said sounding excited before pausing and beginning to act like the average boy his age, causing the old hunter to simply shake his head in both amusement, sadness and exasperation.

“She was the only survivor… now come, its best we begin heading back to the village immediately.”