Consciousness returns slowly, like wading through thick mud. Everything feels distant, muffled, as if I'm swimming up from the depths of an endless ocean. Random sensations filter in one by one: the taste of copper in my mouth, a ringing in my ears that slowly fades to silence, the weight of the battle suit pressing against my skin.

The first clear thing I register is that I'm lying on my back on something both hard and slightly yielding—a surface with an odd, latticed texture that seems to give just enough to keep my spine from screaming in protest. My thoughts feel sluggish, struggling to piece together how I got here, what happened after the drop.

[Consciousness Status: Rebooting]

[Pain Level Assessment: Running...]

[Sensory Input: Resuming]

[Neural Functions: 47% and climbing]

Images flash through my mind: the drop ship's floor vanishing beneath us, bodies tumbling through endless sky, the ground rushing up to meet me. I remember the Gnats forming their egg-shaped configuration around me, remember giving them the double bird right before impact. After that... nothing.

My visor's heads-up display flickers to life, scrolling through its startup sequence. The readouts paint the air in front of me with ghostly blue text, analyzing everything from atmospheric composition to radiation levels. According to the data, the air here is pretty similar to Earth's, except much cleaner and toxin-free. No industrial pollutants, no vehicle emissions, no trace of the thousand poisons that humans pump into their atmosphere.

That indicates a pre-industrialization world, according to my briefings. Maybe even pre-civilization.

Or maybe post-civilization.

The thought sends a chill down my spine.

The visor continues its analysis, measuring oxygen levels, detecting trace gases, running toxicity scans. After half a decade of interaction with the Vritrans and other Alphaverse planets, there's been no shortage of information about the other Earthlike worlds in the UAPA. One thing we know for certain is that no two worlds are exactly alike, even when they seem to be at first glance. The other thing we know is that some Earths are really, unbelievably, not like our Earth.

Looking at these readings, at the strange composition of trace elements that shouldn't exist in nature, I'm thinking the latter case applies here.

My heart pounds a little faster as I consider what that might mean. The suit's medical sensors note the elevation in my pulse, adjusting something in the synthetic adrenaline mix that's probably the only reason I'm conscious right now. Even though the visor clearly tells me the air is safe, I still hesitate before unlocking my helmet. The curved transparent faceplate slides into its frame with barely a whisper, the seals releasing with a soft hiss.

The first breath of alien air hits me like a physical thing. It's cool and moist against my skin, carrying a dampness that immediately reminds me of monsoon season. The moisture beads on my face, running down my neck in tiny rivulets that feel uncomfortably like sweat.

When I finally dare to take a deeper breath, the air that fills my lungs is thick with organic particles. It carries a complex bouquet of smells that hits me like a punch to the gut: rotting vegetation, flowering vines, fungal blooms... the usual stinky soup of any uninhabited, wild arboreal environment. And something else—something that tastes like ozone and wet stone on my tongue. The kind of smell that comes right before a lightning strike, but stronger, more pervasive, as if the whole atmosphere is charged with some kind of energy I can't quite understand.

The scent triggers a sudden, sharp memory: five-year-old me, standing beside my father in our ancestral village in the jungles of Central India. I can see him so clearly—his calloused hands gesturing at different plants, his voice patient as he teaches me how to identify medicinal herbs by their smell alone. The heavy mist of the monsoon season wreathed the jungle around us in ghostly tendrils, just like the mist that surrounds me now. The parallel is so strong it makes my chest ache.

I push the memory away, a tight knot forming in my chest. Nostalgia is a luxury I can't afford right now. Focus on now.

I assess my physical condition without any hope or expectation. By all rights, I should be dead. The impact velocity alone should have shattered every bone in my body, battle suit or no battle suit. The fact that I'm conscious at all makes no sense, and in my experience, things that make no sense usually mean trouble.

[Physical Assessment Initiated]

[Scanning for Injuries...]

[Damage Level: Calculating...]

[Bone Density Analysis: Processing]

[Soft Tissue Scan: Active]

I start with my extremities, working methodically inward. I wiggle my toes first, then flex my ankles, waiting for the explosion of pain that should come with compound fractures. Nothing. I rotate my wrists, watching the suit's servos adjust smoothly to each movement. I bend my elbows, roll my shoulders, arch my back slightly. Still nothing. Not even a twinge.

What the fuck?

[Injury Assessment Complete]

[Damage Level: 0%]

[Status: Unexpectedly Intact]

[Probability: 0.0089%]

[System Note: Interesting...]

[Anomaly Detection: Active]

The mist pressing against my exposed face is so thick I can barely see my own outstretched hand. Tendrils of white vapor curl around my fingers like living things, making familiar shapes seem alien and wrong. But I'm alive. Somehow, impossibly, I'm alive and whole.

And that, more than anything else, makes me deeply uneasy. Because in my experience, when impossible things happen, they usually happen for a reason.

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

And the reasons are rarely good.

I push myself to my feet, the movement cautious despite the lack of pain. The ground beneath my boots gives slightly with each shift of weight, like walking on dense foam. The sensation is disconcerting—no natural terrain should feel this uniformly springy. Each step makes the surface compress and rebound, sending tiny ripples outward through whatever strange material I'm standing on.

The suit's stabilizers whir as they compensate for the unstable footing. The servos in my boots keep adjusting and readjusting, trying to find solid purchase on a surface that seems to actively resist it. It's like trying to walk on a waterbed, except the waterbed might be alive.

I take another step, watching the ground react. The ripples spread out in geometric patterns that don't match any natural wave propagation I've ever seen. They move too precisely, too deliberately, as if following some alien mathematics.

I crouch down for a closer look, fighting back a wave of vertigo as the mist swirls around me. The surface has an intricate latticed pattern, reminiscent of honeycomb but more complex, with layers that seem to fold into themselves in impossible ways. My eyes struggle to follow the patterns—they shift and change when I try to focus on them, like an Escher drawing come to life.

The texture appears organic rather than geological, spreading out in every direction through the mist. Some kind of massive fungal growth, perhaps? The color is difficult to determine in the diffuse light—somewhere between bone-white and ash-gray, with undertones that make my eyes hurt if I look too long.

The longer I stare at it, the more wrong it seems. The patterns don't repeat exactly, but they're too regular to be natural. And there's something about the way the surface responds to pressure that suggests... awareness? No, that's crazy talk. But I can't shake the feeling that this entire clearing is one vast, living thing.

A sound cuts through my examination—something between a click and a chirp, but with harmonics that set my teeth on edge. It's like nothing I've ever heard before, a sound that shouldn't be possible with Earth biology. My body tenses, combat training kicking in even as my malnourished muscles protest the sudden movement.

The sound echoes strangely in the mist, making it impossible to pinpoint its source. Every instinct screams that I'm being watched. The fine hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I feel my skin break out in goosebumps despite the suit's temperature regulation.

[Status Update: Vish Naman]

Level: 0

Health: 23/100

Strength: 12/100

Agility: 8/100

Endurance: 7/100

Special Status: System Marked

Active Debuffs:

- Chronic Malnutrition (-40% to all physical stats)

- Recurring Malaria (-20% to stamina regeneration)

- Battle Fatigue (-15% to reaction time)

- Environmental Disorientation (-10% to perception)

- Unknown Effect: ???

Combat Readiness: Critical

Survival Rating: Sub-Optimal

Hidden Potential: [CALCULATING...]

Warning: Current stats critically below survival threshold

System Note: Subject requires immediate upgrade path

I blink away the status screen—I don't need numbers to tell me how pathetically weak I am. The suit's systems flash more warnings about my suboptimal physical condition, numbers scrolling past in angry red text. Each one is a reminder of every meal I never had, every infection I couldn't properly treat, every night spent sleeping on cold concrete instead of a proper bed.

The sound comes again, closer this time. Something is moving through the mist-shrouded jungle around me, something that sounds like no Earth creature I've ever heard. The alienness of that sound makes my heart rate spike, and I taste copper in my mouth as adrenaline floods my system.

[Warning: Adrenal Response Exceeding Safe Parameters]

[Suit Compensating...]

[Administering Stabilizers...]

[Unknown Environmental Factor Detected]

[Analysis: Inconclusive]

My hands won't stop shaking. The suit tries to compensate, nanomuscle fibers tightening to steady my grip, but some fears go too deep for technology to fix.

I move cautiously through what I now realize is a clearing, surprised by how far away the nearest trees appear to be. The mist makes it difficult to judge distances, turning what might be meters into mysterious expanses of white haze. Each step sends ripples through the latticed ground beneath my feet, like walking across some vast living membrane.

Some kind of organic fungal growth? It doesn’t matter. I’m on an alien world, everything’s going to be strange. Whatever evolutionary path this version of Earth took, it’s not my job to study it. Just to survive it.

[Ground Analysis Failed]

[Surface Composition: Unknown]

[Material Properties: Non-Standard]

[Warning: Anomalous Energy Signatures Detected]

The trees at the edge of the clearing loom like dark sentinels through the mist. Their shapes seem wrong somehow—too tall, too straight, with branches that stretch out at impossible angles. But maybe that's just the mist playing tricks on my eyes. Maybe everything looks alien when you're alone on a strange world.

Something moves again, accompanied by another of those alien sounds. This time, a stench hits me that makes me stagger—and I grew up in Dharavi, where the central "pond" is more scum than water, a final resting place for windblown trash, discarded tires, and rusted metal. That pond, where we slum kids still swim anyway, smells like a flower garden compared to this.

The stench is like nothing I've ever encountered. Not just bad, but wrong. It's the kind of smell that suggests whatever made it evolved specifically to produce the most horrific stench possible. Like rotting meat left in the sun, but with undertones of burning plastic and something else—something that makes my hindbrain want to curl up and die.

[Warning: Unknown Chemical Compounds Detected]

[Air Filtration: Maximum]

[Toxicity Analysis: Inconclusive]

[Recommendation: Reseal Helmet]

I ignore the recommendation. The smell is definitely organic, definitely animal, and definitely fresh. It has an edge to it that speaks of predator, of hunter, of thing-that-kills. Even the suit's filters can't completely block it out. Each breath brings new notes to the horror—hints of acid, of alien biochemistry, of evolutionary paths that should never have been taken.

My hands tremble as I check my weapon, and it takes three tries to disengage the safety. The familiar weight of the rifle should be reassuring, but somehow it feels absurdly inadequate. What good is Earth weaponry against whatever could produce that kind of stench? What kind of creature would even need to evolve such a powerful deterrent?

[Weapon Status: Armed]

[Ammunition: Standard Penetrator Rounds]

[Target Analysis: No Data]

[Combat Effectiveness: Unknown]

I begin to move, keeping my weapon up and ready, trying to control my breathing as panic claws at the edges of my mind. The stench is getting stronger. Whatever made it must be close. The mist swirls around me, thick enough to hide an army—or something worse than an army.

My finger tightens on the trigger. If anything moves, I shoot. Assuming I can even pull the trigger with my hands shaking this badly. Assuming whatever's out there can even be hurt by bullets.

The smell gets stronger, and with it comes a new sound—a wet, sliding sort of noise that makes my skin crawl. It sounds big. It sounds hungry.

[Threat Assessment: Processing...]

[Biometric Warning: Heart Rate Elevated]

[Adrenaline Levels: Spiking]

[Survival Probability: Calculating...]