I stared at the device in my lap, and laid down my tools. It was about the size of a bottle cap, a tempered glass lens with a brass frame. The impressive part, however, was the machinery attached to the frame. It was also rather small, no longer than my pinky finger, but contained some specially written code and a small camera. I connected the device to my glasses, and then stood up, and walked over to the door. Just as I was about to say the activation phrase, the room was suddenly bathed in red light, and a loud alarm rang out through the transport. Mr. Stevens came rushing into the room.
“We need to get to the life pod, now!" He yelled, already dragging me out the door.
"What's going on?" I asked, a tight feeling already forming in my gut.
"Adam just shot Captain Richard, and he's probably going for you next." Stevens explained quickly, leading me down the hallway.
"HE DID WHAT?!" I yelled, the emergency alarms blaring as we passed. Adrenaline flooded through me. Running through the hallways bathed un crimson, I stammered out the starts of several different questions before he answered me.
"Adam is an assassin. Your father assigned me here because he expected something to happen on this trip. Turn here, quick."
"Why would there be an assassin here?" I asked nervously, making the turn and sprinting to catch up.
"Because, Aiden, you are the heir to a rather successful mining company, thereby painting a fairly large target on your back. Now, faster, we don't have the time to chat."
I had so many question I wanted to ask, but Mr. Stevens pushed me into the pod, sending me banging into the fabricator, the door closing before I could get any answers. I looked up at him, just in time to see him slam into the airlock panel, the door splattered with red.
"What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck wh-" Was all I could say before the pod decoupled from the ship, launching off into the void. I stared at the stars, watching them shoot past as I rocketed through space. I used the time to breathe, to process what had just happened.
Having been able to calm down, I started searching the pod for a way to tell where I was headed. Standard protocol had life pods automatically head towards the nearest habitable planet, so at least I wouldn't die instantly, but I was looking for a way to find what planet specifically. Unfortunately, destination info was stored on the launch panel, which is on the wall of the transport. Finding nothing, I decided that the best thing I could do would be to rest and wait to land.
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After a few hours, a loud bang woke me up. I ran out door to see where I had landed, and realized that I had some very bad luck. I had never seen anything like these plants in the manuals back home. The trees ranged in size from about the height of an average tree on Earth, to almost 4 stories tall. They branched out at the top, sprouting dark purple leaves. a couple of the taller trees had fruit, but even if I could reach it, I had no way to tell if it was safe to eat. There were a variety of small animals hiding near the top as well, including one that looked remarkably like a squirrel, with an extra set of legs. Closer to the ground, the plants became a dull orange colour. There was a break in the tree line off to the left, And a large ivy-covered boulder to the right. As I took in my surroundings, I heard a quiet burbling.
"Water! At least I won't die of thirst!" I yelled. Then I heard another noise. A deep, rumbling growl.
"That's gonna be an issue though." I scrambled back into the pod and slammed the door shut, just in time to see a mountain lion with two tails and black claws slam into the window. I said a mountain lion, but the only real similarities between that thing and a mountain lion are being vaguely feline in form. This nightmare cat had deep purple fur, with long, gleaming teeth. Its hide was covered in scars, rippling around sinuous muscle. But the most terrifying part, was that the shadows seemed to bend around it, almost hiding its presence entirely when under the cover of shade.
I called it the Nightmare Cat. I would've come up with a better name if it wasn't running around my pod looking for a way to get at my juicy me meats.
"I think ill just stay in here for a bit." Trying to get into as small of a ball as possible, I noticed a little twinge of pain in the back of my head, similar to a headache forming. I must not have felt it before because of how little time I'd had to think until then. After poking the general area for a while, I suddenly felt my mind expand. Not in the "I'm experiencing enlightenment" way, more like a section of my brain felt as if it was being pumped up like a balloon. I couldn't feel any physical changes, but I could definitely feel something there with my proprioception. It didn't feel like a normal organ though. It felt like a water balloon forcefully crammed inside my cranium, probably due to the splitting headache that popped up immediately afterwards.
"I'm pretty sure that's not normal. People don't typically have unknown fluid sacs in their brains." I muttered to myself, while trying to get a feel for whatever this new organ was. Thinking about it really hard didn't seem to be working, so i was reduced to moving the muscles in my face. After a few minutes of random muscle movements, I threw my hands up. And subsequently slammed them into the ceiling of my pod.
"Ow ow fuck, god that sucked." I cursed, before looking down at my hands. My now glowing hands. "WHAT THE FUCK?!" I yelled, eliciting a roar from the nightmarish mountain lion. I cursed again, much more quietly this time. My hands were glowing, and I was really hoping it meant something good. I ran through a list of things that can turn your blood into glowstick fluid. Bioluminescence was somewhat plausible, but not ideal in my situation. Radiation probably didn't do this, but if it did then I could hope for either superpowers or cancer. Not a gamble I'd love to take, but I wasn't sure I had a choice. Right at the bottom of the list, as the least plausible thing I could think of, was magic. Honestly, I was banking on this one, because that would probably be my best chance of not getting mauled.
I decided that, through sheer wishful thinking, I would try and get it to work like magic, and hope I could get a spell or something that would save me. As I watched my hands, I noticed the glow lessening slightly. It almost looked like something was leeching out of my palms, directly into my veins. I switched to watching them for a time, but was jolted out of my observations by the Nightmare Cat jumping onto the roof of the pod and scratching at it. With renewed purpose, I tried to get a feel for how I made my hands glow the first time. I closed my eyes to better focus. I had hurt my hands, and I wanted to do something about it. Not only that, I was trapped in a terrible situation, and I wasn't about to roll over and give this stupid cat a free meal. I was gonna get out of this. I tried to channel that feeling. The determination to survive. I felt the sac dangling off my cerebellum get a little less full. I felt a rushing feeling in my arms. and I didn't even need to see the glowing ball of magic floating above my right palm to know that I was gonna survive this.