I got up early straight into the early hours of the morning to try my luck at finding something, but I quickly realized that there was nothing before I packed my things and moved forward with all the equipment back to the track. All the noise, movement, and commotion of the night feels like a distant dream only when I'm out of my way.

The screen projected my route with every step I take and I'm just counting my time until when we will arrive. More points appeared on the map, but this time Rosalina changed their display to their form in no time, and no later, another herd of gazelle gathering their food with their companions, disregarding my existence and focusing on their lives as I moved forward.

Shortly after I passed the herd, more dots began to appear, but this time they were foreign to the visual system. According to the direction of the points, they progress in my direction. Without any comment from Rosalina, I tried to look for a place to hide and right next to me stood rotting fragments of concrete and steel covered slightly with ash and something grassy green. Without asking I tried to hide and armed myself for the worst case. Their progress was slow, but the power of their every step was felt until already in the field of vision I saw them: up close they looked like large elephants but as they approached their own herd, their size increased until they looked like the size of medium-sized voyagers and with them, only their strangeness was visible: their bodies Firm and looks tough, with a big and wide hole. With each of their steps, I feel the ground shaking but when they even got closer, my shelter could not hold and from it, a strange group of small insects started to fly. One of them bumped into my helmet, looks like a scorpion with so many legs and wings before it grabs me. A chilling sensation went through my body and I try to expel it.

One hand movement wanting to throw him off and he reacted back and physically flew away from me. But without noticing, I exposed myself to the herd that was standing very close to me and I saw them closely. I aim my guns straight one even larger than the rest of the herd advancing towards him, similar to the alpha I know. From a closer look, they each had six large eyes, but eyes reminiscent of a sentient being. He looked back at me as I aimed my stomp weapons at him, ready to fire if he started to do anything, but the herd continued to advance and I noticed they were all covered in what looked like scaly armor with spikes. He raised his trunk and suddenly revealed his mouth that contains calisthenics, only making my chills be felt and fear take over, but for some strange reason, Rosalina didn't react and tell me to do something. His trunk advanced to one of the grasses standing next to me, plucked it, and put it in his mouth with lots of limbs before he continued to move forward with the herd that looked exactly like him. As they continued to advance and I froze with fear and chills, they ignored me and moved forward on their way. That big guy standing in front of me had a big, wide scar on one of his six legs, he was looking at a small creature that looked like him and didn't care about my existence. They advanced and moved away from me with their stiff tails something similar to the doe tails of dinosaurs I remember being with at the museum.

I lowered my weapons as they approached the horizon of my field of vision and the fear began to disappear and was replaced by amazement at the large and scary-looking, yet gentle and cautious animals. They advanced into the herd of gazelle and they just let them pass without running away as if they were nobility before they disappeared from the horizon and I decided it was my time to leave the place. I made my way back to my things and gathered them up before continuing down the track. The silence between me and Rosalina was palpable until she began to speak:

"Biological and genetic information was successfully collected on them"

"Why didn't you warn me?" I answered a little nervously

"There was no need to warn anything, no physiological process was detected that could have endangered you"

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"But still, wouldn't he have thought to comment on something like that?"

"All the information I collected overloaded my systems, and since they didn't pose any danger, there was no need"

I tried to touch my eyes as a sign of disappointment, but I couldn't because of the helmet.

"Okay, I forgive that" I responded:

"I think it was right that we just keep moving towards the goal"

"Positive" Rosalina continued to display more things on the map, but none of them looked any different than before. During the whole walk, I look at them with their big but gentle eyes. The external Maram resemble full-grown insects, but they don't behave like that, they are like a herd of elephants. To me, it's because they have a root, but I'm not sure. All this thinking and I didn't notice that daylight had already arrived. The map began to change and began to show one very critical point and soon I was able to see on the horizon something unusual, but familiar - a tall and thin device of several red-black dots on which stood something that resembled a large satellite dish in some respects. I immediately knew what it was and I was filled with excitement and started to increase my pace. The facility only grew with each step I took and with it I noticed that it was standing on a building soon I also noticed a large fence that wraps around the roof of the building, and I immediately knew:

"The airport!!!" Out of excitement, I shouted and immediately continued to move even faster.

The place just keeps getting closer with every step I take, but then something strange started to appear on the horizon - a green layer started to appear on the horizon and only started to thicken with each step until I already saw a clear picture that what is in front of me, there is another small obstacle that I have to pass. I kept going further but my muscles started to signal to me that I had to slow down until they started to cramp and pain started to feel. I started slowly following this.

"Colin, don't overexert your muscle" she warned me.

I slowed to a complete stop as I saw on the horizon what separated me from the airport: a large dense forest of what looked like giant cacti. Their spikes are so big that I could see them from the distance where I'm standing right now and their height dwarfs anything I thought was huge like in the previous forest. I decided to try to think of my next step:

"Rosalina, can you tell if my suit can make it through this forest without getting ripped or worse?"

"Calculation..." I sat down and took out the last water container I had and for a moment I remembered that cacti have water in them, and maybe it was a good idea to try to find their water. But before I began to carry out my plan, I further remembered the bamboo-like forest that they were not hollow at all. What will happen if I try to collect water from them and it turns out that they are trees disguised as cacti?

"You don't have to worry about that" Rosalina replied:

"There is a water reservoir that I spotted not far from here. You can come closer and check its quality according to consumption"

"That's great, I think I'll fill first before you tell me what you thought" I moved towards the location she directed me to and there I see a puddle of water dripping from the nearby building. I got closer and a few seconds later, she responded:

"The water from the dripping area is drinkable. The water in the puddle is unsafe and must be boiled first"

I opened my helmet and sipped the last of my water supply before I started placing the containers I had under the dripping point and sat down in front of them. I was waiting for a little for Rosalina's analysis regarding the first question. It didn't take long to change the tanks:

"The suit can withstand the spikes you saw"

"That's good news! I won't need to find another way to get through them" I at the same time try to seal the water I collected.

"But the environment itself is not safe according to a remote scan, and I'm afraid we need to get closer to them before I give another opinion and scan them better"

"I've been waiting for this answer. After I'm done here, I'll move closer to the cactus forest"

Time passed quickly until I finished things by the dripping puddle and continued to move toward the forest. Every step I take there only shows how big and spiky they look like porcupines, until I stood close to them. Rosalina started displaying the information about my helmet and it seems that according to the information gathered, I seem to have been cleared to pass, but then a strange warning came from the side of the visual map from one of the directions. I noticed that the color of the dot is red and it is moving quickly straight in my direction. Immediately Rosalina began to signal one thing to me:

"RUN!"