The first thing that Mars felt was water, coming down from the darkness above her. The next thing she felt was an incredible pain in her leg, one that woke her right up.

Gasping for air, Mars found herself sitting upright, which immediately made the whole room creak and wobble softly. When she went to stabilize herself as the room wobbled, her arms shot beside her, groping blindly as she looked for the nearest thing beside her she could hold to. When she found it, the padded armrest immediately to the left and right of her, she held fast as the whole room stopped wobbling, completely still. It was then that Mars took a moment to focus her eyes and take in her surroundings.

The air was salty, fresh, and sweetly calming. A large amount of light came from beside her, casting shadows all about the room, obscuring all that she could see. What she could see looked mechanical, heavily engineered. As she looked down at her own chest, she found straps going over her shoulder and down into her lap, securely fastened to her, beginning to confirm her suspicions for as to where she was. Up above, on the curved, structurally intact walls, a red caution warning ran along the edge of the round lip up above. 'Escape Pod - Crew Capacity: 2'.

Mars returned her focus to the seat belt over her body, frowning. As she woke up more and more she was coming to the same, confused conclusion:

"W-Where am I...?"

With little attention spent to her actual position inside the escape pod, Mars still knew she was sitting at an angle, the chair mounted at a slight upward angle in the curved enclosure. Her hand curled in on itself into a desperate fist and rammed into the dead center of her chest, smacking the red 'Release' that held her seat belt together. The retractable straps still worked, and Mars was free almost instantly, only having to fumble with pulling her arms loose slightly. Again, the whole craft began to wobble slightly, but with much less movement. She grasped the ends of the armrests on either side of her, sliding her forward to the lip of her seat, where she felt herself slipping forward for her legs to catch her, fully expecting her boots to make contact with the iron-plated floor.

They did. It was then that Mars remembered the shooting pain in her leg.

"Aaauggh!"

Mars screamed, her voice echoing off the walls of the escape pod. She had lifted herself off the chair momentarily, but as soon as she put weight on her leg she collapsed towards the side, almost flinging herself downward. She braced for the brutal impact of iron, but instead found herself flopping down onto a drift of sand. Immediately she closed her eyes and let herself rest momentarily, feeling a dense cloud of sand whoosh up against her and flitter softly over her face, getting tangled in her hair. Her hand felt for the ground beside her, clawing into the sand and feeling the grains slip between her fingers. When she opened her eyes she found what she had truly landed in was sand, and the deep rake marks of where her fingers had sank into quickly filled in the grooves with a gentlly audible rush.

As she lifted herself up, Mars found herself lying in a spot of sunlight. Looking up blinded her. The salty smell was now that much more surrounding and invasive, almost as if she could feel it entering in from the open space ahead of her, just as the warmth of the sun had.

Mars put her knee between herself and the ground, easing herself along. She gave a passing glance to her pained leg, seeing dried blood had streaked down from the open gash in the plastic of the boot. Ignoring the pain and the visual for the time being, Mars pulled herself forward, navigating through broken shards of glass as she brought herself to the opening of the escape pod and stepped out.

It was beautiful beach. The most idyllic one Mars had ever seen. Her eyes wandered over the pristine landscape, widening despite the bags beneath. Her nostrils flared and took in the scent of the sea. All around, her ears were filled with the blasting wind and the crashing waves near her. Beneath the pod, the ground was glassy, slicked with water, the sand a deep, soothing shade of brown. Foaming white waves passed in front of her in small trickles, the pod being at the end of where the tide came in. In the distance, large and wide swaths of white sand filled her vision, walled by dense and green palm trees.

The wide, round lip of the escape pod proved a challenge when Mars was crawling on her hands and knees, dragging her legs behind her. Taking her good leg, Mars swung her leg out over the ledge and planted her boot in the wet sand, feeling the cool ocean water slosh up all around the boot. With her hands gripping the side, levying her injured leg over the side so that it dangled, she took another deep breath, gritting her teeth, and leaning forward. Without putting any weight on the leg, her boots sank into the wet sand, and she still couldn't feel any pain. Finally, she leaned in, putting a slight amount of weight onto her legs. The pain was initial, Mars hissing and wincing, forcing her eyes shut, but soon the sensation in her strained muscles began to die down.

All at once, Mars stood up. She let out a loud groan of pain, and immediately found herself stumbling back towards the escape pod, but she didn't go back to the opening. Her arm rested, extended, holding her up against the curved wall, slightly stooped forward. She was standing, albiet with help and an incredible amount of pain, but she was standing.

"Mars! Hey, Mars!"

Above the incredible sound of crashing waves, Mars heard something new. Saturn's voice was familiar, as familiar to her as the old friend that he was. It seemed to make her pain subside as she stood a little easier.

Mars was catching her breath, a hand bracing her against the wall of the escape pod and another holding the knee of her injured leg. Slowly, Mars raised her head, looking to the horizon. Her eyes seemed to flare, expanding with a renewed sense of excitement. Involuntarily, she felt her breath pick up and quicken, leaving the slow and exhausted breaths behind her.

It was Saturn, and he was running towards her, the sooty plumes of a small fire behind him that looked incredibly inviting.