Night had fallen.
The planet's moon was high in the clear, inky dark sky and shone down upon the lush green, jungle terrain that carpeted over the land like a blanket and touched over the sleek and chalk-white rocks of a mountain side, almost making it brighter in its nightly range.
It was quiet.
Not even the wind blew and a cold chill settled in the air but nature was unbothered. Prey was hunted, predators still fed and the cycle continued. The innocent moonlight continued on, shining down and carried on over the alien world.
Most prominently, there was a break in the trees. Like a huge 20-foot break in the trees that stood in a perfect circle with stone slabs that evened the ground around it like a pathway. In the centre lay of this, just like the trees, a perfectly circular 16 foot opening in the ground, but to a large, almost ornamental pit like cave that stretched down for 80 feet.
The bottom was almost water from its inside chamber filled but in its dead centre of its mouth up to the world was a flat grey stone surface that rose a foot from the water almost black moss that grew in edges and shadows. The moon light shone in and down like a torch to its centre as if to display its content.
There, the alien form lay at the bottom in its centre of the light.
The figure was sprawled out. A leg curled in more towards her body from the fall, the other stuck a little further out. Her right arm resting slightly curved above her head while the other was thrown off to the side close to her thigh. Brown eyes stared up endlessly, lips open only a fraction with only a few drops of dark red fluid that escaped passed her lips. Blood trailed down from under her head which was tilted over so off from facing up to the mouth; to the moon. It had seeped like ink down over the stone, darkening it further, touching into the still water but the trail was dry now.
The uniform, apart from the blood stains from the body, were undamaged. It's deep blue clear to see in the light, metal on the protective vest glimmering over her chest. A broken end of a rope lay at her boots. The alien's weapon a foot away, broken on impact.
The cavern was the cold. Far colder than the rest of the planet… Frost would almost settle if given the chance at a lesser degree of warmth but nothing moved nor stirred. The cavern was quiet and the woman still lay where she had fallen; nothing had come to investigate since it had happened, and she remained behind, even as the other aliens had left in a glazing flair of gold that left nothing behind but the fallen. The alien's screams had vanished with them. Filled with pain and panic; swallowed way.
Michael Burnham lay alone.