Before Perfection
by The Great Red Dragon
Chapter 6
I was surrounded by a vast, green, jungle.....which seemed pretty strange at first.
I had seen jungles and forests before on a computer screen, but never in-person. How could I have?
Then, the smell of the wild hit me. My sensitive nose could pick up all that had happened in my area in the last five minutes. The strongest and most prominent was the recent smell of burning, after I crashed and caused quite a lot of damage.
But there was also the aroma of plant-life, so mixed and mashed together that it was impossible to tell by smell which was which. I had never encountered such a feeling before, and I gave myself a minute where I just sniffed and looked around me; getting a feel for my environment.
Just then, I noticed that my suit was in shreds: here and there hung a sleeve or kneepad, hanging limply and lifelessly off of my battered body, with its natural light-orange color turned deep with a dash of my own blood. I ripped it off quickly, along with my beam-blasters that had remained in the pouches. All of my weapons had been damaged beyond repair in the crash, and were now just cracked bits of plastic and metal that were of no use to me.
I noticed that I felt less restricted without my suit on. But I also noticed how very cold I was...even though the jungle was quite warm.
To combat my cold, I began walking around, finally outside of my crash- site. I felt a bit wary of what I might encounter, but I felt kinda beyond- caring at the moment.
My feet sloshed across patches of mud, which probably worsened my appearance. I didn't encounter any species, and I was glad not to. In my weakened state, anything larger than me with predatory instincts would've turned me into a meal easily.
But no, I encountered nothing.
I walked/staggered for several hundred yards. It seemed like a hundred miles, in my sad condition. Like I said, I came upon no animals at first...but then, I discovered a small, winged insect hovering close to me; a brilliant green dragonfly.
Now, I don't know if it was hunger from a long flight, or just my pure lust for destruction, or if I was hoping it to be poisonous, but whatever the reason was, I proceeded to reach out, grab the dragonfly in my hurting hand, and stuffed the bug into my mouth. I brought my teeth down, and there was a sickening crunch that churned my stomach. I fought the feeling away, and swallowed the dragonfly in one gulp. A bit of its yellow goo ran out of the side of my mouth, but I didn't take the time to lick it up. It hardened quickly, but I didn't give a damn. Why worry about physical presence when I was hurting like so?
But...what was that?
I strained my eyes and hurried a few feet forwards, to the very edge of the jungle. What I saw, I did not believe.
This planet, this tiny planet, situated in the rear-end of the universe, was actually populated! And not just by any type of life-form, no, these creatures were actually intelligent! Buildings with lit windows decorated the short, traffic- lighted streets! Beeping, voices speaking and laughing, animals barking, and a whole mess of other sounds fill my ears as I stood there in awe, eyes wide.
For a few minutes I forgot my injuries and just admired the planet's civilization. Sure, it wasn't a city like the innerities of Turo, but it also wasn't the junkyards of Moorda. It was a small, suburban small-city suitable for just about anybody.
There was intelligent life on this planet; intelligent enough to build settlements and populate them.
...But how could this be? The star chart described this planet as no home of intelligence. They couldn't have been more wrong!
...Well, then again, if they had been wrong about Earth, maybe the moon paradise I talked about earlier wasn't a paradise after all, or maybe it didn't even exist! Hell, I hadn't around all that long, and I didn't know things. For all I knew, the star charts could have been messed up just for my inconvenience.
A truck zoomed passed. I was brought back to my painful state. I remembered my critical condition, and decided that I would need to do something about it. Maybe, just maybe, there was some way down there, that I would be able to heal myself. Perhaps I could seek out some medical care-things and foods. Perhaps I could survive in this place after all.
So with that thought in mind, I carefully slid down the hill I was standing on, and carefully, stealthily, made my way into the human world.
