Hello again ladies and gentlemen, finally have written a second chapter! I'm publishing it hopefully soon after I began with my first chapter because I personally feel that it could use a little bit more fruit. Despite this, I am pretty excited for this chapter, it will have a lot more dialog than the last one, and a bit more length as well. Hope you enjoy! (P.S double spaced for your enjoyment!)

The star above began to sink towards the pink horizon as Ahykah continued his trek through the forest. The smoke was all but dwindling in the sky as he began to settle down for the night. He quickly took precautions, not knowing what kind of nocturnal predators would roam the woods after sundown. He began to set up a small camp in a clearing between the trees. "It has plenty of bushes and undergrowth surrounding it that nothing should be able to attack while I sleep." He said to himself quietly. The forest had mostly dried out since the morning dew, allowing him to find some dry wood for kindling and fire. He spent some time collecting wood, and quickly returned back to the makeshift "camp" to begin preparing to make a fire. Sadly, one of the things he didn't have in his pockets when he awoke was some flint and steel. So he had to do it the old fashioned way, two sticks and luck. He split the tinder into tinier pieces, so it would burn faster and began furiously rubbing the two together. It took a lot of energy, but the rich oxygenated atmosphere made lighting the fire much easier. The warmth of the fire was soothing to his tired wing muscles, as pushing and slicing bushes took a lot out of him. He soon realized that he was very hungry. It had not hit him earlier, which was at most puzzling. He knew that he had to hunt, and soon.

Before the sun went down, Ahykah wandered through the woods, his Avian sense of direction greatly helping him know how to get back to his camp in case of need. He heard the pounding of water dully roaring through the trees and quickly. Piquing his attention, Ahykah slowly creeps toward the noise, which gets ever louder as he approaches. Finally, it comes into view, a glistening waterfall, surrounded on all sides by trees and foliage, hugging the ridge line that supported it. The pool at the bottom of the waterfall was more impressive, covered by a mist of water ejected by the fall, the lake shined crystal clear in the fading light. In it, were the most curious organisms Ahykah had ever seen. There were fish, some shining, some dull, a few had two heads as well, with a menagerie of species in this small lake that all look completely and oddly fitting. He removed his hunting spear from a strap that he had crossed over his back, and crept slowly to the glistening water. Picking out a rather large fish, with two eyes on one side. With a loud clap, he thrust the spear into the water for the fish. He cursed under his breath as the fish slid out from under his spear at the last second. "Kluex be damned!" he muttered. He continued to peruse the edges of the lake, looking for more fish, and attempting to spear the larger kinds that he saw.

After a few minutes of trying and missing, Ahykah's spear finally penetrated the abdomen of an unruly looking fish. It's green blood began to spread as he lifted it out of the water, carefully avoiding the spines on its sides. More swiftly than his previous trek, he returned to his camp, the fire almost out. He quickly added some of his collected wood to the fire to set it ablaze, and pulled out his knife. Removing the meat contents of the fish was particularly tricky. It's bones interlaced between each other in many different irregular patterns he had not seen before. The meat was pretty obvious to spot, it's color very different from the green blood that coated his hands. After he serrated the fish for it's sustenance, Ahykah quickly created a hanging stove, using sticks and rope to give him a place to cook the fish meat. The meat cooked quickly with the large fire. He also placed his canteen atop the fire to purify it of bacteria which he presumed lived on this planet as well. He began to eat the fish, which tasted rather pleasant for an alien species. It had a sharp, oily taste, as most fish do, and it filled him up rather quickly. He took some warm sips of his canteen as well. "Not a bad dinner for the first night on another planet." he said to himself with a grin. Building up a small stockpile of leaves, and digging himself a small pit in the ground to lay in, Ahykah lay down in the ground next to his fire, and slowly contemplated his situation, whether he would see civilization or not. He figured that the smoke that he had been following earlier could give him some hope, or some ideas of how to get off of the planet. The ground was warm and comfortable to lay in, and he soon drifted off into a deep sleep, charmed by the critters calling in the night…

Ahykah woke with a stir, the condensation of moisture upon his brow lay uncomfortably so, quickly wiping it off with his left wing. He sat up and looked at the fire, it's ashes splayed across the ground surrounding it, looking like dark snow. The fire was burnt out, and Ahykah had no intentions of waiting around much longer. He picked up his gear, and cleaned up the area of useful objects which lay cluttered around his camp. He set off in the last direction in which he saw the smoke, which was pretty obvious earlier before. The hike through the forest opened up quickly, soon he began to see chunks of metal spewn in an unorganized fashion around the forest. Their shapes and thicknesses were erratic, with black portions of the metal which he presumed were caused from an explosion. "I must be getting close, and whatever spaceship this may be, it doesn't look like there were any survivors." The smell of burnt timber and ashes filled his beak as he moved towards the wreckage. His first inclination was caution, for he knew that there could be another being, and didn't wish to startle them. He came into the burnt clearing and saw the perpetrator of the black smoke that he saw earlier.

It was a spacecraft, sleek and rounded, which contained two engine cells on it's sides. The hull was burnt black, it's electrical components fried. Most of them, anyway. "The outside of the hull is burnt." he noted to himself. "But most engine bays of this type of spacecraft are extremely resilient, maybe the FTL (Faster than Light) drives are still intact." Ahykah quickly placed his equipment on the ground, and walked over to the burnt spacecraft. He noticed a damaged hull panel on the side of one of the engine bays and proceeded to walk over and examine it. The few bolts left on the panel were loose, and Ahykah was able to wiggle them free with some effort. He looked inside of the engine, the fiber wires were zigzagging here and there, everywhere, there were no glowing coolant cells, or anything that indicated power to the spacecraft. "Without an engineer, there is no way I could reach the FTL drive without damaging the electric systems." he said. Ahykah examined the engine for a few more moments, then stepped down from the spacecraft.

It was still dawn, and he knew that he should probably set up camp. With any luck, the spacecraft's emergency beacon would be active, and another spacecraft could be on it's way to investigate the transmission. Ahykah sighed. He had hoped that the spacecraft would have given him more than the hope for rescue, that it was still mostly intact and that what he had learned about them in school could help him use it to get into orbit at least. But the aircraft was not going anywhere in it's condition. Ahykah stepped into the forest once more to look for firewood, the ground was very well dry, and the sky was clear of clouds, save for the few scattered miles apart. Ahykah continued to work his way around, and eventually began the trip back to the spacecraft to set up camp. Suddenly, Ahykah heard a loud snap, causing him to turn his head swiftly. -"Wings up, now!"

A bit of a cliffhanger to leave the second chapter. I thoroughly enjoyed writing this one, the little details and descriptions make everything pop out in my mind, and I enjoy writing them. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, I will most certainly be quick with the next one! I think that I will start writing it now as a matter of fact, I can't wait to introduce someone new for a change! Thanks for reading!

-MrZayas