I did not walk far before I was able to detect a discontinuity in this new environment that I was in.

Contrariwise, everything around me appeared tranquil. The soil beneath my boots was moist and spongy along with a dewy sense in the air, suggesting that it might have rained a relatively short time ago. There was evidence of a renewing effect on the countless small bushes around me and for the foreseeable distance. They were thin and lacked lush leaves, suggesting this place to be a normally dry region, but rainfall had 'lifted their posture' some.

I was intrigued by this new planet and curious to see its wildlife and potential intelligent inhabitants, but the breeze flowing around me carried an assortment of worrisome messages. Not only did it carry leftover atmospheric moisture from a rainstorm, but it also carried whispers of danger, which made me tread with caution. I knew better than to assume that this world would be welcoming to me.

A planet's ecosystem is much like a symphony tuning its instruments before a concert. It is uncoordinated and lacks any musical cohesion or vision, but there is still faint harmony amongst the droning sounds of the instruments, and this planet was no different. A melodic chaos.

However, I felt something different about this planet. Its symphony was…weary. Discontented. I sensed something more to this feeling of weariness that the wind carried, almost like something, somewhere, was happening. Was it a global phenomenon, or just regional? So many questions, but the only problem I needed to focus on was getting off this world and reuniting with my team—wherever in the universe they were.

I had been walking in the open wilderness for more than half an hour before I came across my very first sign of civilization about a dozen metres away over a hill. It was nothing grand or impressive; just a small one-story house-like structure with a plot of land enclosed within a rotting wooden fence. I was initially stoked to see this, but I knew I had to remain cautious.

It was never a wise thing for an alien like myself to waltz before a native or two and expect them to help with directions. They would either flee in terror or pelt me for my fur on sight. However, the area appeared discernibly vacant from a distance, which inclined me to investigate.

I kept my head down as I crept up the hill leading up to the house, my hand gripping my retracted staff around my belt. I was able to confirm that I couldn't sense any thoughts anywhere within the vicinity which thwarted my desire to see locals but made the house free to investigate. I just had to make sure it was safe to do so first.

I surveyed this lonely structure by taking a half-walk around it. It had a pointed roof with orange clay roof tiles and white plaster walls that looked mouldy and warn down, indicating that it hadn't been looked out for in a long time. The wooden door to the inside had broken off and was lying in the doorway, which confirmed to me that this property wouldn't be seeing anybody return any time soon.

Nevertheless, I slowly stepped inside and deployed my staff to its full length, keeping it close to me as I navigated the dusty interior. Although I sensed no thoughts in here, I called out anyway out of impulse. "Hello…?" I softly uttered, for a whisper could pass off as a shout in here given how quiet it was. There was a small living space, a kitchen, and even an entryway into a basement around a corner in the house.

I snooped around in here for a few minutes and found only dusty old trappings and other neglected belongings lying up on shelves or the creaky wooden floor. It was overtly clear that this place had been abandoned for many years, leaving me to speculate what became of the home's occupants. I eventually left the abandoned property once I tracked a rancid smell emanating from the basement. I suddenly had a worrisome thought that perhaps I wasn't the first to stumble across this place and check out every nook and cranny, so I quickly vacated the premises. It was just a strong inclination of mine that maybe it was best that I not follow in those potential explorers' footsteps beneath the house.

I continued on my way, leaving the house nearly a quarter mile behind me before I began thinking about where I could have been in the universe. There was no question that the portal technology aboard the Alpha Quazar had to have malfunctioned somehow and teleported me to wherever this planet was. That felt plausible enough, but what was that other realm I was in before I came here? I couldn't have imagined it, yet felt so surreal I began to question whether or not it was just a hallucination induced by oxygen deprivation due to a crack in my canopy.

My pondering thoughts eventually dwindled once I heard the sounds of a pounding coast nearby. The air also turned saltier as the wind picked up, suggesting an ocean. While not civilization, the sight of an ocean was nonetheless a prominent place of interest. I soon came across an elevation in the terrain that peaked a few metres up, leading me to believe I would see the coast just beyond it. It was steep enough that I had to grip it with my hands to keep a steady footing.

Before I could even fully scale this peak, a huge, dark oval-shaped mass appeared just over the hill which startled me just a little until I realised it was immobile. More and more of this mass was slowly being unveiled to me until I finally climbed to the top, and the awesome sight of a giant sea-faring ship had beached itself right in front of me. It was coated in rust and was idling silently while laying slightly lopsided.

I stared up at the bow of this behemoth, a natural thing to do when one encounters something that is hundreds of times your size. My mesmerisation soon led me to look down, where I discovered I was at the edge of a tall cliff face about two hundred feet high, which made me considerably less comfortable having my toes at where the grass ended. The ship itself had beached itself far enough inland that its bulbous bow was jutting into the rock wall of the cliff.

The sight of the beach led my attention down further to the right, where I could see a couple of more ships in the distance that had been beached incredibly deep inland, one large and one-half its size while laying on its side in the sand. I wondered what could have caused these accidents until I became more fixated on the state of the tide itself.

There was an incredibly lengthy beach between the shoreline and the long cliff I stood on. At first glance it would have been easy to assume that the tide was low if this world had a moon or two, or even the sea had receded due to an oncoming tsunami. However, the large, jagged rocks that peppered the massive beach were sunbaked, showing that they had been exposed to the elements for quite a long while. My sensitivity to eco-symphonies flared up like a lit match when I beheld this sight.

This was anything but ordinary. Something was causing the ocean levels to drop, and I had an uneasy feeling that there wasn't a natural cause to it. Not this quickly.

So many questions, and still no answers found.

Since I had yet to come across any other potential candidates for a power source, I decided to investigate these beached shipwrecks to see if there was anything I could use in them to hopefully jumpstart the Cloud Runner.

It couldn't be guaranteed that I would find anything remotely helpful in any of them, but I had to try something. The rocks on the cliff were sturdy and easy to grip, so it was a relatively easy climb down towards the beach. What kept it from being easier was the sense of pressure building up inside my skull.

I felt like I may have been getting a small headache, which didn't surprise me at first. The air in this planet's atmosphere may have had some other gases in it that I was still adjusting to, but I couldn't be sure without the Cloud Runner's atmospheric gauge. The headache didn't worsen until sometime after I had touched down on a rock bed just before the sand. It was an unconventional sensation because it didn't exactly hurt, but rather like a persistent buzzing was progressively getting louder and louder in my brain.

I was able to ignore it well enough by the time I walked to the edge of this exposed slab of stone, choosing which wreck I would investigate first. The one closest to me, which was the wreck that was the smallest and lying on its side, was an easy pick. It also came to my attention that any of these wrecks—preferably the bigger ones—would make good shelter should night come soon. I had a couple of MREs in my backpack, so I had some food for a little while. It would be wiser that I tackle my given obstacles diligently and with patience without rushing things too quickly.

Of course, one had to be in a clear state of mind to start planning their first night out in the wilderness, and my headache only became more cumbersome as the minutes passed. By the time I stepped out on the sand towards the wreckage, my head pulsed with the relentless buzzing, which was now becoming hard to put to the side. I began to hold my head as the discomfort got the better of me, forcing me to sit down on a smaller rock closer to me.

I hoped that rubbing my temples would ease the pressure, but this revealed to be a kind of pressure that was unique to individuals with my abilities. I didn't realise this at that time, but I had felt a sensation like this in the past, sometime before I was led to Sauria. This was the same buzzing in my mind that preceded the premonition that led me to that world.

What was different this time, however, was that the ambient buzzing soon became occupied with something else. As if it were a radio receiving a clearer signal, a slew of disembodied whispers began manifesting inside this cerebral static. They cooed with despair and hopelessness, filling my mind with their grief.

"The last… The last…"

"We are the last…"

"Quiet death…"

"Unknown death…"

"Who will remember…?"

"Who can remember…?"

"Them…"

"Them…"

"They are salvation…"

"They are unification…"

"All will end and begin with them…"

These were just the handful of vague words I could hear amongst the buzzing that continued to pound my head. I had long surpassed being able to hear my thoughts—or perhaps these became my thoughts. If I had more time to myself, I might have been able to wrangle these rampant thoughts down and try to understand them, but the chance for that slipped away once I felt the ground beneath me begin to tremble.

By the time I had realised the danger that was approaching, it had already been flung off my perch when the sand had burst to the left of me. Within seconds I was being pounced on by a large creature with long pincer-like legs. The moment was such a rush of surprise and adrenaline I couldn't distinguish what exactly was attacking me, but what I did know was that it had massive fangs that it tried to ferociously sink into me, but I was able to just barely hold the creature off by sheer strength long enough for me to coil my legs and kick the beast off of me.

It was a heavy creature, but I managed to force it on its back before I whipped my laser pistol out of its holster and fired four shots point-blank without hesitation. It was dead in an instant as it lay in the sand motionless, yet I still pointed my gun at it while breathing heavily from the surprise attack. It was in this brief moment of tense silence did I got a better look at this creature, and it truly was a menacing-looking one.

It was a large insectoid beast with four pincer-like legs, a raised bulbous abdomen in the rear of its body, and a small, seemingly eyeless fanged head in the front. Its exoskeleton was primarily orange in colour with vibrant splashes of teal around the ends of its legs and head, and the suggestion of wings was visible as two shells covering the back of the creature's abdomen hung open and were drooping to the sides of the body.

Greenish-yellow blood pooled beneath the body as I staggered back up to my feet, relieved that I managed to kill it, but my relief was incredibly short-lived once I felt another tremor beneath my feet. The sand then burst a dozen feet away from where I stood, and an identical creature crawled up from the sand and charged at me with alarming speed. I fired a few more shots and it collapsed on the spot, lifelessly sliding to my feet.

More and more of these creatures began popping up from the sand to circumvent me. Despite appearing not to have eyes, they knew precisely where I was and stopped at nothing to reach me despite their other kin dropping dead from my gunfire. The reality of my situation became clear frighteningly fast: whatever these burrowing insectoids were, I was standing right above their nest, and I was about to have the whole hive out to rip me into pieces if I didn't get out of these sand traps fast.

I began to run once my pistol ran out of cells, taking off with tremendous haste back towards the cliff. Staying anywhere near this beach was too risky. I needed to get to higher ground fast, but I made the mistake of staying on the sand as I ran. I was about halfway over to the rocks at the base of the cliff face when more than twenty of these beasts burst from the ground, and their long pincer legs were much more adept on the sand than my feet.

Before I knew it, I was surrounded by these giant insects, forcing me to deploy my small machine gun. I unleashed a barrage of laser fire all around me, effectively killing most of them, but many more were on the way. I was forced to run and shoot if I wanted to reach the rocks with all my limbs attached. Soon enough, I was merely feet away from the rocks now until I sensed a stir amongst the swarming beasts behind me; a shift in strategy that my telepathy was slow in picking up due to my focusing intently on reaching the rocks.

A cacophony of loud buzzing sounds made me turn my head, and a few of those beasts were now airborne as they leapt over the pursuing horde with their wings and pounced at me before I was able to aim my weapon. I dropped my gun as I tumbled, trying to kick off the creature trying to pin me down and bite my head off. The creature's set of three fangs ground together viciously, secreting disgusting residue all over my face.

A primal rage seemed to overtake in at this moment, which gave me the strength to kick this beast off at me, allowing me enough room to grab my staff and deploy it to its full length. I jumped back up to my feet in an instant caved the creature's exoskeleton in, and proceeded to fight off the oncoming horde in an identical manner. It had been a little while since I fought off so many opponents with just my staff, but I had never lost my stride, and this fight proved it to me.

I whirled my treasured weapon around with unrelenting fury as I whacked, bashed, impaled, and blew away the beasts that swarmed with its magic. It was like flipping a switch; I had returned to my natural mode of fighting that I had perfected for most of my life, and these creatures were not prepared for my quick and offensive recovery. When I managed to force a line of the beasts away from me, I saw the open I pined for and used my staff to pole vault myself over them and flip back around before landing on the rocks.

Wanting to make a statement that I hoped these monstrous creatures would understand, the leafed-shaped end of my staff unfurled as I spewed a blazing wall of fire around my rock, which worked as intended with optimal results. The insectoid beasts chittered and hissed as they backed away from the licking flames that rose teen feet off the ground. I did not stand around to admire my handiwork for I had already turned and ran for the cliff face.

Knowing my flaming diversion wouldn't hold them back for long, I holstered my staff and quickly began to climb up the cliff, sinking my claws deep within the crevasse and keeping my eyes focused squarely on the ledge that was more than two hundred feet away straight up. It was a stressful but relatively quick climb as I did not stop for any reason, not even to catch my breath. This was mostly because many of the beasts attempted to fly up and knock me off the wall, though many crashed into the wall unsuccessfully. That did manage to make me scream a couple of times considering how high up I was climbing.

However, I eventually climbed higher than their wings would allow them to jump and their efforts to attack me ceased when the remaining beasts began to burrow beneath the sand again. I stopped climbing for the first time when watching it, and I sighed in both relief and exhaustion. I only had around thirty feet left to climb, so I resumed at a much more mindful pace before I finally reached the ledge.

I pulled myself over and laid on my stomach for a long and tired moment. All of my muscles ached and I was nearly out of breath. That was way more excitement than I would ever voluntarily indulge in—let alone involuntarily like it had been. If nothing at all, I had learned an important survival lesson about this planet, and that was to never wander idly out onto a beach should there be a colony of those monsters burrowed beneath it.

I gifted myself another minute of rest before I rose to my knees, feeling my palms and fingertips for they were quite sore from all the climbing. Before I could hope to recollect myself and begin thinking up a new plan going forward, a distant but sharp cracking sound rippled through the air, which made my left twitch. I froze where I was and slowly looked in the direction where I heard it, just over the hills to my left before I was met with the sudden and unpleasant surprise of a dart landing right into my left shoulder.

In less than two seconds an unnatural numbness spread from my shoulder and throughout my body like a flame to tissue paper, and I fell over on my back without so much as a whimper. The worst part was that I was not unconscious. I was still wide awake, but I could not move any part of my body—not even my eyes as my terrified gaze remained fixed up at the cloudy sky. There are not many moments I can recall in memory that could compare to the amount of terror I felt when I essentially became a ragdoll near the edge of that cliff.

I remained in this harrowing state for another minute when something suddenly passed over me. A small metal sphere with a large red lens in its centre floated before my paralyzed body and emitted a thin blue light from a second smaller lens above its primary one and began moving it all around my body like it was scanning me. At long last, the numbing drug in the dart seemed to finally be working on my consciousness because I began to lose focus along with a blurring vision and hearing loss.

Before I could fully pass out, I managed to hear the probe proclaim its assessment of me. "OUTLAND CONTAINMENT TEAM," it announced in a robotic feminine voice that got waterier with each passing second, "SURVEY OF LOCAL OUTBREAK CONCLUSIVE. INFECTION IDENTIFIED. CONTAINMENT LEVEL ADJUSTMENT. EXECUTE DIAGNOSTIC BIODIC ASSESSMENT. CONDUCT. PROBE. DISSECT…"