Chapter 1

Hibiki yawns, checking the date as he rolls out of bed. "March 28th, 2083," He reads aloud, rubbing his weary eyes. He sits on the edge of his bed, phone in hand. "Wait, it's March 28th!" He suddenly exclaims, scrambling to the closet of his small room on the spaceship. As Hibiki stumbles into the main area of the spacecraft, everyone else is already up and working. "Finally we are almost on the fucking planet" Abel, one of the two soldiers that NASA had put on their crew, grumbles, stretching lazily in his seat. "Shut up and stand on attention," Elena, the other soldier, scolds as she prepares her gear. Abel reluctantly gets up to do the same. Mohan, the crew's engineer, expertly begins the ship's descent with aid from the ship's AI. "Entry to the atmosphere successful," The AI reports. Mohan let out a breath he didn't know he was holding, moving his hands from the control panel, letting the AI do the easy part. "I can't believe we are about to be some of the first humans to see aliens ever!" Hibiki exclaims, his face almost pressed against the circular windows of the ship. "Watch, it'll probably just be another dead planet," Abel mutters. "No need to be buzzkill, Abel," Luh, the crew's geographer, calls out as she uses the ship's scanners to get a rough look at the planet's terrain. "I'm just being practical, every other planet NASA has checked out has been a dead waste land," Abel rebuts, sitting down. "There were at least signs of life, like the Caelum Titan fossils on D-324," Hibiki says, keeping his gaze out the window. "Keyword, were." The ship bursts through the clouds, and Hibiki's eyes widen. "WHOOO!" He yells, pumping his fist in the air. Mohan, who had been looking through the ship's camera, does the same. Everyone else scrambles to the various windows. Down below was a lush rainforest. The trees, if you could even call them that, were towering grey columns with a single greenish purple panel at the top. Smaller planets grew in and around the giants. Luckily for them, there was a massive savannah of red "grass" in the middle of the rainforest. As they continue to descend, Mohan notices a mass of floating creatures. He uses the camera to get a clearer look. "Yo Hibiki! Check this out!" He calls excitedly. Hibiki rushes over, accidentally pushing Mohan aside as he stares at the camera. "Those are aliens!" Hibiki yells excitedly. The aliens were travelling together in a small pod of five. They were incredibly spherical, shaped like a hot air balloon. Their faces looked similar to frogs', with a wide mouth and two protruding eyes. A reddish, swarming mass orbited the aliens, and on their backs, plants of all kinds grew. Abel stared out the window in disbelief, his eyes darting about, drinking in the landscape sprawled out before him. "So what happened to this being a dead planet?" Elena says with a slightly smug expression. Abel rolls his eyes. "Ya, I'm a dumbass. No need to rub it in." Hibiki had already begun to fill in an entry into the ship's database about the new aliens, using the scanner to get the size of the aliens. As he typed away, Hibiki was flung out of his seat, slamming into the wall. The ship's metal creaked and groaned as it was flung off course, and the rest of the crew gripped onto the walls of the ship tightly, just barely managing to stay standing. "What the fuck is happening!" Abel yells, attempting to run to the weapon system as the ship continues to tumble through the atmosphere. Mohan grips the steering wheel and tries to get them back on course. "Engine 1 destroyed, crash imminent," The AI reports as buzzers loudly blare throughout the ship. Hibiki pulled himself up, coughing as he looked out the window, only to see a giant yellow eye with a sideways pupil staring back at him. Hibiki quickly scrambles away from the window. "There's something at the window!" He yells, pointing out the window. "Elena! Where's the fucking entry key?!" Abel yells from the weapon system control panel. "Give me a second!" She yells back, frantically ripping through every cabinet of her desk. "Found it!" She yells, tossing it over to Abel, who shoves it into the key slot, activating the weapon system. He activates the guns, and the creature lets out a high-pitched chirp. As it lets go of the ship and flies off, Hibiki gets a clear look. The alien was long and slender, its tail being longer than its own dull, violet colored body. The side of its body was lined by six thin wings that propelled it like giant oars. Its face was the most extraordinary part; it looked like a beak when its mouth was closed, but when it opened its mouth, it opened into three different parts like a blooming flower, and hidden within its mouth was a long, barbed tongue. Then, just as quickly as the attack happened, the creature had disappeared into the thick clouds. Hibiki was left staring in awe, which was quickly wiped from his face as he felt his stomach drop. He barely managed to grip the ship's side, saving himself from getting sent flying forward. "LUH! TAKE THE WHEEL!" Mohan yells, rushing out of his chair and to the engine room. Luh lets go of the ship's wall, lunging towards the control panel, managing to grab onto the seat instead of flying out the front window. Mohan scrambled towards the engine room, climbing up the floor with little success as the ship nosedived. "Mohan!" Abel calls, holding his hand out. Mohan takes his hand, and Abel pulls him up, giving him the leverage to sprint up to the engine room. Mohan throws open the engine room door and begins to rummage through the cabinets to get some tools. The right engine was completely fine, but the left engine was slightly damaged; the hull had been punctured, and some components of the engine were covered in scratches, along with the entire area being covered in sticky red blood and pieces of pink flesh. It takes everything in him not to vomit from the smell of the steaming blood and flesh as he begins to do his best to repair the engine, using spare parts and tools. Meanwhile, Luh began to override the AI's control over the ship. "Entry Denied, Invalid ID," The AI reported in a distorted tone. Luh exhales heavily before climbing under the console and looking for the AI's wiring to forcefully turn it off. Her eyes darted about the mess of wires, blood rushing to her head as the ship continued to nose dive. "Crash imminent in-" The AI announces, its voice distorting as it shuts off. Luh emerges from under the console before violently yanking on the steering, causing the ship's nose to turn upwards right before crashing into the ground and skidding across the savannah. Everyone quickly rushes out of the ship and far away from it. They sit, their breath held in anticipation. After a minute, they breathed a collective sigh of relief. "At least it didn't explode," Mohan says under his breath. They all silently sit together, breathing heavily. "Holy shit, What was that thing?" Abel says. "No clue," Mohan says, lying down on the soft, velvety red "grass". "Ya, how the hell could something that big even fly??" Luh asks, sitting straight with her legs crossed. "That's what I'm wondering too," Elena says. "That thing was nearly as long as our ship." "My guess is that this planet has a thicker atmosphere and maybe more oxygen too," Hibiki answers. "We should wear our suits then," Mohan says, standing up and heading into the ship. "Why do we need our suits, I can breath here just fine," Abel rebuts, refusing to get up from his spot on the ground. "If you want to get oxygen poisoning, then be my guest, Abel," Elena comments, following everyone else into the ship. Abel grumbles, getting up and following everyone into the ship. Everyone puts on their suits. "Ok, the air shouldn't be toxic long term, we're looking at about 32% oxygen in the atmosphere and an atmosphere thickness of 423 DU," Hibiki reports, looking up from a screen on the side of his suit. "So I was right," Abel says smug smile behind his helmet. "Anyways, what's the plan now?" Luh asks. "Well, I should be able to repair the engine, the damage isn't too horrible," Mohan says, pausing. "But the spare parts container did go missing," Everyone lets out a groan. "Well shit, do we know where it landed?" Elena asks. "There should be a tracker on the container right?" Hibiki asks. Luh nods. "Let me see if the ship's map is still working," Luh says, sitting at one of the consoles. After a moment of nothing, the holographic scene flickers to life. Everyone crowds around her, their eyes glued to the screen as she navigates around the map. "Oh look! Right there!" Abel exclaims, pointing to the top left corner, where there is a glowing red dot. "Doesn't seem too far out, we can probably get there within an hour if we take the buggy," Mohan says, heading to the cargo of the ship. Everyone else rushes after him. "Shotgun!" Abel yells, sliding into the front seat. Mohan sits in the driver's seat, and everyone else squeezes in at the back. Mohan puts it in reverse, exiting the ship before speeding up and racing down the flat savannah. After about 30 minutes of driving, Mohan parks the buggy behind a large alien tree, hiding from a giant herd of 20 to 30 aliens. Unlike the alien that had attacked their ship, these aliens had only 4 limbs. Their bodies are stocky, similar to a cow's body, minus the long tail. Also, unlike cows, they had 5 pairs of eyes. "Whoa," Hibiki mutters, wide-eyed as he takes out his journal and begins to sketch out the aliens, like any good biologist would. "I wonder what they would taste like," Abel wonders aloud as he begins loading his rifle. "Maybe like a goat, could be good in curry," Mohan responds, chuckling a little. "Wel,I'm about to find out—" Before he could finish his sentence, Elena karate chops the back of his neck. Mohan snorts, quickly looking away as Abel shoots him a glare. "Don't eat the aliens for god's sake," Luh says, taking some more pictures. Abel opens his mouth, probably to curse everyone out, but is silenced by a commotion from the herd. Two of the larger individuals of the herd face each other, stomping their feet and scraping their hoof-like claws against the ground. The two do this in silence until they begin making shrill, whistling noises at one another. The crew stops what they're doing, now paying full attention to what the two are doing. "Who do you bet is gonna win?" Abel whispers to Mohan. "I'd put 10 bucks on the one on the left." "You're delusional, the one on the right is way bigger." The two aliens continue their whistling, now beginning to circle one another. Then they both open up a pair of giant, fan-like frills from the sides of their necks. They continue to whistle while shaking their heads, their colorful frills glimmering in the slightly orange light from the C-100 sun. Eventually, after a couple of minutes of this back and forth, the one on the right backs off, joining the rest of the herd to graze. "Fuck," Abel harshly whispers, he glances to his side only to see Mohan trying his hardest not to laugh at him. Sensing a crashout, Elena speaks up. "Let's get a move on, we're almost there," Mohan nods in agreement, putting the buggy in reverse and going in a wide arc around the aliens as to not freak out the herd. Mohan suddenly stops. "What are you doing? let's get out of here," Elena whispers. "It's too quiet," Everyone goes silent and listens. The herd, which earlier had been whistling and snapping at one another, was now completely silent. All of the aliens' heads turned to look at the treeline. "Let's get out of here. now," Hibiki whispers. Mohan nods, slowly beginning to pull the buggy out. He suddenly stops, his hands involuntarily shaking as he tries to grip the wheel. "Hey do you guys feel that–" Abel asks, suddenly covering his mouth as a wave nausea came over him. Everyone cowered in the buggy, covering their ears as a sudden, unseen force squeezed their eardrums and shook their insides. The only sounds their ears processed were the sharp, panicked whistling from the herd. Hibiki forces his eyes open as an alien the size of a semi truck bursts out from the tree line. Its mouth opened as if it were roaring, but no noise was coming out. The herd shrieks, dispersing and stampeding away. The giant gives chase, grabbing one of the aliens with one of its six limbs, pinning it before finishing it off by crunching down its neck. The unseen force that had been vibrating their insides disappears as the creature begins to feast. Abel throws up over the side of the buggy, and the others breathe heavily as if they had just run a marathon. After a moment, Mohan begins to pull the buggy away. Despite Mohan slowly and carefully pulling the buggy out from their hiding spot, the wheels softly crunch against the plants and dry earth. The alien looks up, its toothy maw covered in blood and guts. Its eyes focus on the buggy, observing it with wide pupils. As the buggy slowly pulled away, the giant alien stood still, its head tilted as its eyes followed the buggy. "What's it doing it," Elena whispers. Hibiki shrugs in response, his eyes locked onto the alien. "Maybe we should stop moving, it might not be able to see us right?" Abel suggests. Hibiki shakes his head. "Its eyes face forward, it can see us just fine." This silences everyone. Mohan cuts the engine, letting the buggy sit still. The alien continues to look at them, and Hibiki looks back, getting a perfect view of it. Other than the alien being massive, it was also covered in keratinous spikes and armor. Black circle markings lined its side, and its wide, square-shaped skull was lined with foot-long teeth shaped like daggers. It balanced itself on 4 hind limbs, using its hulking, muscular front limbs to pick up and tear into the grazer's body. Then it takes a step closer, then another, and another. "Let's go, now!" Luh screams. Mohan nods, turning the engine on and peeling out. The giant alien breaks out into a full on run, moving far faster than something that large should be able to. "We gotta jump!" Elena yells, the alien quickly gaining on them. Mohan swerves to the tree line before jumping out of the buggy. The others follow. The alien rams into the buggy, sending it flying into a tree. Hibiki hides in the deep grass, holding a hand over his mouth as the alien steps over him to investigate the buggy, which was crumpled up like a soda can. "Hibiki, over here," Hibiki looked to where the noise came from and saw Mohan and the others motioning to him from the tree line. Hibiki begins to army crawl towards them, the bushy fibers at the ends of the red grass poked and scraped against him like needles as he crawled through. The ground beneath him suddenly begins to shake. "Shit," Hibiki curses under his breath as he slowly stands up and then breaks into a made dash towards the tree line. "HEEEELLLPP," He screams as the alien gives chase. Just as the alien reaches out to grab him, Elena begins to shoot at it, the bullets harmlessly bouncing off its hulking body. Its gaze shifts from Hibiki over to Elena. Elena fires a few more bullets. The lets out a low rumble before turning around and walking back to the corpse it left behind. Hibiki lies down on the jungle floor, panting heavily. "Holy shit" Mohan says slightly out of breath. "Let's get out of here before Rexy over there gets hungry," Abel grumbles, picking up his gun. "Ya, Luh which way do we go?" Elena asks. "We gotta go west, that's where the signal from the tracker is coming from." Elena nods and begins to lead the way. Mohan helps Hibiki up, and they both jog over to catch up with the rest of the crew. For the next hour, they walk through the alien jungle with Hibiki taking samples of various plants along the way. Soon they come upon a clearing, in the clearing was some more of that weird red grass, which Hibiki takes a sample of, along with a small pond. "Can we take a break?" Luh pleads breathlessly. Elena nods. "Ok, but we should get going soon," She says, sitting down and taking out some water from her rations box. "Imma go take a sample, be right back!" Hibiki calls out before running over to the pond. As he nears the pond, he slows down, his run turning into a jog and then halting to a stop. "What is that smell?" He mutters, covering his face and squeezing his eyes shut. After a bit, he persists and walks over, taking a sample of the water. While taking the sample, his eyes noticed two small fish-like aliens. They were around the size of a minnow and had a pointed, arrow-shaped head. He quickly scoops them up, putting them into a vial. He continues looking into the pond, seeing if he can spot anything else of notice. He gazes into the deeper end of the pond, and his eyes catch the shadow of some kind of structure. It didn't look like some kind of rock or plant; it had a softer, more bulbous shape to it. Just as he goes in to investigate, Abel grabs his shoulder. "C'mon, let's go already, it smells like a dead skunk here," he says, dragging Hibiki back to the group. "Alright alright, No need to drag me," Hibiki says, pulling away from Abel's grasp and going back to the others. After an hour of uneventful walking, they find a smoldering crater, at the center of which was a bright red box. "Finally!" Mohan yells as him and rush over to pick up the box. They all then begin the long trek back to the ship, walking in complete silence once more. Soon they reach the ship, and without missing a beat, Mohan immediately gets to work. He starts by cleaning up the blood and flesh, using a cloth and metal scrub to get rid of it. "You need some help?" Hibiki asks, walking out of the ship after putting the samples inside. "Nah, I got this," Mohan replies, continuing to scrub away. Hibiki nods. "Just let me know if you need some help," He says before walking away and plopping down onto the grass. Over the next hour, Mohan cleans the engine, replaces the scraped-up engine parts with spares, and finally patches up the hole in the hull by welding it together. "And there we go, ships done," Mohan says with a tired sigh. "Deploying Rovers," The ship's AI declares over the speakers as it opens the cargo hold, causing the rovers to rumble out. Everyone turns around. "What's happening?" Elena asks. "I don't know!" Mohan yells back. "Mission successful, initiating take off sequence," The AI announces and before anyone could protest or say anything, it takes off, leaving our crew stranded on C-100.

Chapter 2

Hibiki looked up blankly, watching as the ship became smaller and smaller, before disappearing into the clouds entirely. Hibiki's eyes drifted to other crew members. "WHAT THE FUCK?! COME BACK! NO YOU CAN'T FUCKING DO THIS TO ME!" Abel yelled up at the sky. "MOTHERFUCKER!" Mohan yelled, slamming his fist against the ground. Luh muttered something under her breath, her body shaking. Hibiki's eyes then drifted over to Elena, who, just like him, was completely silent, still looking up at the sky. As Mohan and Abel continued to yell at the sky, as if that would make the ship return, Hibiki's ears picked up on something. A very, very faint "whoosh" noise which quickly became louder and louder. Or closer. Hibiki launches himself at Abel, tackling him to the floor. "What the hell are you doing, asshole!" Abel yells in protest. Suddenly, a rush of air fills their ears as a shadow passes over them. "Shit," Elena mutters. "C'mon, let's get going! NOW!" She commands, Hibiki gets off Abel. He holds his hand out, but Abel brushes it off, getting up by himself and following Elena and the others into the tall red "grass". Abel stays at the back of the group while Elena stays at the front, their guns at the ready. How the hell did you know there was something there?" Luh asks Hibiki with a raised eyebrow. "Well, uh, I heard a 'whoosh' noise and it reminded me of a hawk diving," Hibiki explains, motioning with his hands while doing so. Luh nods. "You gotta have some kind of super hearing or something," She comments with a chuckle. The group continued to crouch through the tall "grass", Hibiki heard a slight rustling to his left. Elena and Abel turn to face the place where the rustling came from, their guns cocked and ready. The rustling continued until...3 small lizard-like aliens popped out. The aliens had long, skinny bodies and short limbs, similar to a meerkat. On their heads were two fleshy antennas, and one of them had a pair of small frills. The aliens sat on their hind legs, regarding the crew with large eyes. "Omg they are so adorable!" Luh squeals, stepping towards them with her hand outstretched. The aliens chirp to one another before running away into the grass. "Hey wait, come back!" Luh pleads. "I swear I'm friendly." "Sure, friendly .. " Mohan says with a smirk. "Shut up mohan," Luh says, rolling her eyes. "Well if you idiots are done looking at the aliens, we're about to run out of hiding space," Abel calls out from the back. The tall grass that the crew was hiding in was nearing its end. "Well shit," Luh mutters. A shadow passes over the group, a not-so-friendly reminder that the flying alien was still stalking them. "Well does anybody have any ideas on getting across the savannah without dying?" Luh asks. "We could always sacrafice Abel, for the greater good," Elena suggests with a blank face. Abel grumbles, flipping her off. "You got any ideas, Hibiki?" He asks, turning to face Hibiki. Hibiki stares off into space for a moment before speaking. "Well whatever this thing is, it isn't stupid. It's still stalking us even though it can't see us," Hibiki thinks aloud, drumming his fingers against his leg. Hibiki suddenly perks up and turns to Mohan. "Mohan, were you able to get any rovers before the ship took off?" Mohan nods. "I was able to snag some before the bitch took off. Are you thinking of using them as a distraction?" Hibiki nods. "Yeah, we could trying luring it down here with the rovers and then scare it off with the guns." "I think that would work," Elena says with a nod. "Let's go for it," Luh says, giving a thumbs up. "Alright then," Mohan says, reaching into his suit's backpack and taking out a metal disk. Upon placing the disk on the ground, everyone watches as wheels pop out from its sides before it races forward. A familiar whooshing is heard as the rover pops out of the grass, and a sudden gust of wind rushes through the grass as it dives right above the grass. The crew watches as the rover tries to escape its demise, but the alien snaps it up so fast that if you blinked, you would've missed it. Instead of flying off like earlier, the alien quickly grounds itself, spitting out the rover. It begins to poke and prod at the rover, allowing the crew to finally get a clear look at the speed demon they've been hiding from. The alien, similar to the other flying alien, had six limbs, but only 4 of those six limbs were wings; the other 2 were stubby hind legs. The alien's 4 limbs folded as it lumbered around, inspecting the now destroyed rover with two large, compound eyes. Its crocodile-esque jaws opened sideways like a huge pair of fleshy mandibles. The alien suddenly crowed out, blood spraying onto the grass. It quickly flaps its wings, taking off into the sky. Hibiki turned to look at Elena and Abel, who were now putting away their guns. Everyone peeked their heads out of the grass. "The cost is clear, let's go," Elena whispers. Everyone nods before making a run for it across the open savannah. "Wait, do you guys hear that?!" Abel yells, looking up at the sky. "Shit! Get down!" Mohan yells. Everyone drops to the ground just in time; the alien misses them by an inch, screeching as it climbs back up for another dive. They scramble up to their feet and continue making a run for it. As they run, Hibiki sees a huge cavern in the ground. "GUYS! OVER THERE!" Hibiki yells, pointing to the hole. "We can wait it out there!" They begin running to the hole, the alien diving down towards them, the whooshing filling their ears. Just as they're about to reach the hole, the ground beneath their feet shakes violently, causing them all to fall. "Is there an earthquake?!" Luh screams, her voice unheard over the rumbling of the earth beneath them. Suddenly, it was completely dark. The crew looks up to see the underbelly of the armored, snake-like body of a leviathan. The flying alien, unable to slow down, is snapped up by the giant's elongated jaws. The giant alien swallows the mangled corpse before lowering its body back into the cavern using two muscular forearms. The crew didn't waste a beat, continuing on their mad dash to the tree line. Once they made it into the forest, everyone stood around one another, catching their breath. "Shit, the sun's starting to set," Abel says, wiping sweat off his forehead. "Ya, thanks for that, Captain Obvious," Elena grumbles. "We need to find shelter now. If this planet is anything like Earth, all the dangerous stuff is going to come out at night," Hibiki says. "Ya, is there a cave or anything nearby?" Mohan asks. Luh nods, opening the screen on her suit. "The map is saying that there's one not too far from here," She says, showing the screen to everyone. Elena nods. "Lead the way," After about 25 minutes of walking, they arrived at the cave that Luh had shown them. "Oh, finally, I can rest. My legs feel like jelly," Luh says, flopping down onto the cave floor. Mohan takes out some more disk-shaped rovers, using them to light up the luckily empty cave. "Alright, I'll get to work on setting up the sleeping area and stuff. Can someone get some firewood?" Mohan asks as he begins rummaging through his backpack. "I'll go do it, I guess," Abel grumbles as he leaves the cave. In the meantime, Elena forces Mohan to let her help him set up the sleeping bags while Hibiki works on documenting the various species into a notebook, and Luh begins sketching out a general map of what they've explored so far. Abel soon returns, firewood in hand. After a bit, a cozy campfire has been set up, and everybody sits around it, eating their rations in awkward silence. So I already know we are all thinking this, but Hibiki, how the fuck did you know that worm-looking thing was even there?" he asks, turning to face Hibiki. "Well, uh, I didn't, my original plan was to go into the hole, but it worked out in the end," Hibiki says, rubbing the back of his head. "So what you're saying is that you had no clue what you were doing and nearly got us all killed?!" Elena asks harshly. "Well, uh, ya but I mean it all worked out in the end–" "We could've all died because of you!-" Abel yells loudly, his mouth gets covered by Elena. "Don't be so loud, we don't wanna attract anything," Elena says, taking a deep breath. "Guys calm down, if it wasn't for Hibiki we would've 100% died. It was a big risk but it worked out in the end. Right now we need to focus on survival." Luh says, putting a hand on Hibiki's shoulder. "She's not wrong, we gotta figure out how to get off this planet right now," Mohan comments, letting out a sigh. Elena takes a couple of deep breaths, staying completely silent before nodding in agreement. "Ya sure, I guess she's not wrong," Abel grumbles reluctantly, turning his attention to his rations. Hibiki lets out a sigh of relief before speaking up. "So how are we going to even get off this planet?" "Well, it'll probably take them about 2 weeks for them to send a rescue ship, and it'll probably take it at least a month to get here, since the rescue ships are built to be fast," Mohan responds, fiddling with his spoon. "So we gotta survive at least a month and a half here," Hibiki mutters, his voice trailing off. "Yup, does anyone here know any type of survival stuff? It's not like NASA taught us shit," Elena asks, looking around. No one raises their hand until Abel does. "No fucking way that ABEL of all people knows how to survive better than any of us," Luh says, her mouth agape. "Well–" Abel begins to explain. "It's cause his dad probably took him camping all the time," Mohan interjects. "It was my grandpa, but how'd you know that–" Abel responds. "'Cause you're the only American here," Hibiki interrupts with a shrug. "Ya fair enough," Abel says, shrugging. "Well then, Mr.survivalist, what should we do tomorrow?" Elena asks mockingly. "Well, we gotta find water obviously, so tomorrow we'll look for water, then we'll make a shelter by the water. For food, we should ration until we, by we I mean Hibiki, figure out what's safe to eat here." Abel responds quickly, so he's not cut off again. "Well, for water, there's a river system about 12 km due north," Luh says, pointing to it on the map she copied from her suit's screen. "Huh, that's pretty convenient. Let's get some sleep then. We've got a lot of walking tomorrow," Elena says as she crawls into her sleeping bag. "Night," Mohan says, dousing the fire with water before crawling into his sleeping bag. "Yeah, whatever. I guess I'll also go to sleep, night," Abel says as he, along with Hibiki and Luh, also goes to sleep. Hibiki wakes up to strange chirping noises coming from outside the cave. "Hm? What's that noise?" He mutters, his eyes slowly absorbing the morning light filling the cave. As he looks around the cave, his eyes widen. "What the hell are those–" He whispers to himself, looking at the source of the chirps. The aliens that were making the noises were 3 dog-sized aliens. They were covered in black armor plating and carried themselves using a prehensile tail and two arms. Their face was smooth and notably lacked eyes. This pack of aliens was now entering the cave. Hibiki slowly slips out of his sleeping bag and over to Abel. "Abel, wake up," Hibiki whispers, shaking him slightly. "5 more minutes, Mom," Abel mumbles sleepily, turning onto his side. "I'm not your mom, Abel. Wake up!" Hibiki hisses. The aliens turn their heads to Hibiki, sniffing the air for a moment before slowly beginning to make their way towards them. "C'mon, Abel! Wake the hell up, I don't wanna die!" Hibiki whispers again, shaking Abel harder. Hibiki's eyes drift over to his lunchbox. He rips open his lunch box and grabs his rationed water before dumping it onto Abel's face. "AH WHAT THE HELL!? I'M GONNA BEAT YOU TO DEATH!" Abel yells at the top of his fucking lungs as he sits up. The aliens suddenly stop before turning their heads to the cave entrance and loudly shrieking before running full sprint towards Abel and Hibiki. Three more aliens run into the cave, joining the rest of their pack. "WHAT THE HELL ARE THOSE THINGS?!" Abel screamed, grabbing his gun. He begins to shoot at the aliens, but the bullets bounce off their armored bodies with little effect. The gunshots, combined with Abel's unintelligible screaming, wake up the rest of the group. "Huh? What the hell is happening, bro–" Mohan mutters before scrambling out of his sleeping bag as an alien jumps on top of it and rips it to shreds. Elena gets up, grabs her gun, and starts to shoot at the aliens as well. "What the-! They're bulletproof!" Elena calls out, lowering her gun before lowering Abel's gun too. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING BITCH–" Abel yells at her. "Don't waste your bullets on these things, dumbass," Elena hisses. Abel shuts up, knowing that Elena is right. The alien pack begins to circle them. "Ah shit," Luh mumbles under her breath before turning to Hibiki. "Got a plan?" "Uh they're blind, so maybe we can distract them and run?" Elena nods, picking up a rock and chucking it further into the cave. It hits the wall, making a loud clunk. The aliens look to where the noise came from and then at one another, letting out a series of loud chirps that sounded like laughter. "Oh shit, that didn't work–" Abel says as one of the aliens lunges towards him. He bashes it away with the hilt of his gun. "WHAT DO WE DO?!" Abel screams as the alien pounces back onto him and tries to bite him. In a moment of desperation, Abel shoves his gun into the alien's mouth and holds down the trigger. "Ah gross," Abel mutters as blood and bits of organs gush out from the alien's mouth and all over his suit. The other creatures stop in their tracks. Smelling the blood of their comrade, the aliens let out panicked screeches as they scrambled out of the cave. "THAT'S RIGHT YOU BITCHES RUN!" Abel yells with a grin, throwing the alien's dead body to the ground. "HELL YA YOU DID IT! WHOOOO!" Mohan screams, dapping up Abel. Abel continued to celebrate his victory with a little victory dance and more yelling. "OW–" Abel exclaims, holding the top of his head. "As much as I appreciate you saving us, try not to bring every single thing in the jungle toward us by yelling like a monkey," Elena says, picking up her bag. "You don't gotta keep hitting me," Abel grumbles something under his breath as he picks up his bag. Everyone else does the same, with Hibiki picking up the alien's body and shoving it into his bag. "What're you doing?" Luh asks, raising an eyebrow. "Well, if we want to survive here for the month we need to before a rescue ship comes here, we gotta figure out if we can eat them," Hibiki responds with a shrug. "I am not eating that, it looks nasty as hell," Luh replies. "Wonder how you would season it though," she thinks aloud. "I CALL COOKING, IMMA MAKE SOME FIRE CURRY!" Mohan exclaims, pumping his fist into the air. "Well I gotta figure out if it's edible first–" "NUH UH, I'M MAKING IT INTO BURGERS!" Abel yells back at Mohan. Everyone hearing this turns and stares at him. "I think your cooking would probably kill us, I trust Mohan on this one," Luh says, Hibiki and Elena nod in agreement. "Damn," Abel mutters, looking downwards. Mohan, meanwhile, struggled not to burst out laughing. "Let's get going now before some other ungodly alien pops up," Elena says, going to the front of the group. The crew begins the 12km trek towards the river, and for most of the journey, it was the same old rainforest. This changed at the 11km mark, though. "Whoa," Hibiki mutters, his eyes darting around to take in the new landscape in front of him. The previous rainforest had faded away and had now become a vast, monotonous expanse of light purple bamboo-like plants. "Huh are we in China or something?" Abel jokes with a smirk. Elena glares at him, which he ignores as he saunters past her. Luh stayed at the back of the group, trying copy down as much of the map from her screen to paper before the screen's battery died out. As she continued to write, Hibiki noticed her perking up at something. "Did you see something move?" Luh asks him. "See what–" Luh just barely manages to dodge what looks like a bamboo stalk, which pierces the ground next to her. "RUN!" "WHAT ARE WE RUNNING FROM?!" Abel yells. "AN ALIEN OBVIOUSLY!" Luh yells at him. "CAN'T WE JUST LIGHT IT UP?!" "WE CAN'T SHOOT SOMETHING WE CAN'T SEE, BRO!" Mohan shouts. Hibiki turned his head back to see what was chasing them. It looks like normal bamboo forest, squinting hard, Hibiki notices that some of the bamboo was a slightly darker purple, the bamboo he was looking at then moved. "THE LIMBS ARE A DARKER PURPLE GUYS!" Hibiki calls out. "Abel! Pass me the machete!" Mohan yells back, holding his arm up. Abel nods, tossing the sheathed machete over to him. Mohan catches it and then slashes at a bamboo stalk that was slightly darker than the rest. A loud howl is heard followed by the crashing of bamboo as the alien retreats. "Nice one, bro," Mohan says to Hibiki, his hands on his knees as he catches his breath. "Thanks," Hibiki responds, taking out his water flask. "Good work," Elena says, with a nod. Luh looks at Hibiki with a perplexed expression but doesn't say anything, instead sitting down on the ground. "Looks like we're here," Abel says, looking forward. In front of the group was the single best thing that a tired and thirsty astronaut could see, the river.

Chapter 3

"FINALLY WATER!" Abel whoops, pumping his fist into the air. Mohan yelled just as loudly and fist bumped Abel. "Pipe down, you two," Elena grumbles. "So what now?" Abel cleared his throat. "Well, our best bet would be to find a cave near the river." Luh, who was lying on the ground, spoke up. "I can use a drone to map out the area," "I grabbed a drone from the ship before it took off," Mohan says, rummaging through his bag. "Found it!" Mohan exclaims, producing a small drone from his bag. "Thanks," Luh says, getting up from the floor and taking the drone from him. "I guess we can just chill in the meantime," Mohan states before lying down on the ground. Hibiki had taken out some basic equipment from his bag: a microscope, a notebook, a scalpel, and tweezers. He then took out the corpse of the alien and, with a surgeon's precision, Hibiki began to cut open the alien. He investigated the alien's flesh, comparing it with that of species from Earth. Abel and Elena sat down next to each other, holding their guns as they patrolled the area. "So, how many bullets do you have left?" Abel asks. "I got 2 mags left," "About the same here, we gotta save our bullets now, cause we can't waste resources to make more bullets," Elena responds. "Ya, that's true," Some time passed, and everyone did their own thing, taking the time to recuperate. Abel and Mohan joked around with one another while Elena paced around diligently. Luh was still piloting the drone around the area, and Hibiki was still cutting apart the alien with the scalpel, continuing to compare it with Earth animals and running other tests on the flesh. "GUYS, IT'S EDIBLE!" Hibiki exclaimed. Mohan, who was lazing about, immediately sat up. "Hell ya! Wanna help me get some firewood so we can get cooking?" "Ya sure I don't mind tagging along," Hibiki says, standing up and following behind Mohan. They began to walk back into the bamboo forest, and soon, they reached a patch of dry bamboo. Mohan began to chop down the bamboo, and Hibiki sat down on a nearby rock. "So..." Mohan began, pausing to see if Hibiki was listening. When he saw that Hibiki was looking at him, he continued. "Sorry bout Abel freaking out at you last night. I think you did the right thing yesterday." "It's all good. I can see why he would get so mad. I was being pretty reckless," Hibiki responds, rubbing the back of his neck. "Ya, but he was still in the wrong, it's not like you were trying to get us killed on purpose," Mohan said, picking up the pile of bamboo he had cut. "I guess, but it's not a big deal," Hibiki said with a shrug. As Hibiki and Mohan grab the cut bamboo to take it back, Hibiki stops in his tracks, whipping his head to look behind him. "Did you hear that?" "Hear what-" Mohan responds before Hibiki pulls him down behind a large boulder. They hear a rustling coming from deeper in the bamboo, and out from the darkness of the bamboo forest comes... a medium-sized, 4 legged alien. The alien clumsily walked over to a bamboo stalk before using its scissor-like head, which made up for half of its body length. Then, using its strange headgear, it cut down the stalk of bamboo into bite-sized pieces and then swallowed them whole. "Oh, it's just a herbivore," Hibiki says, breathing a sigh of relief. "Alright, let's get going then, I'm starving," Mohan replies. Mohan and Hibiki soon joined the rest of the group, who were still all doing their own thing. Elena was using some binoculars to look up at the sky, Luh was still piloting the drone, and Abel was doodling and adding notes in Hibiki's field guide, earning a glare from Hibiki. Hibiki takes his book back from Abel and sits down to add some new entries. While Mohan gets straight to cooking. Hibiki began writing about the alien that Mohan just killed. 30 minutes slowly tick by, and a rich, mildly spicy aroma floats through the air. Abel perks up, waking up from his slumber to sit down next to Mohan. "Damn, something smells good." "I know it does, nothing better than some good curry." "Why curry of all things? We should've used the alien to make burgers or something." Abel grumbles, staring hungrily at the bubbling of the curry in the fire. "Guys! I found a cave, it's across the river though," Luh says, walking back to them, eyes glued to the tablet's screen. As she gets closer, she perks up. "Damn, that smells really good," She says, drooling at the sight of the curry. Luh joins Abel in hungrily waiting for Mohan to be done. Another 30 minutes later, Mohan begins to serve the curry in everybody's empty ration tins. "Fuck that's good," Abel hums, giving Mohan a thumbs up. "Thanks, bro, it's my mom's spice recipe," Mohan responds with a grin. Abel's calm face suddenly contorts into a devilish grin. "You know, I could eat like this every day, maybe ya should introduce me to your mom when we get back home–" Mohan punches Abel in the shoulder. "What is it about you and old women? It's concerning, really," Mohan says, both of them sharing a chuckle. Luh slowly chews the curry with a pensive look on her face. "Uh, Mohan, what'd you use to make this? It tastes like a tougher chicken," She says. "Oh, I used that alien, the uh, what did you name Hibiki?" "The Lesser Tree Crawler," "Yup, that thing," "Huh?" Luh mutters, the color draining from her face. "Ya, it's alien, did you think we had chicken or something?" Mohan says, glancing occasionally over at Abel, who was full on staring at him with the dumbest look on his face. As the realization that she just ate some gross, disgusting alien dawns on Luh's face, Mohan now struggles not to laugh as Abel continues to stare at him. "WHAT THE FUCK?! YOU'RE TELLING ME I'VE BEEN EATING AN ALIEN THIS ENTIRE TIME?!" Luh finally yells. Abel bursts out laughing, causing Mohan to laugh as well. Abel doubles over, rolling on the floor laughing as Luh continues to rage out. Their laughter is cut short by Elena smacking them both on the head. "Are you trying to get us ripped apart by some new alien?!" She scolds before sitting back down. "Also, the curry isn't bad for alien meat." "I agree, I actually like this a lot more than some curry I've had back home," Hibiki says, putting down his now-empty tin. "Thanks, bro," Mohan says with a smile. "Damn, you absolutely crushed that curry," Mohan says, his eyes drifting to the empty tin. "Ya, I was pretty hungry," Hibiki says softly, rubbing the back of his head. "Fair enough, we haven't eaten anything decent for a while now," Mohan says, going back to eating. Once everyone is done eating, Luh stands up. "Anyways, now that you guys are done eating... that, we should find a way to cross the river," "We should build a raft," Abel says, standing up and grabbing his machete. "Sounds good to me," Elena says, doing the same. "Abel and I can gather the material," She says before they both head out into the forest. "I guess we're stuck designing the raft," Mohan says, getting up with a groan. "You mean you are," Luh says. Mohan just sighs. Soon, the group had put together a simple raft using bamboo and vines to build a flat base and then using some of their spare clothes to sew a sail together. "And the St. Sammy is now ready to sail!" Abel exclaims. "Hey! How come you get to name it?" Luh protests. "No, we're naming it Kinerma," Elena interjects matter-of-factly. "Nah uh!" "Yah huh!" Luh sighs, watching them both break into an argument. Mohan and Hibiki wait by the edge of the river, making random small talk. "What kind of name is 'st sammy'?! A ship's name should be majestic like my home village of Kinerma!" Elena yells, crossing her arms. "Wow, your random russian town in buttfuck nowhere is so majestic–" Abel retorts. "I think we have bigger problems at hand than the name of this shitty raft. Can we just get going?!" Luh yells. "Fine, fine. I'm still naming it St. Sammy," Abel grumbles. "You can shove your St. Sammy up your ass–" Elena mutters. Everybody joins Mohan and Hibiki at the water's edge and pushes the raft into the water. Elena uses a long piece of bamboo as a quant pole to push the raft across the river. As she does so, Abel stares down at the water absent-mindedly when something catches his eye. Standing out from the aquamarine color were 3 off colored fleshy orbs, floating in the current. "Huh, what're those?" Abel mutters to himself before reaching out to touch one of the orbs. "Ah shit!" Abel hisses, pulling his hand back. "The thing electrocuted me!" Abel yells to everyone, who promptly ignore him. "Thanks a lot, assholes," Abel grumbles under his breath, going back to looking at the water absent-mindedly. Elena rolled her eyes and went back to pushing the raft along the river. She suddenly found herself in the air, the quant pole slipping out of her hands. The raft crackled loudly as it flipped, sending everyone into the water. Everyone quickly swam back up to the surface. "Is everyone ok?!" Elena calls, her eyes scanning the area and doing a mental headcount. "Ya! What did we get hit by?!" Mohan asks. "Well, probably some new alien–" Elena says before getting dragged under. Mohan quickly dived under after her. The water was a murky greenish blue, and visibility was low, with little light penetrating it. He continued to swim under when his eyes caught the movement of Elena's hand. He quickly grabbed her hand and began pulling, only to get pulled away along with Hibiki. Abel grabs the machete from his bag before diving down after them. He swims downstream and catches a glimpse of the alien. Its body was long and slimy-looking, similar to an electric eel. Its jaws were currently clamped around Elena's ankle, trying to pull him away from Mohan. The grossest thing about the alien was the hundreds of deep holes all across its body. "God, thats so nasty," Abel thought to himself as he swam down, machete in hand. The water turns red, and the alien lets out a shriek, letting go of Elena as it twists and writhes, trying to get Abel off of it. Mohan finally pulls Elena away from it and swims with her up to the surface, putting himself on the raft. "Where's Abel?!" Mohan yells, gasping for air. "He went in after you and Elena!" Luh replies. Mohan nods, taking a deep breath before diving back under. Mohan finds Abel, loosely holding onto the machete as the alien twirls under the water. Mohan pulls out the machete and scoops up Abel before swimming back up to the surface. "I feel so numb," Abel groans as Hibiki and Luh pull him up onto the raft. "Shit, what do we do now? The fucker is gonna circle back," Mohan exclaimed, rapidly pulling himself up with the machete in hand. "Abel, what happened?!" Hibiki asks, limping over to him. "It electrocuted me, like those stupid balls–" Abel grunts, rolling on his side. Hibiki's eyes shoot open. "Maybe it's like an electric eel!" He calls out, rummaging through Mohan's bag, pulling out one of the drones and turning it on before throwing it off the raft. "What are you doing?!" Mohan cries out, watching his drone sink into the water and then get ripped apart by the alien's jaws. Elena quickly begins to push the raft along, and once they reach the shore, everyone piles off the raft and onto the bank. "Nice one, Hibiki," Luh says, letting out a heavy sigh. "Ya, nice one, now let's get going–" Elena says, letting out a sharp hiss as she takes a step forward. "Elena, let me help you out–" Mohan offers. "It's ok, I'll be fine," She replies quickly before starting to walk forward despite a slight limp. "Help?"Abel wheezes from the ground. Mohan helps him, putting Abel's arm over his shoulder. Luh leads them towards the cave, and after about an hour of walking, they reach a small, secluded cave. The cave was surrounded by many plants, and the inside was sandy and soft. Just a few meters in front of the cave was a large, slow-flowing creek. Everyone settles down in the cave, taking their time to take a breather. Hibiki sits right outside the cave and by the creek, watching various aliens come and take a drink from the creek. He didn't see much until he finally saw something move through the vegetation, which soon revealed itself by coming into the clearing of the creek. It was absolutely massive, probably the second-largest alien that they've seen thus far, with a long and muscular body, similar to a giant python. On the sides of its neck were two small frills, and it looked around with its 4 pairs of eyes. It lowered its head and began to gulp down water from the stream. After having its fill, it began to scoop up and eat the thick aquatic vegetation. As it chewed, it suddenly stopped, turning to the jungle behind it. Out of the vegetation emerged another alien. It was clearly a predatory alien, with a long snout like a shrew and sharp teeth. Four of these teeth, two on the top and two on the bottom, were elongated, like the teeth of the saber-toothed tiger. Unlike the other aliens that they've seen, it was covered from head to toe in fur, which was mostly a rich, earthy brown with the occasional black or green vertical stripes. Much like the giant armored alien from yesterday, it also had six limbs, which were accompanied by a long tail. Hibiki tensed, expecting a fight to start, but he was mistaken as the predatory alien simply approached the creek and drank its fill before sauntering away into the jungle. Hibiki didn't observe much else for the next half hour or so before finally closing the book and putting it away. "Well, we should probably go out and get some supplies," He says, standing up and stretching. Luh nods. "Yup, me, you, and Mohan can head out, since Abel and Elena are injured." "Hey! I'm fine, why don't one of you stay with him instead?!" Elena protests. "You're ankle is all fucked up, you need to rest, Elena," Mohan replies, grabbing Abel's gun and machete from him. "But–" "Nope! Now see ya!" Luh quips before leaving the cave with Mohan and Hibiki in tow. "HEY WAIT, DON'T LEAVE ME HERE WITH HIM–" Elena yells to no avail. Once the three of them are far enough away from the cave that Elena and Abel can't hear them, Luh speaks up. "Do you think this'll help them from arguing all the time?" "Well, it'd be nice if they do, cause I don't want those two titans to start fighting," Hibiki says with a chuckle. "C'mon, they aren't that much taller than us," Mohan replies. "Well, they're like a foot taller than Luh–" Hibiki says. "Hey! Why am I catching strays!?" She exclaims. "Hey, it's not like he's wrong–" Mohan pitches in. "Ow–" Mohan and Hibiki exclaim, rubbing their heads. "Were you both saying something?" "Nope," "Good, let's get this over with." Back at the cave, Elena struggles to get Abel off his ass and to get him to start cleaning up and organizing their current supplies. " Just get up and help me make the cave livable," she says, standing in front of Abel with her arms crossed. Abel blinks a couple of times before responding. "Can't we just relax? My body feels like jelly," he says, leaning back further on the cave wall. "No, we have to do our part and get this place ready," She responds promptly. "Can't you cut me some slack? I just got electrocuted by some stupid alien," Abel grumbles. "Fine, I guess I'll just do it myself," Elena says with an exasperated groan, hobbling away from Abel and beginning to organize and clean up the cave. Abel leans back, watching Elena struggle to clean. After watching this painful display for a few minutes longer, Abel speaks up. "You know, Elena, you should just chill out, you're injured and exhausted. The other can help us out when they come back." "Well, I can't just sit down and be lazy while we're stranded on a fucking alien planet," "Well, me and you have been doing a lot of fighting and saving the others, it won't kill ya to take a break when you're injured." "So what? Now they're out there getting the supplies, I'm not just going to sit around and do nothing." "Working to exhaustion and making your injury worse helps no one." "Whatever. I'm not gonna be lazy like you," Elena says, rolling her eyes before going back to her work. Abel just sighs and goes back to resting. He continues to watch Elena hobble around the cave, trying not to put too much weight on her sprained ankle. Abel decides to walk over to try to convince her to take a break, but as he does so, Elena trips on a small crevice in the cave. Abel manages to catch her just before she hits the ground. "I told ya that you're too tired to do anything right now." "Shut up," Elena grumbles, pulling away from Abel and standing back up. "Elena, seriously you should take a rest," Abel says, but before he could continue, a low growl echoes through the cave. The two's bickering ceases, Elena grabs two sticks, tossing one to Abel. They quickly use some vines to tie their pocket knives to their sticks, making two makeshift spears. They stand back to back, staying in the middle of the cave. The minutes slowly tick by, with nothing happening. "Well, it seems that was all about nothing," Abel says with a shrug, dropping his spear and walking back to his spot by the wall. Elena is about to do the same when she sees a blur of movement from the corner of her eye. "Abel, get down!" She yells before tackling him to the floor just in time as the tiger-like alien that Hibiki saw earlier lunges over them, gracefully landing behind them. "Oh shit!" Abel yells, scrambling to his feet and diving out of the way as the alien lunges at him again. Elena grabs her makeshift spear and throws it at the alien, aiming for its head. The spear barely penetrates its thick hide and fur. It ignores the spear in its side, continuing to chase Abel around the cave. As he continues to run around the cave, he slides over to the spear he dropped, just in time, too, as the alien manages to pin him down. It goes to bite him, but Abel holds it off using the shaft of the spear. "ELENA, DO SOMETHING, I DON'T WANT TO DIE!" Elena looks around and spots Hibiki's bag; she quickly begins to rummage through it and finds a flint and steel. She begins to frantically hit them together, trying to get a spark on the stick. "ELENA HURRY! IT'S GONNA BREAK!" Abel cries out, his spear cracking as the alien pushes its jaws closer. Elena picks up a rock and throws it at the alien's head as hard as she can. The alien stops and turns to look at Elena. It gets off of Abel and bounds toward Elena, who has one hand behind her back. "C'mon . . ." Elena mutters under her breath, bracing herself. Just as it's about to lunge, she shows what she was hiding behind her back: a torch. The alien halts as Elena shoves the fire in its face. "BACK!" she yells at it. The alien growls at her, but it continues to back up. The alien stares at her and growls one last time before running off. Abel stays on the ground and lets out a massive sigh of relief. "Good to be alive," Abel says, sitting up. "Yup .. well I should probably get back to getting the cave ready–" "C'mon, really?! We both nearly just died, so let's take a break to rest," Abel says as he stands up. "Ya, but we gotta pull our own weight," she says, crossing her arms. "True, but we both are exhausted, so instead of overworking yourself and injuring yourself, which would drag everyone down with you, just relax for once." Elena thinks for a bit. "I hate that your logic makes sense," Elena says with an annoyed sigh, sitting down by the cave wall. Abel is about to sit down next to her when he spots something. "Oh look, Hibiki left his field journal behind," He says, snatching it up from the floor and plopping down next to her. He begins to flip through the book before suddenly stopping. "Huh, check it out, Hibiki saw the alien that attacked us," He says, showing Elena the page. "Oh, how did he even find one?" Abel shrugs. "But he named it 'Armato Ocissor', no clue whatever that means." It's Latin for armored killer, didn't you pay attention when they made us learn Latin for the mission?" "Well, I forgot, alright! It's not even important. Anyways, we beat this thing, so we should get to make our own note in here," Abel says, grabbing a pen and beginning to draw on the page. "Who are you even drawing??" Elena asks, leaning over to watch him draw. "Myself obviously." Elena sputters. "PFT– That looks more like an alien than an actual person!" Elena says, holding back a laugh. "It does not! I'd like to see you do better!" Abel says, tossing the notebook at Elena. Elena catches the notebook. "Sure," Abel leans over to watch her draw. Elena does a quick sketch of herself, and Abel watches, his mouth agape. "What the fuck? How are you of all people good at drawing?" "Well I used to draw a lot when I was younger," Elena responds, putting the notebook and pen down. "Huh, never took you for the type of gal who liked to draw," Abel says, a contemplative look on his face. He stops to think, something rare for him, before continuing. "So do you still draw?" "Well uh no, I don't really draw anymore." "Why'd ya stop? You're really good at it," He says, looking at her sketch next to his drawing. "Uh, it's complicated," Elena says quietly. Abel nods. "Ah, alright, I ain't gonna push you on it." He says before taking the pen and opening its cap. "I know just what to add to this," He says before adding a text bubble writing a quick message in it. "Boom, done and dusted," He says, tossing the book near Hibiki's bag along with the pen. Meanwhile, Hibiki and the others had been able to collect some water from the river while narrowly escaping an ambush predator that fills a similar niche to that of crocodiles on earth, and collected some wood without any big incident. Now they are foraging and hunting for food. "These plants are edible," Hibiki says, plucking out a reddish purple leafy plant. "Nice," Luh responds, gathering some different plants that Hibiki determined are also edible. Meanwhile, Mohan was walking around in thick vegetation, looking for something to hunt. Luckily for him, he finds a flock of 4 legged aliens that were about the size of a chicken. Mohan aims and shoots 3 of the aliens; the rest scamper off as Mohan goes to collect the bodies. "WHOO LET'S GOO! WE EATIN' TANDOORI CHICKEN TONIGHT!" Mohan exclaims, holding the aliens over his head. "Woohoo!" Hibiki exclaims, giving Mohan a fist bump. "Damn, your aim isn't ass, surprisingly," Luh taunts. "But tandoori chicken sounds great," Luh adds, her mouth watering. "Hey, my aim isn't that bad, but you'd better be excited for some tandoori chicken!" Mohan says with a smile as the group starts heading back. As they head back to the cave, a loud bellow echoes through the forest. "What the hell is that?" Luh asks, gripping her gun tighter. "Oh, that sounds like this alien I saw at the creek. I named it Cristatus Serpens. From what I observed, it's just a big herbivore," Hibiki says nonchalantly and continues on his way. The large, snake-like alien bursts through the trees in front of them, rushing right past. "Wait, was that another alien in its mouth?" Mohan asks with a raised eyebrow. "Uh, ya .. . I have no clue about that, and its eyes were all glazed over too," Hibiki says nervously. Luh curses under her breath. "Whatever, let's just get moving before it turns us into a snack or something." The three of them soon arrive at a semi-clean cave with Elena and Abel sitting around a bonfire in the middle. "Yo, you're back, how'd it go?" Abel asks, getting up to greet them. "Went pretty well for the most part, and we got some chicken-looking things," Mohan says, holding up the 3 aliens he had shot. "Looks perfect for some barbeque," Abel says excitedly. "We are turning this into tandoori chicken, not some shitty American BBQ," Mohan says, holding the aliens tighter. "HEY AMERICAN BBQ IS GREAT, WAY BETTER THAN FUCKING TANDOORI CHICKEN," "OH YA? LET'S SETTLE THIS LIKE MEN!" Mohan says, rolling up his sleeve. "BET!" Abel yells back as Mohan tosses one of the aliens to him. The two head to opposite ends of the cave and begin cooking. "Huh, I thought they were gonna fight," Luh says, disappointedly. "I bet 15 bucks that Mohan is gonna win the cook off," Hibiki says as he, Luh, and Elena sit down to watch the cook off. "Hibiki, there's no need to bet, there's not a single chance that Abel creates something edible, let alone beating Mohan," Elena says. "Fair point," Hibiki responds, grabbing his field guide and starting to add some new entries to it. After about an hour or two of cooking, both Abel and Mohan present their dishes to everyone else. "Watch this curry muncher, imma blow you outta the fucking water!" Abel declares cockily as they both place their dishes down. Everyone starts with Mohan's dish, which is, as always, delicious, before moving on to Abel's dish. "I'm a little scared to bite into this to be honest," Luh says with a gulp. "Same here," Hibiki says before he takes a bite. As expected, Abel's food was barely edible. "Ya Mohan wins by an astronomical amount," Luh says after taking a bite. "Told ya, bro, you cannot cook for the life of ya," Mohan says, patting Abel's back. "Shut up," Abel grumbles. "Anyways, since I'd rather not get food poisoning from whatever Abel made, and we're all still hungry. So, I'll cook the final alien," Luh says as she gets up and heads over to the cooking station. After about 45 minutes of cooking, Luh made a dish similar to chicken stroganoff. "Damn, this is actually not that bad," Abel remarks as he eats. "Thanks, it's my mom's recipe," Luh says as she eats as well. "You know, maybe you should introduce me to your mom–" Abel says with a devilish grin. "Ow!'' Abel exclaims, rubbing the back of his head. "Why do you keep hitting me, Elena!" Everyone laughs as the sun sets, bringing the end of their second day here on C-100.

Chapter 4

"Do you remember? The 21st night of September, love was changing the mind of pretenders, and chasing the clouds away," Abel hums to himself while using a tin container to wash himself. "Yo, can somebody fill this for me?" Abel calls out, waving the now-empty container over the makeshift shower wall. "Sorry bro busy right now," Mohan replies absent-mindedly as he tinkers with his suit's communication unit. "Same here," Hibiki says, adding new entries to his field guide. Elena doesn't respond, still fast asleep in her sleeping bag. "Fine, I'll do it," Luh grumbles, walking over and snatching the container from her. "Don't know why you need 5 of these to wash yourself everytime," mutters under her breath before walking out of the cage and to the creek, which is where they got all their water from. Luh suddenly stops, standing at the bank. "And of course it's fucking dry," She groans, running a hand over her face before making her way back to the cave. Once Luh returns to the cave, she tosses the container over the shower wall. The hum of Abel's off-key singing was interrupted by a loud clang followed by a raging yell. "HEY, WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!" "The creek's gone dry," Luh says with a sigh. "What?! It was running just fine last night!" Abel shouts, rushing out from behind the shower wall, haphazardly throwing on a t-shirt and shorts. "Well maybe cause you use 50 buckets per shower," Luh jeers. "Very funny, now cmon let's go check it out," Abel says, grabbing his gun and machete. "Can I tag along too?" Hibiki asks, suddenly perking up from his field guide. "If the creek is completely dry, then I can see some alien fish," "Sure, more people means I get back to my shower quicker," Abel announces before striding out of the cave, Luh and Hibiki in tow. On arriving, Luh and Abel head out to see if something is blocking the creek's flow, while Hibiki heads down into the empty creek to see what kinds of aliens are there. Hibiki documents a variety of species, most of which have two movable fins, like fish on Earth. He continues down the creek when he's suddenly hit by a putrid smell; it smells like rot and decay, but even more pungent. His eyes teared up from the smell as he covered his nose with his shirt. Despite the horrible smell, he continues onward, approaching whatever the source of the scent is. "What the . . ." Hibiki mutters, his voice trailing off with wide eyes. In front of Hibiki was a roughly foot-tall mound of amalgamated flesh and bones from multiple species. On the top and side of the mound were the skulls of two Luminare Reptans; across the rest of its red, blister-ridden body were many eyes of varying sizes and shapes. These eyes then suddenly roll over, now looking at Hibiki. A lump forms in his throat, taking a small step back from the abomination. The lump of bleeding, gooey flesh, continues to track Hibiki's movements with various eyes. A lump on its body begins to pulsate, causing dark, rotten-smelling blood to flow out of it before it finally spits something out towards Hibiki. Hibiki looked down at his arm, sticking out from the cloth of his sleeve, a tiny barbed stinger. "Probably venomous," Hibiki thinks aloud, carefully plucking out the stinger and placing it into a glass container. "At least I have a sample of whatever that thing is now," He says, walking away from the creature. Hibiki continues to walk away at a brisk pace, his mind racing in the silence of the empty creek, trying to figure out what that thing was. His thoughts are roughly interrupted, however, as the silence is replaced with the roar of rushing water. Hibiki's eyes widen, and he scrambles over to the side of the creek to climb out, only to slip on the mud and fall backward onto the floor, and is swept up by the rushing water. He just manages to push his head above the water, gasping for air, whilst looking for something to grab onto. His eyes catch a root, sticking out from the bank of the creek. He makes a desperate lunge for it, just barely managing to wrap his fingers around it. He swiftly pulls himself up onto dry land, collapsing onto his back and breathing heavily. "Hibiki, are you ok?!" Luh yells, running up to him with Abel in tow. "Barely," Hibiki croaks out from his spot on the ground. "Shit, I'm so sorry, I didn't know that you were down there!" Abel says, quickly helping Hibiki up from the ground. Hibiki coughs. "It's fine, just a heads up would've been nice," "Yeah, our bad . . ." Luh apologizes, rubbing the back of her head. "So, did you find any new species or anything?" Abel asks. Hibiki's eyes widen, and he begins frantically patting down his pockets. "IT'S GONE! NO!" Hibiki yells, turning his pockets inside out. "What's gone?" Luh asks. "There was this alien and I took a sample and– fuck! It's gone!" Hibiki sputters, clenching his fists. He takes a deep breath and exhales. "It's fine, just forget about it," Abel opens his mouth to speak, but stops as Luh elbows him in the ribs, shooting him a glare. Abel clears his throat. "Well then, I'll just fill up my container then," He announces, awkwardly walking over to the creek and scooping up some water. While filling up the container, an eel-like alien pops out of the water. Similar to the alien that attacked them on their raft, it had more than just 1 pair of eyes and a tall sailfin on its back. Its head and jaws are short and broad with many rows of sharp teeth. On its head was a single horn, like a unicorn's. It's 4 eyes curiously, looking around at the group, letting out soft shrills as it playfully splashes around. "What the hell is that dumb looking thing?" Abel says, splashing water at it in an attempt to scare it off. "Hey, I think it's pretty cute," Luh says, digging in her pocket and producing a piece of dried meat, which she then throws to it. It catches the piece of meat mid-air and eats it. "Well, it might attack us or something," Abel says before throwing a rock at it, which it dodges before splashing Abel with water. "Abel, careful, it kinda resembles that big electric alien–" Hibiki warns, but it was already too late. "AH WHAT THE FUCK?! OW! IT ZAPPED ME!" Abel yells, which scares off the creature. Luh laughs her ass off while Hibiki holds back a laugh himself. After this, the 3 of them head back to the cave, but Hibiki couldn't get his mind off the flesh mound. "What the hell was that thing? It was clearly alive," Hibiki mutters under his breath as he begins to sketch it into his field guide. The image of its bleeding, rotten body, composed of the corpses of various aliens, was fresh in his mind. It was pretty quiet in the cave as the group each did their own thing when suddenly Mohan broke said silence. "YO GUYS, I GOT THE COMS BACK UP AND RUNNING, COME QUICK!" Mohan exclaims, beckoning everyone over with hand gestures. Everyone drops what they are doing and rushes over to him. Mohan takes a calming breath before speaking into the radio. "This is the crew of the Apollo 15, do you read?" The radio buzzes with static for a moment. "Yes this NASA HQ, what is your status?" The voice of the operator crackles over the radio. Cheers erupt from the rest of the crew before Mohan clears his throat and responds to NASA HQ. "We are currently in forests of the planet, we are about 10 kilometers from the landing site." Mohan responds promptly. "See, we sent an extraction unit to the planet 4 days ago. The extraction unit's trajectory will be towards the base of the mountains, which should be north of your landing," NASA HQ responds. A glowing dot appears on the screen of the communications device. "Alright we will be right there to meet the extraction unit, when will they arrive?" Mohan asked. "We will be there in approximately 3 days at 1400 hours. We hope to see you then," NASA HQ responds before cutting communications. After they cut communications, everybody starts getting ready to travel to the location that NASA marked for them. "Man, I can't wait to take a nice hot shower once I get back home," Abel says, stretching as they begin their walk. "Same, we smell terrible bro," Mohan chuckles, handing the device to Luh so she could lead the way. "Ya, it's gonna be nice to finally go home but I hope I can document a couple new species while I'm here," Hibiki says, staying at the back of the group as they begin the journey to the base of the mountains. "I'll be a hero to my mom once I get back but I already know my mom is gonna scold me for worrying," Luh says, letting out a tired sigh just thinking about the upcoming lecture. "At least you'll get some stroganoff afterwards," Mohan chuckles. "Fair point, chicken stroganoff is heavenly," Luh says. "I want to have some Pelmeni when I get home," Elena adds. "Pelmeni? The hell is that? I'm looking forward to some juicy steak," Abel replies, practically drooling. "It's like dumplings, I like mine with sour cream," Elena explains. "Sounds pretty good, maybe we should get some once we finally get outta this place," Hibiki says before adding on. "I want some Takoyaki, though, I miss good seafood." "Psh, as if I'm going to Russia of all places, I'd rather not freeze to death–" Abel starts before Elena smacks the back of his head. "Ow, that was uncalled for," Abel grumbles, rubbing the back of his head. "What about you, Mohan?" Hibiki asks. "I'll give you 30 bucks, it's Nihari with butter naan," Abel says "And you're damn right! Nihari blasts your greasy ass burgers straight outta the water," Mohan replies. "Ya right! We'll see about that, you curry muncher!" Abel exclaims, grinning. "Bet, I'll destroy your sorry ass!" Mohan says, also grinning. "I'm putting all my money on Mohan," Luh and Hibiki say at the same time. "Same here, my dad, while drinking vodka, could cook better than Abel," Elena adds on. "Jeez, thanks for the support, you guys," Abel grumbles. "Well, we should probably get a move on; we have to cover 195 km in only three days," Luh says, picking up her pace, the rest of the group following in her steps. The sun was quick to set, shrouding the jungle in an impenetrable darkness. Despite this, they continued to move on, huddled close to one another. "My legs are jelly!" Luh whines, hobbling along at the front of the group. "Shouldn't we rest now? It's so late," Hibiki says, yawning widely. "We still have 135 km left to go, we can set up camp in an hour," Elena insists, having taken the map from Luh a long while ago now. Abel puts a hand on Elena's shoulder, giving her a tired look. Elena sighs, her features softening. "Fine, let's set up camp." The group quickly set up camp, gathering around a bonfire in their sleeping bags. Elena stood guard, ignoring Abel's advice entirely. She stood marching back and forth, her eyes glued to the void that was the forest. As alien as this planet was, the forest still had a nostalgic feel to Elena. There were so many differences between the forest she explored back home and the one here. The forest back home was snowy, cold, and so quiet. Here, it was wet, uncomfortably humid, and noisy. There was one thing both forests had in common: the feeling of dread. To her, it has always felt like the forest has had eyes, especially at night. There was always something watching you in the forest: the birds, the insects, and the thousands of other creatures. She rubs her eyes tiredly, shaking her thoughts about the forest, how she could wander too deep and never be found. Her eyes drift away from the darkness and instead to Hibiki's backpack. She quietly sneaks over and retrieves the field guide. She flips through it, adding her comments to the aliens she found interesting. Once she finishes adding her comments, she flips through the entire book before suddenly stopping at the very last page. "What the . . ." Elena murmurs, her voice trailing off. The final page, which should be empty like the 100 pages before it, was a secret entry. The alien drawn was rotting, gunky flesh from various species crudely stitched together into a messy lump. The sketch was messily done, unlike every other alien drawing Hibiki had done. Her eyes then drifted to the note on the side, done in scribbled, messy handwriting. "I have no clue what this thing is. It smells terrible, like a rotting skunk. Its anatomy makes no sense! It has body parts from other aliens. I don't know what it is or how it does anything but I will try to observe it further. – Hibiki Ito." She slams the book shut, shoving it into Hibiki's bag before going back to her patrols, pacing back and forth faster than before. A few hours later, the crew wakes up just as the sun peaks over the horizon. They eat a quick breakfast before resuming their journey. A few hours later, they exit the jungle, the space opening up into a grassland. Unlike the savannah, which was made up of pure red plants, the grassland was made up of many diverse species of grass-like plants. It wasn't a flat grassland; the grassland was made up of many rolling hills with patches of trees scattered throughout. In front of them was a river that cut through grassland, and the mountains loomed far off in the distance. "Whoa! This place is beautiful! This gotta be one of the biggest mountains I've seen!" Luh says, taking a few pictures of the entire landscape. "Ya ya whatever, I just want to rest. My legs are done," Abel grumbles. "Same here, we should eat something too," Mohan says. Hibiki nods in agreement. "We can go rest by the river, C'mon, let's go," Elena says, leading the way down to the river. Mohan plops down by the creek, scooping up the cold mountain water into his hands and splashing it on his face. Abel immediately ransacks Mohan's bag and takes out the leftovers from today's breakfast. Hibiki looks across the river, where about 20 meters away a bipedal alien lazily wallows around in the water. Its legs were similar to an elephant's, thick and column-like. Its legs are the opposite of its arms, however, as it's arms are incredibly tiny. It used its huge head to graze on the grass on the bank of the river. He took out his field guide, flipping to an empty page and beginning to sketch it in. Abel sniffs, his nose scrunching. "Huh, what's that smell?" Hibiki and Elena suddenly perk up. Hibiki takes a deep breath. "Ya it smells pretty bad here, we should probably move," Hibiki says quickly, his eyes locked on something deep in the river. "Well, you're not wrong, it does smell terrible here," Mohan says with a small nod. "Nah, you must love it. Bet it smells like home for you here," Abel says, grinning before Mohan punches him in the shoulder. "If you think this is bad, you guys wouldn't last a day in Delhi," Mohan chuckles before going back to eating. Mohan and Abel roughed around as usual, making dumb jokes and hitting one another. Hibiki, meanwhile, continued to stare deep into the water. He squinted his eyes, focusing hard on something down there. Luh continued to eat her food, occasionally taking pictures or videos of the surroundings. Elena sat further away from the creek, observing Hibiki from the corner of her eye. A bellow suddenly ripped through the air. Everyone whipped their heads over to the source of the noise, the herbivorous alien. It was bucking, rolling, and thrashing, as if it was trying to get rid of something that wasn't there. It even went so far as to begin smashing its head against the walls of the riverbank until thick blood tainted the waters. "Hibiki, its eyes are all fucked up!" Luh points out. "Yeah, they're just like the eyes of that big snake alien," Mohan adds. Hibiki looks at the alien's eyes. The eyes were milky white, lacking the pupils they had earlier; more noticeable than that, a stinger was poking out of one of its eyes. "Let's get out of here," Hibiki says, his voice shaky. He didn't have to tell them twice, as everyone immediately began packing up their things. Another pained bellow ripped through the air once more before the alien went silent entirely. The sound of restless thrashing and resistance was now replaced by the sound of it rushing through the water. "IT'S COMING, LET'S GO!" Elena yelled as everyone made a mad dash towards the treeline. By the time the alien emerged from the river, the group had already taken cover by the treeline. The alien lumbered about, moving as if it were its first time walking. It would take a step and then fall, step and then fall, a pattern that repeated multiple times. The alien looked around, its head pivoting like a security camera. Its face was incredibly deformed from its struggle; the eyebrow ridges on the right side of its face had collapsed, and the skin had been scraped off, exposing raw, pink flesh underneath. Its stubby arms were both broken and crumpled up from falling. It continued its walk forward, slowly and calculated, like a robot. Soon, it was right by the treeline. Just as it was about to continue, its head snapped towards the sound of rustling from its bushes. A small alien darted out from the bushes, only to get immediately snatched up by its jaws, its flat teeth flattening the lesser alien with a sickening crunch. It didn't continue to chew nor did it swallow, instead it slowly walked back to the river before submerging completely within its depths. "Jesus Christ, what the hell was the big dude's problem?" Abel mumbles to the others as they all come out of their hiding spots. "I don't know, but that's enough resting for now. Let's get the hell out of here," Luh says as they begin walking again. Only a few hours later, night had already fallen. Everyone had settled into their sleeping bags, except for Abel, who stayed up on watch. Elena had tried to stay up on watch again, but Abel refused to let her. He sat down on a tree stump, his rifle in hand, but he was wide awake. Usually, Abel would fight back sleep at this hour, but that wasn't the problem he faced right now. Instead, he faced a different issue; He was being watched. At least it felt that way. He stared ahead to see if he could catch something darting out from behind one of the trees that were scattered across the grassland, or to catch the reflective glint of nocturnal eyes. All his eyes met was the suffocating darkness of the grassland. "Man, this planet must be making me go skitzo or something," He mutters, running a hand over his face. He turns around to check the other side when the quiet sound of footsteps catches his attention. They sounded human, like someone was sneaking around their camp. He slowly turns around, gripping his gun tightly. He prayed his hunch had been wrong, but as his father would say, "Fate is a cruel mistress," and he really wasn't wrong. Peeking out from behind the tree was a face. The face was far from human, its eyes were far too small and noticeably lacked pupils, its nose was thin and flattened, and it lacked any external ears. Its skin was loose, wrinkled, and saggy, with its skin being a noticeably greenish-yellow tint. The creature, instead of ducking back into the cover of the tree, matches Abel's stare. This staring contest lasts for what to Abel seems like hours until it finally slinks back into the darkness. Abel didn't have any trouble fighting back sleep for the rest of the night afterward. A few hours later, the crew all woke up, and an hour after that, they had all begun the final stretch of the trip. Everyone assumed their usual positions in the line; Hibiki walked tiredly at the back, Mohan walked next to Hibiki, and Luh and Elena stayed at the front. Abel, however, charged ahead, for once being at the very front of the group. In his hands, his rifle was tightly gripped, and his eyes were never focused in front but instead to his left and to his right. "Hey bro you good man?" Mohan asks Abel while the rest of the group walks on ahead of them. "Ya, I'm good, man," Abel responds absent-mindedly, looking out into the woods. "Bro, don't pull that shit. You look like you've seen a skinwalker or some shit," Mohan responds. "Fine, I'm just nervous about the whole alien thing yesterday," Abel says. "Can't blame you, that thing went berserk out of the blue," Mohan responds with a small chuckle. Abel nods. "Yeah, Hibiki, do you know what that was all about?" Hibiki shakes his head. "No clue, maybe it was sick with something similar to rabies?" Hibiki pitches. Luh nods. "I guess that one snake thing was also infected." "What snake thing?" Elena asks. "There was this big snake thing and its eyes were all milky white, just like the big guy yesterday," Luh responds. "Don't forget the dead alien it was carrying around," Mohan adds. "Jeez, that's mad creepy," Abel says with a shudder. "This planet is just creepy in general. I can't wait to get home," Luh says with a sigh. "The second I'm getting home, I'm going to go bird watching," Elena says. "You birdwatch?!" Abel exclaims. Elena raises an eyebrow. "Yeah, what's so surprising about that?" "I always thought you would have more violent hobbies," Abel says bluntly. Elena's eyebrows furrow. "What're you trying to say, huh?" "Well, you're a very mean person in general, how can you blame me–" Abel begins, losing the opportunity to finish as Elena begins to chase him. Luh and Mohan chuckle as Elena tackles Abel, leading to a wrestling match between the two, all the while Hibiki is staring off into space, staying completely silent. "Earth to Hibki, you there?" Luh asks, waving a hand in front of his face, snapping him out of the trance he was in. "Huh?" Hibiki mutters tiredly, turning his head side to side. "Are you ok? You seem really tired," Luh asks as Mohan cheers Abel on in the background. "Yeah, just haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately," "I feel you, it's hard to sleep when you aren't in the safety of a cave," Hibiki nods. "Yeah, I think it's just this planet in general," "It's way too humid, like it's even more humid than my grandma's house in Brazil," Hibiki chuckles. "It is super hot and humid. Even though we've been here for two weeks, I can't get used to," "Yeah," Luh says with a smile. The two of them walk side by side, catching up to the others. The group soon arrived at the foot of the mountains, the extraction point. Currently it was almost 1400 hours, meaning within an hour, the rescue crew would be coming. Everyone sat around in a circle, taking cover under a large tree-like organism. Everyone sat in their own little groups, talking or doing some other activity. "When we get home, we gotta hop on the game," Abel says to Mohan. Mohan nods. "Agreed, it's been 2 whole years," They both go silent. "Damn," they say simultaneously. "That's insane, isn't it?" Mohan asks. "Yup," The two go silent for a moment longer before getting back to discussion. "At least there will be a ton of new content," Abel says. "True, true." The conversation between them died down and they sat there in silence, enjoying each other's company. Abel looks up from the piece of wood he had begun carving with his pocket knife, something his father had taught him to do, and looks toward the treeline. The same feeling from last night had filled him again. His eyes darted about until they landed on a familiar face. Except, it was just one, it was five– no it was even more, his eyes widened as he saw alien after alien after alien hiding behind the trees. "Dude, what's wrong?" Mohan asks. When Abel doesn't respond, Mohan follows his gaze to the treeline. "Holy shit," Mohan says under his breath. "We need to go," Abel says, getting up, rifle in hand. Hibiki looks up from his field guide. "Why? Do you see something?" Abel motions to the treeline, everyone turns their gaze and sees the alien faces. Elena immediately stands up, drawing her rifle. "Abel's right, we have to go, now," Elena commands. As the group packs up, a loud sound pierces through the air. The sound repeats itself a second time, then a third before being joined by lowing rhythmic humming. "Is that a horn?" Luh asks, as another loud sound blares out, this time coming from their right instead of the tree line in front of them. "Well, whatever they are, they've surrounded us," Elena says, gripping her gun. The hum continues before suddenly stopping, the noise being replaced with the sound of over 50 of the aliens running towards them. Now seeing the in the daylight, Abel could get a clear look at what he now knows had been stalking them ever since last night. They were tall, very tall, with each of them being 8 to 9 feet tall and their skin wasn't just wrinkly, it was loose and sagged off their bodies. Their limbs were long and their fingers were sharp and bony, like claws. Some them carried primitive weapons like sharpened wooden spears, clubs, and rocks, which the lobbed forward, similar to how chimpanzees on earth could. Elena and Abel opened fire, killing many of the aliens charging forward. They didn't stop coming at them, only a few stayed back to drag off the dead and injured. Hibiki, Luh, and Mohan gripped their machetes tightly, staying close to Elena and Abel, who continued to shoot the aliens, who had now begun to cower behind trees before returning fire by throwing rocks and spears. Whilst distracted with that group, another group of 10 had already snuck up behind them. Just as one was about to lunge at Hibki, Mohan tackled it to the ground. Mohan attempted to slash it with the machete while having it pinned, the alien turned around in its own skin and bit down on Mohan's hand, thrashing it's head back and forth violently. "HELP!" Mohan cried out. Luh came up from behind the alien, slamming the machete into it's skull, splitting it into to two. Hibki and Luh circled Mohan, machetes in hand as they guarded him from any other aliens. Abel gun clicks. "Shit, I'm out of ammo!" Abel yells, tossing the gun to the side and pulling out his machete. "Same here, I'm all out!" Elena replies. The aliens began closing in on the group, at first cautiously coming out from their hiding before breaking out into a full on run towards them. However, they come to a screeching halt halfway through. A deep rumble filled the air, vibrating their very bones. The aliens began hollering in panic as they made a desperate run for it as a giant alien bursts out of the tree line. It was the same species as the alien they had met on their first day here. It runs rampant, chasing after the fleeing humanoid aliens, snapping them up in it's jaws. Soon, all of them had disappeared into the forest. "Thank god," Abel says breathlessly. It then turned its attention to them. It looked at them the same way as the one they first met had. It's small pupils, slowly looked over them one at time, getting each minute detail of their appearance. Everyone stood still, breath held, as it analyzed them. Then it begun to walk towards them, first it was slow tentative steps but soon became confident and deliberate strides. "Oh we're so fucked," Abel says. "This isn't time for your adlibs, Abel," Elena scolds him. "Hibiki, got any ideas?" "I have no clue, we definitely can't outrun it, we're too far from the tree line." Just as it got halfway to them, a loud whirring noise came from the sky. It looked up before running away as bullets rained down towards it. "THANK GOD IT'S HERE!" Mohan says, offering a weak high five with his good hand. "ABOUT DAMN TIME, HOLY SHIT!" Abel says giving the high five. "Thank god," Luh whispers under her breath. However, their happiness was short lived as two aliens flew towards the ship, it was two of the aliens that had crashed their ship in the first place, now making a bee line towards the their only way out. They could only watch as the two aliens clamped onto the ship, piercing it's engine. The rescue ship managed to scare off the aliens but it was too little too late, as it spiralled out of control, crashing somewhere far away near the mountains. The horn sounds once more, the group's attention snaps back to the treeline, where the tribal aliens had returned. The horn sounds again, the crew picks up their machetes, even Mohan, holding it in his good hand. The horn sounds for a final time as the aliens rush in once more. A red blur suddenly rushes past them and in the blink of an eye, the aliens had all been slaughtered, pieces of their body strewn about the area and in the middle stood a short lightskinned woman, being at most 5'1. The woman had locks, which were a dark cyan color. Her clothing; a primitive looking dress made from some kind of plant fiber with a vine that acted as a belt. All these details flew past the group however because the thing they focused on the most was her left eye, a cybernetic that glowed a bright red, and her right arm which was split down the middle, with a giant, dark red and bloody blade coming out of it.

Chapter 5

“WHOA, MORE HUMANS! HOLY SHIT! WHOOOO!” The woman yells, pumping her fist. “Y’ALL MUST BE MY RESCUE CREW, RIGHT?! TOOK THOSE ASSHOLES LONG ENOUGH!” Her celebration is cut short as she looks at the crew, who were staring at her, dumbfounded. “Ah, you guys must be totally freaked out by my aura, sorry bout that,” she says. Her cybernetic eye stops glowing, and the sword retracts back into her arm as it begins to put itself back together. “Aura? What the hell are you talking about?!” Abel exclaims. Minus 1000 aura,” She says before continuing. “Anyways, where's y'all's ship! Man, I can't wait to get back home! It's been like... wait, what year is it?” “Well, we’re not your rescue team, we got stranded here and the year is 2080–” Hibiki begins to explain. “WAIT WHAT!?” She interrupts. “YOU DUMBASSES ARE STRANDED HERE TOO?!” She screams, punching a hole in a nearby tree. “I’ve been stuck on this stupid fucking planet for 30 YEARS! AND THEY HAVEN’T SENT A SINGLE RESCUE CREW.” “Wait, 30 years?” Luh questions, raising an eyebrow. “YEAH! I WAS PART OF THE FIRST VOYAGE TO THIS PIECE OF SHIT PLANET! YOU KNOW, THE BIGGEST FUCKNING MISSION IN THE HISTORY OF THE HUMAN RACE?!” “No one told us about a previous mission here . . .” Elena responds, her voice trailing off. “Huh?” “Nobody told us about some previous trip, you crazy lady,” Abel responds sharply. “Theres no way, cmon you gotta know my name right? Elira! The cyborg woman on the voyage?” Everyone collectively shake their heads. Hibiki takes a step towards her. “Im really sorry but we really don’t know, no one’s told us,” He says, his voice soft. He glances at Mohan. “Thank you for saving us but we need a bit more of your help,” Elira sighs before looking down at Mohan’s mangled hand. “Fine.” She crouches down next to Mohan. “We’re gonna have to cut it off, it’ll get infected.” “I figured, its that bad ain’t it?” Mohan says with a strained smile. Abel hesitantly steps aside, giving Elira space. Hibki rummages through Mohan’s bag before giving Mohan the cloth. He bites down on the cloth as Elira’s right arm splits open once more, and the sword emerges from it. In one clean motion, she slices off his mangled hand. Mohan lets out a muffled scream as Luh and Hibiki rush over, using a first aid kit from Mohan’s bag to disinfect and wrap up the stump of where his hand used to be. Abel helps Mohan to his feet. “God, that sucked,” Mohan says, his forehead covered in sweat. “Ah stop bitchin’ n moaning, lets go, I got questions and I bet you lot do too,” Elira barks out before stomping off. As they walk up, Abel helps Mohan walk, staying near the back of the group. Hibiki stays in the middle of the group, sticking close to Mohan and Abel. Meanwhile, the girls remain near the front of the group. After about 30 minutes of walking up the mountain, the group comes upon a small, dinky shack. The front lawn of the shack was covered in plants, some of which bore what looked like fruit or vegetables. “Well, welcome to my home away from home,” Elira says as she opens the door to the shelter. The interior of the shack was just as simple as the exterior. The first floor was made of 5 rooms: A living room with soft leather chairs, a kitchen, a bedroom, and a study. The second floor was all bedrooms. Hibiki, Mohan, and Abel settled down in the study, and the girls settled down in the living room. “So want to tell us what’s going on?” Luh asks, leaning forward. “Alright, so basically, I was part of the original crew that came here, and basically we crashed, and my crew was immediately killed in the crash,” Elira explains. “That’s so weird, nobody told us about a previous expedition,” Elena says, her arms crossed. “Exactly, especially with . . . someone like you,” Luh adds, motioning to Elira. “You’d think they’d put the first cyborg in space all over the headlines, eh?” Elira grumbles, crossing her arms and leaning back. “So why did they send you here before us then? It just makes no sense at all,” Luh asks. “No clue, maybe as a scouting crew. It’d explain why they gave us a shitty ship and even shittier supplies.” “Still doesn’t make sense why they wouldn’t tell anybody, did they tell you to investigate anything here or something? Like on some covert intel gathering?” Elena asks. Elira pauses for a second before shrugging. “Nah, even if they did, they didn’t tell us jackshit,” She waves her hand dismissively. “Anyways, you got your ship right? We can repair that thing and get off this rock.” Luh and Elena glance at one another. “About that–” Luh starts. “Our ship flew off without us after repairs,” Elena cuts in bluntly. “. . . HOW THE FUCK-” Elira yells, standing up from her seat. “I DON'T KNOW EITHER-” Elena yells back. Elira sighs heavily. “Ok, whatever, I guess for now, we're all stuck on this god forsaken planet,” Elira says, plopping back down onto the couch. While this whole conversation was happening, the boys were disinfecting and wrapping up each other's wounds before working on helping Mohan to engineer a temporary prosthetic. “Abel, for the love of god– what are you doing?!” Mohan exclaims with an exasperated sigh. “Don't this doohickey go here?” Abel responds, holding a small gear. “Jeez, you really are all brawn and no brains huh?” Hibiki comments with a chuckle as Mohan pinches the bridge of his nose. “How can I do better than you with one hand?? But the ‘doohickey’ goes over here,” Mohan says, pointing to the area where the piece goes. “Well I'm not part of tech support so it makes sense, dumbass,” Abel replies while putting the piece into its proper place. And just as quickly as the attack had started and ended, the sun had begun to set over the horizon. As the sun dipped below the mountain range, it glowed a deep and dark red. The clouds around it glowed orange and red as the mountain was silhouetted in the sun's glow. The largest land animals of C-100, Terra Lacerta, giant sauropod-like aliens, got ready for nightfall down below. Their thick, column-like legs folded beneath them as they lay down. They wrapped their long, stocky necks protectively around their vulnerable young. The sails on their backs went down along with the sun. The herd, approximately 50 in number, lay with one another, the young in the center and the adults on the outside, forming a circle of small mountains. A daunting task for any predator, indeed. As the night dawned on this world, Hibiki was outside on the porch of the cabin, sketching the hundreds of nocturnal aliens coming out. Luh soon joined him. “So . . . What're you doing out here?” She asks, leaning over his shoulder to take a look at what he's sketching. “Just getting something for my field guide, new species,” Hibki explains as he closes his field guide, putting it in his pocket. “Ah, I see, I see, what are you calling those big boys? Luh asks, looking down at the titans below. “Terra Lacerta, it's Latin for ‘Earth Lizard,'” Hibiki says as he leans forward on the railing. Luh looks at him, deadpanned. “Seriously? That's the most boring name I’ve ever heard! We’re not even on earth!” She exclaims. Hibiki scoffs. “Well then, what should I name it since I apparently suck at naming aliens.” Luh scratches her head in thought, playing with a strand of hair. “Hmm, why not Sol Comedentis? That’s latin for ‘Sun Eater’ right?” Hibiki nods. “Yup, but why Sun Eater?” “Cause it looks like it could eat a star if it really tried, look how big these guys are!” Luh says, motioning down to the resting giants. “Hmm you know, fair point. Sun eater is a lot cooler than earth lizard,” he says, nodding in agreement as he crosses out the name he had originally written and replaces it with Sol Comedentis. “So why are you out here?” Hibiki asks, turning his head to face her. “Well, Elira gave me this strange liquid, she says it's like coffee but I'm not entirely sure to trust someone who hasn't had real coffee for over 3 decades. But anyways, I wanted to enjoy the sunset with my mystery liquid,” she says, picking up the cup from the table she had placed it on earlier. “That doesn't look . . . Good to say the least, but the sunset looks immaculate,” Hibiki says before looking at the sun, which had all but set. “Ya, it's so red. Probably because of the planet's thicker atmosphere,” she says, now also looking at the sunset. “Ya, that makes sense,” Hibiki says with a slight nod. Luh nods as well before taking a sip of her brew. “Huh, this is surprisingly good. It's super nutty, but it's a lot stronger than a coffee,” Luh remarks before taking another sip. “Oh, really? Man, I guess I'll ask Elira for some later so that I can power through these field notes,” Hibiki says with a small chuckle. “Another all nighter? You've barely been sleeping after the whole thing at the creek. You ok man?” Luh asks. “Ya, I'm good, just wanna document as much as possible, I guess,” Hibiki responds before looking back at the sun, which had now completely set, blanketing the area in almost complete darkness. “Well, alright then, Imma head in now,” Luh says before heading in, drink in hand. “Goodnight.” “Night.” The planet transformed into something else entirely as night fell. Hibiki had grown used to nights in the jungles of this planet. In the jungle, the darkness consumed every crevice and corner, and everything else was filled by the droning noise of nocturnal aliens and the soft steps of what could be an unknown predator. The night is always lively on this planet; that is a constant that cannot change, no matter how many thousands of miles you travel. However, the nature of the liveliness changes; the droning of millions of aliens is replaced by the soft glow and wingbeats of hundreds of small bioluminescent aliens. These aliens resembled bats, their bodies covered in fur. Most of these aliens flew, but some crawled on the ground. These larger, lizard-like creatures lacked wings entirely. Hibiki soon realized that these species were the same, watching as one of the flying ones blinked its bioluminescent rear at a one on the ground. The one on the ground responded with its own pattern, blinking its bioluminescent rear and the bioluminescent bulbs on its back. The flying one descended before mounting itself onto the one on the ground. Hibiki focused on his sketching; these creatures he decided would be named “Fulgur Vespertilionis”. Another alien zipped through the air, a long insectoid alien. Its body was segmented into 5 parts, its head segment was made up of a mess of tentacles, and its 5th segment had a pair of pinchers on it. It lay in wait before using its 4 wings to launch itself forward, using its face tentacles to grip onto the victim, in this case, a young Fulgur Vespertilionis, before delivering a lethal electric shock using its pinchers. Hibiki named these creatures “Volantes Electricae”. Time flies by, and Hibiki finally decides to turn in for the night. Maybe he would even try that brew that Elira made, when suddenly the noises of the distressed Sol Comedenti rumbled through the area. He turns back around, and the giants are now standing, their necks erratically scanning the area. Hibiki quickly takes out the field guide page for Sol Comedentis, ready to take notes. The herd begins to spread out, a few staying behind with the young. Hibiki figured they were looking for something. What they were looking for was soon answered when he caught something from the corner of his eye. Something huge was dragging a juvenile behind it; he couldn’t get a good look at whatever it was because it blended very well with the darkness of the trees. Hibiki promptly turned around to head inside. Elira suddenly shoves the door open. “WHAT THE HELLS HAPPENING OUT HERE?! DAMN BEASTS MAKIN’ A RACKET!” She yells, causing Hibiki to jump back. “Jeez, you’re louder than the aliens,” Hibiki remarks with a sigh. “Ah, shut up those damn things woke me up,” she says, her right eye twitching slightly. “Anyways why the hell are you still out here even?” “Just filling out some stuff for my field guide,” he says, closing the book and putting it in his bag. “Is that all you do? Damn you really are a fucking nerd-” she grumbles. “Ya ya, anyways is there any of that coffee stuff you made Luh leftover?” he asks her. “Uh, ya, probably,” she says, shrugging before heading inside. Hibiki follows behind her as they go to the makeshift kitchen. “Here ya go,” she says, sliding him a cup. “Thanks,” he replies, taking the cup and promptly taking a sip. “Damn, this is pretty good, it's just like how Luh said it was like” he remarks as he continues to take sips. “No problemo,” Elira says before flipping through his field guide, which he had left on the counter. “Damn you're good at drawing-” she starts before cutting herself off after reaching a certain page. “Hm? You ok?” He asks, raising an eyebrow. “You saw one of these?” She asks him, showing the page he had made on the flesh mound. “Uh ya, do you know what it is?” He inquires. Elira pauses. “I uh nah, never seen a freaky ass thing like that,” She quickly says. “I'm too tired for your weird ass drawings anyway,” She grumbles, tossing the book back to Hibiki before shuffling off. Hibiki yawns. “Maybe I’ll ask her again later,” He mutters to himself before sitting down with the brew and his trusty pen to finish off his writing. The next day, Hibiki woke up on the couch. From the kitchen, he heard the sounds of clinking cutlery and people talking. “Good morning, everyone,” Hibiki mumbles through a yawn as he shambles into the kitchen. “Took ya long enough, nerd–” Elira and Abel say simultaneously. “HEY! STOP COPYING ME!” they yell at one another. “Morning, bro,” Mohan says, going to give Hibiki a fist bump with the stump of his right hand. “Oh, wait wrong hand,” He says, before switching to his left. “Good morning,” Elena says, taking a sip of her brew before getting up and whacking both Abel and Elira on the head. “It's too early you two,” she scolds them. The two rub their heads and grumble apologies. Elena goes back to sipping her brew while Hibiki grabs some “fruit”, along with a cup of brew. “So how did you sleep? Or did you pull another all nighter?” Luh asks Hibiki. “Uhh well ya,” Hibiki admits sheepishly. Luh rolls her eyes. “You gotta actually sleep, you know that right?” “Ya ya I know,” Hibiki mumbles in response. “Anyways, we should probably figure out how to get the fuck off this planet,” Abel grumbles. “Well not much we can do now, the coms are completely shot after the whole attack so we're stuck here pretty much. We gotta focus on survival,” Mohan says, taking a bite of some type of meat. “There’s gotta be some way, can’t we call another rescue ship or something?” Mohan shakes his head. “Nah, the coms are shot and I can’t really fix it,” He says, waving the stump where his right hand was. Elena nods in agreement. “All we can do is survive until they send another ship,” “If they send another ship,” Hibiki says. “Well, looks like I’m just gonna crazy here like her,” Abel grumbles, motioning to Elira. “Saying something you little shit?” Elira says, her head just above the table. “You're calling me little? I've seen children taller than you! Fuckin’ vertically challenged,” Abel says, looking down at her. “HEY I'M NOT THAT SHORT! I'M GONNA BEAT YOUR SORRY ASS INTO NEXT WEEK!” She yells, waving her arms and going on her tiptoes. “Hey, does anybody know where Elira went?” Abel asks, looking over Elira’s head and scanning the room. Mohan and Luh stifled a laugh. Hibiki continued to sip his brew, staring off into space. Elena sighed, rubbing her forehead. “HEY I'M RIGHT HERE ASSHOLE!” she says, waving her arms around faster and now hopping up and down. “Did y'all hear anything, it seems it came from all the way down there,” Abel says, pointing downwards at Elira. Before Elira could go on another tirade, Hibiki spoke up. “Abel, cmon, don’t be an ass. Plus, Elena looks like she’s about to smack you again.” “Hey, I'm not being mean, I'm just concerned about Elira. I can't find her!” Abel says mockingly. Elira climbs up onto a chair and flicks Abel on the forehead. “Shut it before I feed your tall ass to the aliens!” Abel flicks her on the forehead back, leading to a fight between the two. Luh and Mohan laughed their asses off while Hibiki and Elena helped break up the fight. “Can’t even eat breakfast in peace,” Elena grumbles under her breath. After breakfast, everyone went to do their own thing. Abel and Hibiki sat with Mohan, helping him disassemble their broken electronics and reassemble them to create a crude prosthetic. For a while, they worked in mostly silence, broken occasionally by Abel’s not-so-smart comments and questions. “What do you guys think about Elira?” Hibiki suddenly asks. “She’s gone fucking crazy after being here for 40 years,” Abel says. “She doesn’t seem the bad kind of crazy but I don’t fully trust her either,” Mohan adds. “And she hasn’t given us much info, all we know is that someone sent her here way before us.” “Exactly! I don’t trust her one bit, she ain’t even fully human!” Abel remarks. “Just cause she got some cybernetics doesn’t mean she isn’t a human,” Hibiki says. “Yeah, yeah, you get my point,” Abel says, waving his hand dismissively. “We don’t even know how she got those cybernetics, and I’ve never seen anybody juiced up that hard.” “That’s true, we don’t have much choice other than to trust her,” Hibiki says with a sigh. “Yup, let's try staying on her good side,” Mohan says, side-eyeing Abel. “Yeah, yeah, I know,” Abel grumbles. Luh and Elena soon join the three of them. “Wassup, guys?” Luh greets as she sits down. “Hey,” Hibiki responds. “We’re talking about Elira, right?” Elena states. Everyone nods. “You both were just talking to her, right?” Mohan inquires. Elena nods. “She still won’t tell us much.” “We tried prodding her a bit more, but all she told us is that NASA sent her and a crew here and that she’s some kind of super soldier or something,” Luh adds. “Great, we’re stuck with captain america if he was stuck in solitude for 4 decades.” “She surprisingly doesn’t seem absolutely insane despite that,” Hibiki says. “That is true, but she is still withholding a ton of info from us,” Luh says. Hibiki shifts on his spot on the floor. “Yeah, actually, I got something–” “C’MON, IT'S LUNCHTIME!” Elira’s voice echoes from the kitchen. Everyone gets up and makes their way over to the kitchen. “So who’s cooking?” Hibiki asks. “ME!” Mohan and Elira say at the same time. The two shoot a glare at one another. “I ain't letting this cavewoman cook! Whatever she makes probably has a 50/50 chance at killing us,” Mohan says, crossing his arms. “And I ain’t gonna eat some curry!” Elena sighed and rubbed her forehead as Abel joined in on the argument, taking Mohan’s side. “My boy Mohan is a master in the kitchen, you probably can’t even reach the counters!” Luh and Hibiki stay on the side, whispering and discussing with one another. “Wait wait, we got an idea,” Hibiki says, stepping in between the two. “So basically why don't we do a cook off between you two? You know, prove who is better?” Luh pitches in. Why the hell are we doing that?! Just get Mohan to cook, I don't trust the crazy woman!” Abel yells before being dragged off by Hibiki. “Listen, if we get them to do a cook-off thing, then we won't have to do any work and we get double the amount of food,” Hibiki whispers to him. Abel’s eyes widen, and he immediately nods in agreement. “Ya let's do this cook off thing!” Abel suddenly exclaims, pulling the cabinets open only for them to be empty. “Well seems you both also gotta do some hunting–” “Nuh uh, y'all are helping us,” Elira says. “So we are hunting together or–” Mohan says “Nuh uh, boys versus girls,” Elira says with a grin. Elena and Luh side-eye each other before looking at the guys. Hibiki nods, and they nod back. “Hell ya, sounds good to me! We’ll crush you all!” Abel declares. “I’m gonna make you eat more than just your words, you ass!” Elira yells back, grinning. The girls head east, towards the expansive grasslands, and the boys take the opposite approach, heading west to the forest. “So you two will need proper weapons if we want to hunt anything,” Elira says as her arm splits open, revealing the crimson blade once more. “Yeah, we will need weapons,” Elena agrees, cringing and glancing away from Elira. Elira nods. “Don’t worry, I can help you both,” She says before breaking off the tip of her blade. The sword quickly regenerates, and Elira breaks off the tip once more. “Go grabs some sticks so you can make spears!” Elira commands them. “No problem,” Luh answers quickly before pulling Elena away with her. “What the hell was that,” She hisses once they’re far away from Elira. “No clue but calm down. We gotta play it cool,” Elena responds calmly. “I know but how do we know that she isn’t some kind of weird alien or something!” “If she were an alien, I’d doubt she’d be able to speak English or build a house that looks like a cabin from Earth.” “True, but she still hasn’t told us ANYTHING.” “I’m sure we can get her to tell us some more information soon.” “Yeah–” “WHERE ARE YOU GUYS?! HURRY UP, I DON’T WANT TO LOSE!” Elira yells. “C’mon, let’s hurry up,” Elena says, gathering some branches lying around before hurrying back. Luh follows closely behind her. Abel and the others were in the forest, using Hibiki’s field guide, and they identified various plants to see what they could use, like herbs and spices. “Listen, getting all these plants are great and all,” Abel pipes up, tossing a handful of spade-shaped plants into their basket. “But I don’t think we can beat them with just veggies.” “Obviously, we’re gonna get ourselves some meat,” Mohan replies. “How? We don’t even have weapons and you’re uh well,” Abel trails off, motioning to his missing arm. “Well we don’t really have to hunt, we’re not cavemen,” Mohan says as Hibiki pulls some traps out of his bag. Abel lets out a quiet “ooh,” and the group tosses the trap, baited with seeds, in a small clearing. While they sit and wait, Mohan fiddles with a blade, engraving something into it using a chisel. “What are you doing?” Hibiki asks, leaning over to take a look. “I’m just putting the finishing touches on my blade,” He replies. He then attaches the blade to the stump of his arm. “I got some inspiration from Elira, pretty neat right?” “Whoa, thats cool as hell!” Abel exclaims, looking over the large blade, made using scrap metal. “What does that say?” Hibiki asks, pointing to a Hindi engraving on the side of the sword. “It’s a hindi saying, it means “All's well that ends well”.” Hibiki nods. “Thats a nice sentiment.” Over in the prairies, Elira had led Elena and Luh to a large herd of herbivorous aliens grazing on sprawling reddish-purple grasses. The aliens themselves were built like giant bison, with a large hump around their shoulders and thick necks. They needed that extra muscle to hold up their heads, out of which two jagged horns stuck out, along with a myriad of smaller horns that formed a crown-like structure on their heads. Along with the horns, they had 4 pairs of eyes and massive, powerful beaks. “Alright, so here's the plan. I'm gonna go in and piss off the herd, and you just spear the one lagging behind,” Elira says with a grin on her face. Elena speaks up. “I don't think that's the best idea–” Before she could even finish her sentence, Elira had already run off, laughing her head off as she jumped and ran around the herd. “Well, that’s great,” Luh grumbles. Elena pats her on the back, and the two grab their spears and run after. Out of the stampeding herd, an older-looking individual lagged behind the rest of the herd. They quickly surround it, thrusting their spears forward to further separate it from the herd. The alien chirps angrily at the two of them before swinging its horn at them. Elena and Luh just barely manage to roll out of the way in time. “Elena! Let’s flank it!” Luh calls out. Elena nods, and the two stand on either side of the alien, their spears in front of them. In the forest, the boys went to check their trap. Inside the trap were 5 aliens, all of them had six legs, plump bodies, and instead of a mouth, they had a long, feather-like appendage. “Oh, we’re eating good tonight!” Abel exclaims, draping his arms over Hibiki’s and Mohan’s shoulders. “We’re gonna crush them! I bet they haven’t even caught anything yet!” Mohan replies. “I’m looking forward to whatever you make. Indian food is so good,” Hibiki says, picking up the trap. “I'm probably going to make some kind of curry; we have a ton of herbs plus some grains I can use to make a good roti or flatbread,” Mohan replies as they begin walking back to the cabin. “This is way too easy, we’ll have time to make dessert at this rate!” Abel exclaims. “Don’t jinx us,” Hibiki responds. A loud snarling echoes through the forest, and before they could react, a large, bear-sized alien barrels out from the trees. Its four limbs are armed with large, formidable claws. It used its large tail to stand on its hind legs, towering above them. The alien was covered head to tail in thick brown fur, and around its eyes, it had a patch of black fur, like a raccoon’s mask. In the prairies, Elena and Luh were still fighting the giant horned alien, all the while Elira was having the time of her life as she ran laps around the herd. The creature stamps its feet before lowering its head and charging forward toward Elena. Luh quickly stabs it in the back of its leg. It roars out in rage before whipping around, hitting Luh with its tail in the process. It surges forward towards Luh, who was sprawled out on the ground after being hit. Elena launches her spear, hitting it in its eye. It stops in its tracks and turns its attention back to Elena. Elena attempts to get out of the way, but it hits her with the flat part of its horn, knocking the air out of her lungs. Elena lay on the ground, gasping and wheezing, trying to catch her breath—the alien bellows, shaking its head before charging towards Elena. Back over in the forest, the boys had surrounded the alien, their weapons at the ready. The creature roars before barreling towards Hibiki. Hibiki tosses the trap, with the aliens still in it, at the beast, hitting it in the face. Mohan and Abel take the opportunity to flank the creature to slash it from both sides. The beast quickly retaliates by swinging at Mohan, who blocks the swing with his sword prosthetic. Abel takes the opportunity to slash it, but it bites down on Abel's machete, picking him up by the machete and then tossing him away. Hibki slides by the creature, slashing its leg, causing it to buckle under its weight. It swings its claws down at Hibiki, but before it can do so, Abel and Mohan tackle it, throwing it off balance. Hibiki then takes the opportunity, swinging his machete down at its head. Back in the grasslands, Elena desperately claws at the dirt before grabbing a loose handful of dirt and flinging it at the charging alien. The loose dirt goes into its eyes, causing it to stumble, just barely trampled by Elena. Luh rushes over and thrusts her spear through one of the alien’s eyes, lodging it deep in its eye socket. The alien goes stiff before collapsing onto the ground. Luh slumps down onto the ground. “Holy,” She mutters, out of breath. Elena sucks in air before violently coughing once more. “Ya, thank god that’s over,” She says before lying back down. “What’re you guys doing laying down?! We got a competetion to win!” Elira yells as she bounds over, an obnoxious grin still plastered on her face. Luh and Elena share a look. “Let’s just go back to the cabin,” Luh grumbles. Elira helps them both up before grabbing the creature by the horn and dragging it behind her. Back in the forest, the beast bites down on Hibiki’s machete and throws him away before bucking both Mohan and Abel off it. It then tackles Hibiki to the ground. It tries to bite down on his face, but Hibiki shoves a stick into its mouth, causing it to gag. Hibiki stabs its side using his machete. Abel rushes in, stabbing it in its side. Mohan, meanwhile, was making a torch using a flint and steel. The alien whips its head around, getting off of Hibiki and charging after Abel. Before Abel could get out of the way, it bit down on his shoulder and slammed him into a tree. Before it could bite down again, Hibiki stabbed the alien in the side once more. It let go of Abel and swiped at Hibiki. Hibki barely ducked out of the way. Mohan’s torch finally caught flame, and he tossed the torch at the alien, setting it on fire. The alien roared and flailed its limbs around before collapsing to the ground. It rolled around on the ground, putting out the fire. It weakly raised its head. Mohan finished it off, cutting a major artery in its neck with his blade. “Holy shit,” Abel groans, holding his bleeding shoulder. Hibiki sighs, lying down on the ground. After a few seconds, he props himself up and then grabs the first aid kit from Mohan’s bag and uses it to patch up Abel. “How does your shoulder feel now?” “A bit better, thanks, bro,” Abel replies, leaning his head back against a tree. Mohan walks over to the crumpled-up trap. “Shit, its empty.” “Well, it seems we're eating Baloo over here,” Abel says, getting up with a groan as he grabs one of the alien’s limbs. Mohan and Hibiki grab different parts of the alien, and they begin the process of dragging it back to the cabin. Both groups arrive back at the cabin at the same time. “Well you guys look like shit,” Elira teases. “Well not all of us are lab rats,” Abel says with a scowl. Hibiki and Mohan head to the kitchen to begin cooking. Abel shortly joins them to avoid getting wacked by a grumpy Elena. The girls head to their side of the kitchen and help with separating the meat before leaving Mohan and Elira to cook. Elira finishes first, making a roasted meat dish with some grilled veggies as sides. Mohan finished soon after, making a curry with a rich sauce along with some seasoned flatbread. Thumbs up go up all around the table, ending in a tie. The group ate and talked, mainly about their hunts. Soon night fell, and everybody went to bed, exhausted from the day’s activities. Elira, making sure everyone was asleep, slipped out of her bed. She then snuck into the room Hibiki was sleeping in. She quietly went through his bag, taking out his journal. She flipped through it to the very last page, the one about the flesh mound. She carefully ripped the page out, carefully folding the page and putting it in her pocket before heading back to her room.