Shining down through the holes and canopy above, a gentle ray of light slowly slid across Siton’s face, stirring him from the abyss of his sleep. He had been dreaming of being back on earth, prior to its disappearance. In it he’d been spending time with family and friends, enjoying what he had forever lost. Yet, nothing was meant to last forever, and so when the sunlight hit his face, he was startled awake by a loud noise.

“A-a-choooo!” A sneeze, ‘God damn it, and it was such a good dream,’ he thought slightly annoyed. Though his rather annoyed train of thoughts was quickly interrupted by a slight ruffling sound coming from above the cave. Looking up, trying to find the source of the noise Siton spotted a small head peeking over one of the holes. Well… a 'head' was a bit of an exaggeration, it was mostly one huge pig snout that was easily as large as the head it was attached on. From what was visible of it, the creature had a grey and stony looking skin with what appeared to be a mountain-shaped back. If it hadn’t been moving Siton would have easily thought it to be a strange-looking rock. It didn’t seem really big, comparable to a medium-size dog at best, albeit fatter.

The creature sniffed around the hole a bit. When it had determined that whatever smell it was following indeed originated from there, it tried to look for a way down. It spent a good five minutes looking around the holes for a path downwards. Which Siton knew to be futile, he could see the whole cave from where he was, and there wasn’t a single one of those. Eventually, as the weird pig was getting ready to give up it made a grave mistake. It stepped on a section of the ceiling made purely of brittle dirt and fell right through.

Giving off a squeal as it tumbled down the pig soon found itself hitting the grass-covered ground on its side. Only to let out a horrifying screech. Siton watched in horror as the pig struggled, thrashing around as cuts started appearing on its body. Very quickly the scene turned into a bloody mess as the pig got more and more shredded, the pig squealing in atrocious pain. Soon enough the squeals slowly died out leaving a gory bleeding mess lying in the grass. All of this within a minute.

Siton felt his stomach tense and nausea overtake him. Quickly leaning over the side of the pod, he threw up what little he had in his stomach.

‘What did I just witness?’ he questioned. The horrifying sight of the pig’s death would just not leave his head. The screams… The screams were horrible. They had carried such an intense feeling of pain, terror, panic, and powerlessness. Sure, he had seen extremely gory movies in the holo-theatres before, but that couldn’t compare to seeing it for real.

It’s at this moment that it really hit him, this wasn’t fake, it wasn’t some kind of movie. Sure, he had gotten injured since landing, but he had everything he needed to deal with it on hand, nothing he couldn’t handle, nothing that would kill him. But this, this was different. This was a creature getting horrifically butchered alive while being completely powerless. This was very real; something had died there and so could he. He needed to take this more seriously.

‘What should I do? Where am I? Why did this happen? Why am I here? Why me? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?’ It didn’t take long for panic to set in. His stomach grumbled. That didn’t help. Siton grabbed his legs and buried his head in his knees, gently sobbing. He was so far from home, stranded in a hostile planet, and alone, so, so alone. Lost both physical and in his thoughts, Siton sat there for what seemed like an eternity but most likely only a few minutes.

His stomach grumbled again.

“Right… One thing at the time.” He said, wiping the tears from his face. He had always told himself that when he got overwhelmed by his own thoughts.

“First. I need to get some food. I assume the escape pod should have some sort of survival kit with food and water. It would be quite a useless pod if I got stranded in space and died within a few days due to having nothing to eat or drink. Although I don’t quite think its designers planned for this exact scenario.” He said aloud. Doing so was another habit that helped him get his mind back up and running. Yet again, accurate to his prediction, Siton found a small bag tucked behind where he originally found the FAK containing four ration bars. He also found a thin tube next to the ration pack labeled ‘WATER’ that connected to the pod on one end and had a mouthpiece on the other.

Siton ravenously devoured one of the dry ration bars, leaving him quite full and thirsty afterward. However, when he tried to suck water out of the tube nothing came out. So, he tried harder, yet it refused to work.

‘Dang that sucks,’ he smirked, ‘Gosh that was a terrible pun, I need to stop’. Looking around again, he tried to find if there was any flip to activate the water or whatever. The only thing he found was a couple of Ziplock bags and a vacuum tube for excretory needs. Not quite what he needed. The thing must be broken.

What he needed now was water. That wasn’t too bad of a goal considering there was some within ten meters of him. Couldn’t he just go to that stream and drink some?

“Nope. Can’t leave the pod until I’ve figured out what killed that pig. It’s also likely to be what hurt me yesterday. However, I think I can safely assume it won’t leave the grass considering nothing attacked me while I slept. Or at least that it can’t jump high enough to get into the pod. Which is quite surprising considering nearly anything I know should be able to. Even things that can’t jump like snails would be able to get in.” The pod wasn’t that high, all things considered, the opening was only 40cm off the ground at its lowest point.

“Therefore, I can assume that it either can’t leave its area, can’t sense me unless I’m touching the ground and won’t risk leaving it or it can’t move.” Looking at the ground he had stepped on the previous day, he couldn’t see anything wrong with it.

“So, it’s not some sort of spikes or blades hidden underneath the ground.” Inspecting the area closer he quickly felt like something was off about it. The blades of grass were a little too perfect looking, each and every one of them. Siton grabbed one of the bags he had found and rolled it up tightly to make a makeshift stick. He gently poked the grass with it. Only for his eyes to open wide when the roll was cleanly cut where it had touched it.

“I knew it!” He exclaimed. “It’s the damn grass!” He poked it a couple more times in fascination… I mean… for purely scientific reasons.

“Stop. Stop getting carried away. This is extremely dangerous. Each and every one of those blades is as sharp as a razor and has blood-thinning properties. They are literally made to cause creatures to bleed to death. This. Is. Serious.” Siton reasserted control of his mind. He might make a grave mistake if he let himself get carried away.

“Now I’ve gotta find a way to get to the water without touching the grass.” Examining his surroundings, he quickly found what seemed to be a solution. But it was going to be risky. He had noticed that as the nearby stream of water got further from the light and into a side tunnel there was progressively less grass near it. There also seemed to be no grass next to the walls for a few meters. However, that’s where the weird mesmerizing mushrooms were. Although there were only a few of them and they wouldn’t block his path, Siton was wary of them. If the grass was dangerous why wouldn’t the mushrooms be?

Anyways, his plan to get away from the grass was to simply jump from the pod. And no, he wasn’t suicidal. It simply relied on the fact that the raised end of the capsule was only two and a half meters away from where the grass ended at most. Although that distance would be tough to jump with so little space for a run-up, he had another advantage. The end of the capsule nearest to the wall was the raised end. This meant that his jump point would be a little over a meter above the ground, making it significantly easier.

As for getting back to the pod, well he had thought about that too! He could just use the pod’s door. It had landed near one of the walls after being shot out. Once he got there, he could just pick it up and use it as a bridge. It should be quite light; a heavy hatch would only serve to lock the user into the pod were its ejection mechanism to fail. He also doubted the grass would be sharp enough to cut it considering that those the pod had landed on were completely obliterated. On a side note, upon closer inspection, it seems that said crushed grass was just that, crushed, not shattered like Siton would have assumed considering its peculiar properties. Weird.

“Enough thinking. Now’s time for action. I’m quite thirsty after all.” The first thing he did before jumping was testing the stability of his ramp. He wouldn’t want the pod to shift just as he was about to jump. That could go very bad very fast. Luckily for him, it all seemed to be relatively stable. The next thing he did was plan exactly where he would step. Yet again, to avoid things going wrong.

“Let’s do this!” He got in place, pumped himself up and started running. The first two steps went well, he was picking up speed. He reached the point of no return. And then took his last step, preparing to push down with all his might to send himself flying. However, there was one thing he didn’t take into account, that was his injured foot. He’d completely forgotten about it. And he was paying for it now, with pain. He couldn’t back down anymore or he’d just fall straight into the grass. Which was pretty much the worst outcome possible. So, he did the only thing he could. He pushed down harder. Gritting his teeth, he propelled himself with all of his strength and sent himself soaring.

Time slowed down as he felt himself rise… and slowly fall. The grass was coming closer with every moment but so was his goal. Slowly but surely, he got closer and finally made touchdown, just shy of the grass. What he wasn’t prepared for the landing though. He completely forgot about his momentum and fell forward to his knees. Ending up face to face with one of the mushrooms.

This one was a vivid light blue so vibrant that it almost seemed surreal. Shape wise it looked more like a corral that your typical mushroom. With intricate and mesmerizing patterns that one could get lost in for hours. Following the edges round and round and round and round and round. It was truly beautiful. Siton got closer only to see more patterns, hidden within the patterns, all harmoniously flowing into each other. These were slowly shifting morphing into an ever-changing magnificent weave. Siton got closer. Following the pattern round and round and round and round and round and round and round.

“REEEEEEEEE!!!”

“AAAHHHH!!” Siton screamed, startled. Adrenaline rushed into his brain as he promptly turned around, expecting to find something trying to kill him. Instead what he found was another pig, a very skinny one this time, that had fallen into the natural trap. Which arguably was just as bad, but at least he knew what to expect with that. It also didn’t want to kill him which was a plus. Allowing himself to relax he noticed something odd ‘Wasn’t it supposed to be daytime?’ he thought. Out of the ceiling holes, he could clearly see that it was dark, as in pitch black dark.

Wait. If it was pitch black outside, how could he see in here? He quickly found the answer to that question. It seemed that the mushrooms had some kind of bioluminescence and glowed a dim light. This was oddly fascinating. It drew the eyes to those patterns it had, as they seemed to shift under the soft glow of the sublime mushroom. Getting closer would pro-

“STOP!” Siton yelled out at himself. “Don’t look at these! They’re obviously some kind of hypnotizing mushroom that makes you lose track to time. It probably kills you by making you forget to eat and drink.” he inferred. Although they were dangerous, they still were interesting. “Perhaps it works in conjunction with the grass. Hypnotizing animals that successfully escape the trap until they bleed to death. Then it probably absorbs whatever blood soaks into the soil.” He shivered “Ugh. That’s creepy.”

Then the thirst hit him. He had already been seeking water when he woke up and who knows how long he had been looking at the mushroom. What was certain was that he was really, really thirsty. And that he would have been really close to dying were it not for that pig.

‘Thanks, little one,’ he thought.

He promptly made his way to the water stream and immediately proceeded to drink from it in large gulps. It was crisp, cool and by far the most delicious water he had ever drunk (this statement may or may not be biased due to circumstances). Finally, having quenched his thirst, he lied down and let out a satisfied sigh. He allowed his mind to drift for a while enjoying this state of bliss. Until he heard a light scuttling noise coming from his left.

He looked up to see two small red beady eyes looking at him. If that wasn’t scary enough, the body those eyes belonged to was a rat. A big rat. It easily reached a full meter in length excluding the tail which easily covered another. The second most noticeable trait of the rat was its stony skin. Yep, no fur, just stony patches. Finally, last but not least, the rat seemed hungry, extremely hungry. It was salivating buckets. Which would be fine because rats normally don’t hunt humans unless they’re in groups and starving. Unfortunately for Siton, this one was large enough to be a group of its own and oh boy was it hungry. Having satisfied all criteria, the rat lunged at Siton. Siton screamed.