Page 3

"Step one," I whispered, my voice trembling as I looked at the long, agonising drop to the glowing moss below. "Get out of the grave."

I gripped a piece of the torn hull with my one good hand, took a shaking breath of the heavy, spicy air, and began to climb. Every movement was a battle against the fire in my nerves, my hair catching on the broken titanium, leaving the first golden traces of a trespasser on the skin of a planet I didn't even have a name for.

The drop from the hull of the Vanguard-7 felt like jumping into a furnace.

I hit the ground harder than I intended, my boots sinking into the thick, spongy carpet of moss. A jolt of white-hot lightning shot from my feet, up through my spine, and settled in my dislocated shoulder. I let out a sound that was half-sob, half-scream, collapsing onto my side as the world spun in a blur of violet mist and teal light. My vision fractured, the edges of my sight turning black as the agony reached a crescendo.

For several minutes, I couldn't move. Almost like I was paralyzed with my cheek pressed against the moss as I gaps for air. Only thing keeping me from the panic returning was the slight movement in my fingers, feeling the ground beneath me . I expected the ground to be cold, damp, or dirty—the way Earth’s soil felt after a rain. It wasn't. It was warm—unnervingly so. It felt like laying my face against the chest of a massive, sleeping animal. I could feel the heat radiating from the ground, seeping through the ruined fabric of my suit and into my skin.

As my vision cleared, I noticed something that made my breath hitch. Where my body touched the moss, the colour was changing. The teal was bleeding into a deep, bruised magenta, a ripple of colour spreading outward from my skin like a bruise on fruit. I pulled my hand back, and the colour followed, a faint trail of light clinging to my fingertips before fading back to gold.

"Sensory-reactive bioluminescence," I whispered, my scientific brain firing through the haze of pain. "It’s... It’s responding to my thermal signature. Or maybe my pressure."

I forced myself to sit up, clutching my useless left arm to my chest. The movement made the "V" tear in my flight suit gape some more, I let out a breath, “Of course.”

I looked back up at the wreckage. From the ground, the Vanguard-7 looked like a broken toy discarded by a giant. Smoke still curled from the engine housing, rising in a thin, grey line toward the canopy of iron-bark trees. I couldn't stay here. If the ship’s fuel cells leaked or the core went critical, this clearing would become a radioactive crater.

"Water," I croaked. My throat felt like it had been scrubbed with sandpaper. "Find water, Lyra. Then find a way to pop this shoulder back in before the muscles lock up."

I stood on shaky legs, my balance off-kilter. The forest was dense, a riot of colours that didn't belong in any textbook I’d ever read. There was no green here—no comforting Earth tones to tell my brain I was safe. The leaves were shades of obsidian, plum, and a red so deep it looked like dried blood. They didn't rustle in the wind; they clacked, a dry, metallic sound like skeletons dancing in the breeze.

I started walking, choosing a direction away from the smoke. Every step was a struggle. The gravity on this nameless rock felt slightly higher than Earth's—maybe 1.1 or 1.2 Gs. It wasn't enough to crush me, but it made my aching muscles scream, and my heart work twice as hard to pump blood to my throbbing head. The atmosphere was so thick I felt like I was walking through a swamp, the spicy, pepper-scented air clinging to the back of my throat.

The further I pushed into the trees, the more I felt the wrongness of the place. On Earth, a forest is a collection of individual plants. Here, everything felt... connected. The vines didn't just hang; they draped themselves across the path in patterns that seemed too deliberate, like a web waiting for a fly. The moss pulsed in a slow, steady rhythm that matched that subsonic thump from the earth.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

I found myself stepping in time with it, my heart rate syncing to the planet's heartbeat. It was dangerously hypnotic, like I was being slowly digested by the environment before anything had even bitten me.

"Focus," I hissed at myself, the sound of my own voice the only thing keeping me grounded. "Follow the slope. Water flows downhill. Basic geology, Kent. Don't forget who you are."

I found a small ravine where the soil was darker, almost black, and the air smelled slightly cooler. I began to climb down, the gnarled roots of an tree dug mercilessly into my good palm as I gripped with every scrap of strength I had left, desperately overcompensating for the side that hung limp. As I moved, I felt a strange sensation—a prickle at the base of my skull. It was the feeling of being watched, the primal "predator-prey" reflex that humans had buried under centuries of city-living.

I stopped. The forest was silent, yet it felt loud, like a thousand voices whispering just below the range of human hearing. I turned around slowly, scanning the shadows. Giant flowers, their petals translucent and veined with glowing silver, swayed without a breeze. A swarm of tiny, winged insects—looking like shards of broken emerald—drifted past my face, their hum vibrating in my jawbone.

I saw nothing. No predators. No movement.

But as I looked down at my feet, my blood ran cold. The moss behind me hadn't faded back to teal. A long, magenta path stretched back toward the ship, marking exactly where I had walked. I was a neon sign in the dark. Every step I took was a beacon saying, 'Here I am. Come find me.'

"You're being paranoid," I told the violet sky, though my voice trembled. "It’s just a biological reaction. It’s chemistry, Lyra. It’s not... It’s not watching you."

I reached the bottom of the ravine and found a small pool of liquid nestled between two jagged, crystalline rocks. It wasn't clear; it was a shimmering, iridescent blue, swirling with eddies of silver silt. I knelt beside it, my reflection staring back at me. I looked like a ghost—pale, blood-streaked, my "Star-Spun" blonde hair matted with dirt and leaves.

I dipped a finger into the liquid. It was cold. I brought it to my nose, praying for something recognisable. It smelled like rain and crushed mint.

"Please be H2O," I whispered. "Or at least something that won't melt my oesophagus."

As I leaned down to drink, the water surface was already rippling. Something had moved on the ridge above me.

I froze, the hair on my arms standing straight up. The "Pulse" of the planet suddenly picked up speed. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. It was as if the world’s heart was racing along with mine.

I looked up, squinting into the dense, dark-red canopy. I saw a flash of something—a shadow that was darker than the trees, a silhouette that was far too large and far too graceful. It moved with a fluid, heavy power that no animal I knew possessed.

And then, I heard it.

Click.

A single, sharp sound. Like a tongue hitting the roof of a mouth, or a stone snapping in two. It was followed by a low, guttural trill that vibrated through the very air I was breathing.