Out into the distance, was the object that had caught his attention in the first place. It was a tree, not like the ones on his planet, but vaguely similar. It stood tall and mighty, unswaying from the soft press of the wind. It soared high into the air above, under the bright embrace of the star's brilliant rays.
The man stood tall and purposeful, like the tree, as he walked onwards, further into the giant patch of soil and grass. As he walked, the air warmed. The closer he got to the tree, the warmer, more pleasant his surroundings got. The soft smell of the air was getting sweeter as he continued and a sensation of brightness and jubilation filled his soul.
Suddenly there was a rock by his foot and he tripped. His weight carried him across the ground as he rolled to his feet. Though a shock ran all through his spine from a kiss delivered to his neck by the brown grass.
He got to his feet in a daze, escaping with a fast palpitating heart and a slight tingling sensation all through his neck.
Turning around to what he tripped on, he spotted a small dark-blue rock, its outside covered in grooves that looked like smoothed claw marks, a bit like a seashell. It was about the size of his boot.
Slowly the rock began moving. Curious, the space man picked up the rock with his glove. Its weight surprised him, it was probably fifteen to twenty pound. On the bottom was a mass of legs and a belly that resembled an insect's from his home planet. Its stomach was black and soft, like rubber. It must had been made of some sort of insulating skin, protecting it from the shock from the brown grass. He stared in amazement as the creature tried its hardest to escape his grip. The creature's face was the ugliest thing he'd ever seen, but somehow, despite looking almost angry, he could see fear in its eyes.
Finally, as he was about to feel the insects belly, the creature spit out a long tongue out at him. It hit and stuck to the arm of his suit. When the man let go, so did the creature.
When the it hit the ground, it rolled itself onto its legs and ran off quickly.
He watched as the dark blue beetle scurried away.
Life. It was evident it had taken up its own on this small, seemingly uninhabitable planet. So many bizarre things about the planet. Things that were different from his home, yet the same. It was a confusing alien world, but at the same time the planet had a simplistic beauty about it. From the warm, caramel-smelling wind, to the frightened dark blue beetle—this planet was full of life.
At least, this part was. Why was it that the soil had started and the temperature changed? And the air? Outside the field of soil was hardly a place where complex life could develop as it had inside. It was as if walking onto the soil was walking onto a separate planet altogether.
Looking down at the spot on his arm where the beetle attacked him, a green liquid was oozing around teeth marks. Apparently its tongue had teeth.
Looking at his wrist Data Bar, the green liquid was harmless.
He started towards the tree again, which was getting close now.
A buzzing noise passed over his head. The buzzing was like the quick, rapid clashing of pots and pans. Hardly a buzzing.
He turned to the sound, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever was making the sound.
All he saw was a wall of diminutive flies coming right at him. He jumped back, though too late and his face fell victim to the rude intrusion of flying insects.
Fortunately his mouth and nose was protected.
His face was suffocated with pain, like thousands of microscopic daggers stabbing into his bare skin. A hot, eye-watering, flurry of stinging pulsed through his skin in waves. The pain was devastating, like a baseball-bat to the face.
He shook his head and batted at his face and hair, trying to get the pestering insects away from him. He danced around in pain and panic, swatting at the flies. When that didn't work, he dropped to the ground to roll, regrettably though, for as soon as his skin touched the grass he found himself darting back up in pain. Fortunately for him, though, the flies were scared away and a number of them killed.
Then the dagger flies were gone.
After recovering, the space man continued walking.
Details of the tree came to him at a steady rate. He could have gotten the details sooner with his visor scope function, but he thought it wouldn't be worth the trouble of putting on his helmet when he was going to get there soon enough anyways. Besides, he enjoyed the scenery around him, especially without his helmet on.
The tree was incredibly thin and its tip hung down in a hook shape. It was so thin that he thought it should have toppled from the press of the wind. Around it, nothing stood to compare to its height, making it seem like it was somehow taller in contrast to the flat landscape around it.
As he approached the tree, he wondered how the circle of vegetation got water. Looking to the sky, he asked himself if the foggy clouds above could produce rain. Between the readings of Charles Five and himself, he doubted that any hydration could be held in the thin grey blankets hugging the planet.
Without water, life was impossible to start. Looking at his Data Bar, it read that the air did indeed have small levels of water vapour in it.
He gazed up at the sky in his pondering. Between cracks in the grey clouds was a pale yellow sky. Would the inhabitants be different because the yellow sky? Would they all be sad since they didn't have a blue sky. Would there ever be inhabitants intelligent enough to have these thoughts on this planet? These were the questions he asked himself as he stared into the sky.
The qualities of the isolated life-bubble were starting to become suspicious. He didn't know what was making life sustainable in this area. What made this area any more habitable than anywhere else on the planet. Why was there water, why was there life?
He stopped at the front of the tree presently. A towering monolith of dark, chestnut-brown wood. It soared into the air to unbelievable heights, yet it had a width of about four feet. At the top it was embraced by foggy clouds and the tree slouched back down into a curved hook. From the bottom, the tree was seemingly straight, but in the last of its length, the structure of the tree gave into gravity and a curve was present. Sprouting from the tree were occasional branches, though no two branches were within ten feet of one another. There were no leaves to be seen anywhere. All around him, not a sound could be heard, not a thing rose to contest the noble tree in front of him. Its proud presence rose to a vigilant watch over the entire landscape.
Staring at the tree, an idea formed. Out of his white-plastic backpack, he retrieved a silver cylinder. This was where he'd put it, he thought—on top of the tree, for all to see.
Just as he was about to start, he caught some movement on the ground. Orange creatures scurried along the ground. None of them seemed to pay much attention to the space man, but simply went about their chaotic movement, crawling around him if they had to. They looked to have no designated manner to which they moved, but simple ran in an erratic fashion and were like ants. Though once the space man made the parallel to ants, he realized they were actually quite organized in their movements. Like ants. They were bigger than any ants he'd seen. They seemed to blend into the brown grass with their dark orange skin. The space man held the orange ants in awe—their lives were so systematic, so simple, but their numbers and various goals reached such complexity.
Suddenly, an ant jumped at his face. It cleared the distance between the ground and his head in an instant with ease. He flinched back, frightened by the sudden threat, though the ant missed him and disappeared among the grass at his feet. Somehow, the ant creature leaped his entire six feet. How?
He knelt down to take a closer look at the ants, though cautiously. He couldn't find any wings. What was it that made them fly like they did? It couldn't be simply powerful legs.
He craned his neck closer to the ants. There was no way their legs were strong enough to jump so high as they could.
They all had nine legs each, each with big, awkward-shaped feet shaped like tiny canoes. Was it possible that only the one ant that attacked him could jump?
When they all started jumping into his face, he cursed under his breath as he lifted his head away from the ground. He backed up too late, though. About five of the large insects were on his face as he stood and staggered away from the scene.
They latched on and bit at his face ferociously. By the time he shook them all off, he had a good number of red bumps where they bit him. He wondered if this was karma or something for insulting a god of luck in his previous life. He didn't believe in karma though. Or reincarnation.
He needed to get away from the ants before they attacked again.
Once further away from the scene, he observed the activities of the large insects and pondered on them.
Then he figured it out. He connected the dots. Their wings were held in the canoe feet.
With that mystery solved he turned his attention to his face, which had been pecked at by dagger flies, and bit at by orange ants.
Scanning it with his wrist Data Bar, he was told nothing lethal was contained in the marks and they would heal on their own.
Unfortunately he was too relieved at this to notice the various warnings on his Data Bar.
Not a minute after his unpleasant encounter with the ants, a loud bellow—deep and bone rattling—sounded through the air. The bellow sounded like a wolf or coyote howl. The orange ants were suddenly scurrying with panic. They were running in circles, unorganized and chaotic. The ones that weren't going in circles, were using their canoe feet to burrow themselves into the ground.
From the opposite direction of the bellow, appeared a dark blur through the air. The blur snatched up an orange ant and flew up back into the air with it. From the same direction of the first creature, flew in another. Again, the blur stole an orange ant from the grass.
Now the question was, why did the bellow come from a different direction than the flying blurs.
The two small birds flew over the space man's head and opened their mouths to let out loud screeches. Again the sound came from somewhere else. They were throwing their voices to fool the ants. Their cries were rough, deep, and sounded as if from something crossed between an blood-thirsty lion and a rage-frenzied bull.
The sound shook him, sent fear through his mind, through his blood, through his soul. Maybe that was what was happening to the ants.
The flying creatures circled back and planted themselves on one of the tree's high branches, content with their winnings. As they sat on the branch they headbutted the thick exoskeletons of their orange victims, which were still squirming and biting in hopeless resistance. The space man picked up his helmet, which he had been carrying with him. He put it on and turned on his scope function. Seeing the birds up close, he saw, with amazement, that they were more like mammals than birds. Bats really. He should have thought as much, since birds don't let out howls like these bat-like creatures did. He couldn't help but think that these bats looked allot like rhinoceroses. Their furry olive-green skin was leathery and tough. They gripped the ants with massive, deadly-looking claws extended from their powerful wings.
One of the bats finally ended its meal's resistance by smashing the horn on its ugly face through the head of its prey.
Their horns were probably the most odd things about the bats. A bone jutting from each of their faces. It was thick, looked a bit like half a crude axe-head, and was right above their mouths full of ragged, hideous teeth.
When the last bat-rhinoceros broke through the hard shell of its lunch, nothing kept it from the feast of its victim's insides. Both let out gruesome cheers. Their demeanour was one of utter brutishness, their faces in a permanent angry frown as they dove their head into devouring their prey.
Having enough of the morbid scene, he removed his helmet, leaving him with only the protection of his gas-filter mask again.
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