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And when I really think about it, the way he raised his hand towards me - it wasn’t with claws bared. It seemed almost… gentle.
I shake that thought out of my head. A useless distraction. He was surprised, that’s all. Wasn’t expecting to come face to face with a human in his cosy little stolen home. Probably half asleep and needing a piss, thinking about his bladder and nothing else.
A training video from the mission prep comes back to me just in time. A presentation about this place, with a strong focus on the locals. The same words repeating over and over again.
Primitive.
Savage.
Dangerous.
I slip into the trees, moving as quietly as I can, ears still straining to hear any water sounds. No cries of outrage come from behind me, so I forget about the hostiles for now, focusing instead on getting far away from them. That way, when they do come looking for me, I’ll be long gone. Hidden.
I strike lucky a few moments later, hearing the telltale burble of water over stones. I make for it, grinning when I see a shallow stream. Running along it will be loud, but it will disguise my trail better, and maybe some of the splashing will be mistaken for the usual water sounds. It’s my only option, anyway. Speed is more important than stealth here, I think. So I creep forward until I’m at the water’s edge, and then I break out into a sprint, running along it. The stones are mossy and slippery, but I’ve traversed worse terrain in my time. Boggy, mud-bound areas after natural disasters swept through them. The snowy sides of mountains. All of them far more perilous than a little stream.
I don’t know how long I run. Cryostasis is hell on your stamina, but I’m well trained to deal with it, bred for physical perfection. At my most unfit, I can go far longer than an average human, so even after the rude awakening from cryostasis, I have plenty of miles in my legs. I keep going and going until the sense that I’m in danger starts to recede. It’s a feeling, an instinct, not any measurable metric. Not great, but I can’t remember much about my enemy. Their tactics, their capabilities. I know nothing of my surroundings beyond what I can see.
Instinct is all I’ve got.
I bend double a moment, breathing as deep into my lungs as I can, trying to catch my breath quickly. The recovery time isn’t as slow as it might have been, and I’m glad about that. The less the cryostasis has dulled my capabilities, the better.
Because now I’m out here, away from the immediate threat of the alien hostiles, I realise I have a whole host of other problems.
Fortunately, water isn’t one of them. I drop to my knees by the stream and scoop handfuls of water to my mouth, drinking deep. It tastes funny. Not unpleasant. Richer than water back home, as if it’s more laden with minerals. Cleaner, probably. Thoughts cross my mind about non-terrestrial bacteria, and whether my digestive system can cope with it, but I definitely will die from not drinking. If it turns out the water is toxic - well, I was never going to last long, anyway. It’s a chance I have to take.
Next, food. The more my body reconnects with my mind, the more I come alive to the fact that I haven’t eaten in… well. It could be months.
My stomach is a hard pit of emptiness, and I need to fill it. There are other dangers this forest could pose - wild animals, every bit as dangerous as the alien hostiles, are bound to live beneath the trees somewhere. But I’ll be in no fit shape to fend them off if I don’t have some fuel in me.
I spot a berry bush along the bank of the stream and make for it. I’m wary of berries - they’re so often poisonous back home - but again, I’ll definitely die without them. So I grab a handful and throw them into my mouth.
A horrible, bitter taste explodes in my mouth when I bite down, so disgustingly sharp, I spit the berries straight out, wiping the taste of them off my tongue with my hand. The moment the juice touches my palms, the skin begins to burn and sting, like a thousand tiny needles are jabbing into me. I bite down the yelp that rises in my throat, shoving my hand in the water instead, trying to rinse the stinging juice off. After a moment, the pain goes, and I pull my hand out of the water, bringing it close to my face to inspect it.
The trees are thinner over the stream, so I have a bit of moonlight to work with. Enough that I can see the stark difference between my right hand and my left. On my left, the scuffed palm still looks red and angry, the scratches where I fell from my cryostasis pod raised and swollen. Not a bad injury by any stretch - just an annoyance that will heal over the next couple of days. But my right hand, freshly cleaned of the bitter berry juice, looks like it’s already had those couple of days, the scratches barely visible. I press my thumb into the heel of my palm, feeling for tenderness, and find nothing.
“Huh,” I say, the syllable escaping before I have the chance to catch it.
I look at the berry bush, carefully picking myself one more of the fruits. Instead of biting it, I pinch it between my thumb and forefinger, squeezing it until it bursts over the palm of my left hand. The juice hits the abraded skin, and I have to grit my teeth against the sharp shock of pain. After a moment, it goes, and I rinse my hand in the water before running my fingers over the newly healed skin.
The berries have regenerative properties.
Good to know.
I think of my bruised elbows and knees, but decide against treating them now. They’ll be sore tomorrow, but it won’t be close to debilitating. Once I have shelter, food, then I can speed my healing along. But I make a note of the size and shape of the bush, its position on the water’s edge. Hopefully, it’s not the only bush of its kind, but at least if I fix the location of this one in my mind, I’ll be able to come back to it.
I’m not blind to the fact that I might need it for something far more serious than scuffed palms in the future.
I pick myself up, wiping my hands down on my trousers, then survey my surroundings. There’s not a lot around me except more trees. My pack has some basic survival provisions in, but I could do with some natural shelter. The air is humid, the foliage around me lush. I expect this place gets a lot of rainfall. Quite apart from the cover it will provide, the shelter from predators and any aliens that might come looking for me, I’m going to need the protection from the elements.
So I walk along the bank of the stream, paying close attention to my surroundings now as I go, listening to the sounds of the night. There are a lot of them. Over my splashing and heavy breathing, I failed to notice the bird calls, the animal cries. There’s no place left on Earth now besides a zoo that has such a density of wildlife. I’ve camped out in the wilderness back home many times and apart from the snores of my fellow soldiers, it’s always been quiet. I hurry myself along, warier now than ever of what else could be lurking in all the foliage around me.
But luck, or perhaps my strange, unfamiliar scent, keeps anything bite-y away from me, and a short walk later the ground slopes upwards, cave formations emerging on the banks of the stream.
I pause, take stock. There’s a reasonably sized clearing between the caves and the stream, large enough that I could build a fire if needed. The water runs clear and deep enough for me to drink and wash from. I spot another couple of the bushes that hold the healing berries at the water’s edge, which is a bonus. A scan of the ground doesn’t reveal any obvious animal tracks, although I’m much more experienced at tracking people than I am wildlife. There’s no scat that I can see, though, so perhaps I’m not making too wild an assumption to think that this isn’t a place frequented by any large creatures. The caves themselves are only small, hardly big enough for me to crawl inside, but I figure that’s a good thing. As long as I don’t get stuck, I’ll have an easier time defending a narrow entrance.
All in all, it looks as good a place as any to make camp.
I drop my bag of supplies from my shoulder and root around for a torch. With not knowing how long it’s been since I went into cryostasis, there’s a good chance a lot of my equipment won’t work, but the torch is one of those wind-up ones - a bit cumbersome but perfect for emergency situations. I crank the handle, and after a few turns, I get a thin, flickering light. A few more, and the beam strengthens enough to cut through the darkness.
