Grounded

Jack was absolutely, one-hundred percent, panicked.

Red lights flashed, sirens rang, and everything outside the windows blurred. He was no longer trying to save the ship, though. He was trying to save its sole occupant: himself.

On any other day he would've been able to get the damned hunk of metal flying again, but that wasn't the case. Having just been through hell and back, Jack thought he'd ended up with another hell at the end. Right now, all he wanted to do was be alone. Zero stress, zero anything. He only had one thought that wasn't, "flip all these switches, one opens the escape pod."

Why me?

It was an appropriate thought. He wondered how he was even still able to think, after what he saw.

What he did...

Too fresh in his mind to think about it, he tuned out the gnat in his mind bringing it up. It was so... so...

Horrifying. Scarring. Mind-wrecking.

Bre a kin g.

Alarms blared in his ears, and he couldn't take it anymore. Jack gave up trying to activate an escape pod. It was over, his life was over...

Was he even close to the life-inhabited planet he'd been trying to get to? Their sensors had picked it up recently, well before... now. From what they had gathered, the organisms looked like them, and spoke similar—if not, then the exact same—languages. The entire planet had been amazed by this discovery. Life! On other planets! And they would be able to communicate!

They were a little off-put by the pantheism that many, if not all, of the organisms followed. It was real. Their world had gods and goddesses, who regularly meddled with mortal's lives for some kind of end goal. What it was, they weren't exactly sure, but aside from that, it seemed like a good idea to talk to them.

Before they got in contact, though...

Their world changed.

So this was Jack's only hope now. He'd been given a chance to escape, and he took it. Did he hate himself for not trying to save people? Sure, and that would probably stay with him for the rest of his life. A life he would never actually be able to live, however, as his ship was now crashing.

He fell to his knees. It was over. His planet was gone. Everything he'd grown up knowing had been destroyed. His family, his friends... all gone, now. And now he would die, too.

Seemed ironic. To run from death, only for it to find him once more. Almost like fate.

But fate had other plans, as it seemed.

"Nice place you got here," a sudden, calm voice from behind him spoke through all the discord. Jack didn't focus on his demeanor, though, but rather his presence. How was there someone on board? He'd ran like hell from that death trap, and he knew for a fact there had not been anyone on board his entire trip. Just where had they come from?

Jack turned to look at the stranger.

It looked like a he, and seemed almost like a different species than the dominant one of this planet. At least, different than the pictures of them Jack had seen published. His hair was wavy, like wheat in a field. It was even close to the color, just a little lighter than the original shade. His skin was actually golden. Like the mineral found in the ground. It was the eyes, though, that offset the entire thing. Dark blue, like how animators drew outer space on kid's shows on television. The color evoked some vague astronomical thought, which puzzled Jack because he'd just been in space, and that color was nowhere to be found in the darkness. He couldn't believe it.

"W-who are?" Jack asked the stranger.

He laughed. "Me? I'm the guy who's gonna get you out of this situation." He snapped his fingers. At first, there was no noticeable change, then Jack realized. Everything outside the window, though still indiscernible, was frozen.

"What did you do?!" Jack stood, staring out the windows in disbelief. The ship didn't feel like it was falling anymore, but it wasn't flying either. It was just... there! Was that even possible?!

"Froze time." He noticed the look of shock he got from that. "What? As the God of Luck, it's my duty to alter yours!" The stranger moved towards him, smiling. "You seem new here. I'm Aurus, one of the gods of this little rock, and you know what they say: Mi casa está su casa! Welcome home!"

"H-home..." Jack stuttered, honestly turned around by everything Aurus said. Could it be? Was he really going to find a place to stay? Here, on this planet?

"You're destined for some things here, and trust me, if anyone here knows about destiny, it's me. I alter your luck a bit, and you live through this crash. All you gotta do is listen to me when I tell you to do something. It's so tiring trying to deceive you mortals," Aurus stuck out a hand. "So, what do you say? You want to stay on this miserable planet, Pinetree?"

Jack looked at it.

"Sure," he said, and grinned. "Yeah, sure. You got yourself a deal, Mister Aurus."

"You're welcome. Oh, and Jack?" he asked before he disappeared.

"What?"

"Good luck."

All at once, Aurus vanished. Everything began to race past the windows again. Despite the assurance that he would make it, Jack was still pretty scared.

Then impact happened, and he was terrified.

It went by too fast for Jack to really know what happened. Fire, there was definitely fire, but before he realized it, he was dragging himself out of the wreckage. His legs refused to cooperate, and he feared the worst. He coughed, because it was really the only thing he could do, now. He would live, but damn did it hurt!

It was 11:55 PM on January 15th, and it would become the 16th before anyone found him.

"Yeah, it was definitely here..."

"Do you think there are any survivors?"

There was one.

"Survivors!?"

His name was Jack.