Aquaertus

Chapter Nine - Land Ho

This situation feels familiar.

I'm laying on hard ground and all I see is darkness.

Except, this time, I open my eyes and I still see darkness.

I try to remember what happened, when I start to feel pain. It's not like pain I've ever felt before. It feels like every atom in my body is on fire. Dear God, what did I do?

Through all the pain, my memories flood back into my mind. I left my pod to discover more of Aquaertus, when I was attacked by a water snake monster. I swam to this island and passed out. Now, I'm awake on said island and it's the middle of the night. Plus, I have gaping wounds in my leg and I probably can't move any of my overexerted muscles. The only treatment I've administered to myself is cutting off the circulation to my injured leg with a strap of my bag. What do I do now?

I take out the medical supplies I packed in my destroyed backpack. I have gauze, sterile wipes, and some antiseptic creams. I clean my wounds the best I can with the sterile wipes, breathing deep through the stinging pain. I squeeze out all of the antiseptic creams and smear them around my leg. Finally, I wrap it all up with the gauze. That's all I can do for now.

I'll just rest until morning and hope nothing attacks me. Nothing on the island has approached me yet, so I should be fine for a few more hours. Besides, I can't really move anyway, so I might as well rest and pray that my body will be healed enough for me to move when I wake up.

I quickly fall asleep for a few more hours. When I wake, the sun is rising, brilliant colors filling the sky.

I would be shocked that I found an island on a planet that's supposed to be completely aqueous, but at this point nothing really surprises me anymore. The first ships that came to this galaxy obviously didn't look around much, so it's not too surprising that they missed a small island. What I'm more worried about right now is my injuries.

I sit up with an enormous amount of effort. I feel like I'm lifting a ton of rocks along with my upper body as I move, but I'm able to do it. I take a look around once I'm up.

There's a spacious sandy beach all along the island's shore. As the sand begins to fade away, a small strip of various colorful rocks serves as a barrier for the greenery towards the center of the island. There are an array of green ferns, bushes, and other short plants, followed by taller trees. The trees are sparse at first, then become more dense in certain areas. The trees that are visible to me seem to be the same; thin white trunks with branches tangled up like roots and a flat, round, blueish-green leafy top reaching towards the sun. I'm not sure if these trees are constant throughout the island. I may have to look around more, if I can heal from my afflictions and find the courage to do so.

I try to stand up, but I fall back down as soon as I lift myself a centimeter above the ground. I don't have much strength right now. I crawl over to the green foliage, dragging myself like a newborn baby. I look for a stick to help hold myself up, and thankfully I'm successful. Once I test that the stick is sturdy enough to hold me up, I put all of my weight onto the branch and hoist myself into a standing position.

I use the stick as a crutch and walk along the shore of the island, trying to spot any sort of natural shelter I can use. I already have food in my pack, and the seaweed leaves contain filtered water like the fish, so the only element of survival I lack is shelter.

As I walk along the shore, I notice a big chunk of metal. Upon closer examination, I realize it's an escape pod identical to mine. I wonder if someone else survived. It's much more damaged, but still intact. There's a large hole in the side, so I enter through there.

The inside looks rough. I see numerous black scorched holes that are covered with large leaves. The large hole on the side must've been too big to cover, because there's no evident attempt to do so. The black box which would've held the AI is completely destroyed, a rainbow of wires jutting out of it. The single seat is still attached, but the covering is ripped and the inner cotton is exposed, looking like a bird's nest. The storage compartment is open and completely empty. It seems extremely unlikely that whoever occupied this pod survived very long.

I sit myself down on the "seat" and finally take a good look at my leg. I slowly unwrap the gauze from my leg, careful not to move it around too much. I carefully place the gauze to the side, since I'll probably have to reuse it.

The injuries aren't horrible, but they're not small either. The indents of the creature's teeth are clear, and I can count that the creature had at least 8 teeth about 2 or 3 inches wide in multiple rows. The damage goes down my limb, which must have happened when I took my leg out of its mouth. The initial cuts from the teeth are decently deep, and will probably require a lot of care to heal. The rest of the injuries seem to be lighter and won't need as much attention. I'll still need to be careful with my whole leg, because it could get infected, and that would be certain death.

Still, I'm lucky. I could've been eaten by the snake or my injuries could've been much more traumatic. I feel like some otherworldly forces are on my side.

As I attempt to tend to my wounds, I hear a voice outside the pod. Is that a person?

"Hello?" I call out, and the voice I heard previously goes silent. I get out my machete, just in case. It could be an alien that wants to kill me. I would get up to defend myself, but it would be pointless since I can't stand on my own anyway.

I hear footsteps start to creep along the outside of the pod. It's terrifying, I don't know if this thing is a friend or a foe. I keep alert and try to look as intimidating as I can, despite the fact I can hear my heartbeat booming in my ears.

After a few grueling minutes, I see a body jump in front of the pod's "entrance" with a wooden spear pointed directly at my face.

"Wait, is that you? Errin Hassard?"