the unknown space

chapter 3

The next few days were spent trying to forget about the fact that we had no idea where we were going, if we were even going anywhere at all. We played some games of Uno, although they were all a little depressing and neither of us got into it at all. Then it finally happened.

"You will land in approximately two hours," A robotic voice came from the top of the pod. Karen and I froze. We couldn't identify anything that said we were even close to Covanity, yet we were going to land. What would we land on? Would it even be safe to breathe wherever we were going? Karen and I sat in silence thinking about the same questions.

"I guess we should talk about what to do when we get on the planet," Karen eventually said, her voice dry. "I can get some food if you want to get wood and start making a shelter for the night."

"Sounds good," I responded, buckling myself into my seat. The two hours were almost up and soon we would have to land. Karen did likewise. We started messing with the controls of the pod and we both flew into the back of our seats as we left hyperspace. In front of us stood a giant planet. It had lots of green and blue, like Earth, but also had an array of other colors swirled into it.

A robotic voice could be heard once more saying, "It is time to land." The pod started to speed up as we headed into the planet. It was bumpy and there was so much turbulence that I thought we were going to crash. To my left I saw Karen out of the corner of my eye. She was breathing fast shallow breaths. The pod continued to speed up and soon we could see the ground coming closer and closer at an alarming rate. I pulled some of the levers and pushed the buttons meant to slow us down and land but the voice said, "There has been a malfunction, please prepare to land." I held on tight and squeezed my eyes shut as we crashed into the trees. I felt my body whipped in all directions at once until it felt like I was going to explode. After a while we stopped moving and I cautiously opened my eyes to see where we had landed.

We were on the ground and surrounded by tall trees. I looked at Karen, she was curled into a ball and I could hear muffled cries.

"Are you okay?" I asked, feeling my whole body shake.

"Yes, I-I-t-think I a-m," her voice was broken up and I almost couldn't make out what she was saying.

"Good," I responded trying to stay calm. "Then let's get out of this pod and survive. The air is safe," I said.

"How do you know?" she responded looking up, I pointed up towards the window. "Oh," she said looking at the broken window. We had been breathing the air of this planet for the last few minutes so if it wasn't safe, we would have been dead by now.

The robotic voice came over the intercom, "You have landed safely."

I looked back at Karen, we both started laughing.

A few minutes passed and I looked at the door. I pushed a few buttons and the door flung open. The ground was tan like dead grass, and smooth almost like the skin of a dolphin. I took the first step, I looked behind me and Karen looked very concerned. The ground was squishy; it was almost like stepping on a beach. I stared off into the distance. The trees were huge but they were not the color of the trees on earth in fact they were pink, the leaves were shaped like stars. The ground had an array of color mixed into the tan, but the most noticeable being tan, blue and green, much like our home planet. The sky was blue with a red sun.

"Come on Karen I think it is safe to walk around I see no harmful things yet," I whisper yell as I reach my hand out for Karen to hold onto as she stepped out. She took it and jumped out of the pod like she was a fox.

"Thanks, the ground is so weird!" Karen said bouncing up and down as if she were on a trampoline. I took a few steps looking for any sign of life. I saw a bunch of trees have been knocked down due to us crash landing.