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<sup>[source](http://wallpapercave.com/star-wars-space-background)</sup>

The mountains this time, I decide. I could go for some exercise. I know how it'll end but I have plenty of time to kill. On the way I wade through some kind of vegetation. How does it grow if no light reaches it? Dream logic. It seems taller than the last time.

I arrive at the cliff face and boost myself up onto a boulder. I hear a long, low rumbling. Fuck off, I thought. I haven't even begun climbing yet. But the rumbling turns into a sort of guttural snarl. Like the sound of choking, wet meat and a fossil fuel combustion engine.


For sport, I ran. May as well make it work for its dinner. Or breakfast? No real sense of day or night here. My feet ached from the jagged rocks as I fled the thing behind me. It was closing fast. I tripped over something, fell and heard a loud snap.


Blinding pain exploded from my shin. I writhed around screaming until it subsided. There was no growling. Had I eluded it? Whatever it was. No use anyway, I couldn't continue like this. I turned my attention to what I'd tripped over. It was cold and hard, and complicated.


After feeling every part of it, I cried out in shock. A human skeleton. Wet rags around it suggested it was clothed too. The prospect of meeting another person in here was bizarre. Another facet of myself to talk to would make passing time like this much more tolerable.


But could they truly die? Can I? Eventually, I suppose. When the ship computer resuscitates me at the destination. I'll have a hell of a story to tell the other colonists, and a lawsuit I'd like to file against the company that makes the hibernation chambers...if I can find a way to prove I was dreaming the entire time. Wouldn't hurt to have some extra coin in my account to start my new life with.


The rumbling returned. I found myself wishing it would work up the courage to finish me. I'd been outside for much longer than usual and felt hypothermic, on top of the shooting pain from my leg. The rumbling turned to snarling. I felt a presence lunging at me through the thick, black fog.


There was a second or two of intense, mind-breaking pain. But it was over immediately after that and when I next opened my eyes I was safe and sound in the hibernation chamber. For fuck's sake. 

The clock on the terminal said 22:31:09. Military time or something. I never learned to read that so I'm as in the dark about what god damn time it is as I am about what all those repeating messages on the terminal say.


The top bar is a flashing red message. Underneath there's pages upon pages of the same chunk of text, repeating. The numbers at the bottom are a little different on each one but other than that, they're identical.


I have tried scrolling all the way to the start but can't do it. A little completion percentage indicator to the right changes every so often if I scroll long enough. The furthest I've ever gotten before growing bored and wandering off is 12%.


As soon as I'm outside I start jogging. My leg's as good as new so I do some cartwheels while I'm at it. Feels kind of good when the mud sinks in between my fingers. 

I stub my toe on something. Kneeling down to feel it, I discover another skeleton. This one's not so badly decomposed, I can feel leathery skin and some hair.


After walking for what feels like roughly an hour I encounter boulders. Feeling my way along them for a bit I eventually come upon a cave. This is just asking for it, isn't it? But I haven't done caves before. I cautiously negotiate the rough hewn cave floor and continue my descent into it.


Chittering rings out. Like no animal call I know of. Could it at least be a bear or something? The familiarity would be refreshing. Wind rushes past me, displaced by whatever immense abomination my subconscious has devised as it accelerates towards me.


I turn and dash for the cave entrance. Whatever it is follows me for a ways but stops short of the exit. Must have a healthier self preservation instinct than mine, I guess. It was exhilirating to escape one of these things. Only rarely did I manage it.


I walked through what felt like a swamp, struggling and failing to keep my pants dry. Again? My leg catches on something I expect to be another skeleton. It's a cold, but mostly intact body. Overcoming my revulsion I feel at the head and chest.


It's male. I search it for a weapon but find nothing. He seems to be dressed in the standard hibernation pajamas. It occurs to me for the first time that there could be another escape pod somewhere nearby. Someplace new to explore, without this maddening fog. With rations, perhaps and books to read.


There's something about this fucking swamp. Maybe it's in my head. Well, I mean, of course it is. But something in the back of my mind nags at me. Is there something I'm supposed to do here? Something to listen for?


Must be the second one. A smattering of high pitched squeaks, like hyenas, approaches from all directions. In this mud there's no chance of running, but for the hell of it I make my best effort to pick up some speed.

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*<sup>Stay tuned for part 3!</sup>*