Five hundred years from today, it became necessary to travel through the stars. Due to pollution and mismanagement, Earth was no longer habitable. 

In a stroke of luck, we had the level of technology to explore new planets and so we reached across the boundless galaxy in thousands of starships, running from the ruined planet. Running from ourselves.

But as anyone will tell you, wherever you go... You take the rest of you along for the ride.

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The orbital drop-pod was failing and it was failing fast. McAnnis, Trevor and Scott were trying to avoid crushing each other against the sides of the tiny capsule as it broke through the atmosphere of the planet. All three of the them were looking out of the window.

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McAnnis was old, and could even remember back when the First Planet was occupied. He had seen pictures of it that his mother and father had shown him from Earth II. He was looking at the stars in the solar system, wondering if he'd made the right decision to leave Rigilion and it's pinkish seas, four hour lunar cycle and red marsh flats dotted with slatted stone houses that had been there when the first explorers had arrived. Amongst those stars there might be others better, and there might be others worse and, right now, things looked plenty worse.

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Trevor was looking out of the window back up at the spaceship that had ran out of fuel during their extradition to a new planet of primarily grassland, out in the further reaches of Galaxy A4HFF. He felt a sinking feeling in his chest as the pod continued to drop. Unless there were other travellers, traders or explorers, it was likely they'd spend the rest of their days on the planet that the little emergency escape pod was hurtling towards.

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Scott stared out at the surface of the planet and reached into his pocket, shuffling against the two other men who grumbled as he did so. He took out a small device that looked a little like a pocket mirror, pointed it at the planet below and opened it.

A small hologram of a ball fizzled into life, rotating and categorising the fauna and flora of the planet below with the information waterfalling across the bottom of the screen in lime green coded text.

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"A Planet Sorter?" McAnnis exclaimed."Where the hell did you buy that? Those things cost more than entire starship haulers!"

Scott didn't break his intense stare at the gadget. "Bought it. Pinched it. Something. Can't remember?"

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"Can't remember where you got it from?" said McAnnis. "And you expect me to believe that?"

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"Can it, McAnnis. Every time you talk, your breath makes this whole pod smell." said Trevor, who was squished against the Scott's left side. "And this pod was only made for 'un', not 'tres'. So quit your gibber because it's getting rid of the oxy-

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He screeched as the arm pressed up against the side of the pod sizzled and smoked. The sides of the pod were turning orange as the pod sped downwards.

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It hit the earth with an almighty crash. Soil erupted on all sides as the pod buried itself deep in the ground. 

Scott hammered the ejector button and after a brief moment when it looked as if the three of them would all be stuck in a pod that could barely fit a single person for the rest of time, the door shot out. It arced across the air before hitting a rock and bouncing off before coming to a rest next a small brook. A heap of crumpled man-made metal on a foreign globe that had simply dropped out of the sky.

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Trevor was the first out, looking around at the strange alien environment. Completely different to the twin suns that set on Karred which he was used to, where the double-mouthed orange and purple bats often flew across the twilight skies this was a world that had brown plants with firm trunks that were covered in foliage. The river wasn't a mercurian silver, but instead see through and bristling with small finned animals that were covered with scales.

Scott looked out of the pod and realised that the planet was nothing like his home planet of Krodorus, where he had become tired of the growing glass that shone in hundreds of different colours under the sun, translucent and fragile. Simply walking across one of the many hectares of land was difficult without injuring your feet. The crunching of the growing glass gave him an earache and the phantasmic colours reflected through the glass hurt his eyes and gave him a headache in the mornings. Especially when he'd had two pints of Skottle the night before. No, this grass was green. And seemed to be soft underfoot. Scott knelt down and picked up a few pieces in his fingers.

And pliable.

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When McAnnis left the pod, he realised that he'd seen the sights in front of him before. A long, long time ago. He reached into one of the many fanny packs he wore and scrounged through, eventually finding an old picture which he pulled out.

It was a picture he'd received from his parents.

But it couldn't be, surely?

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The three men continued walking through the verdant countryside. Few words were spoken between the troupe as they all kept an eye out for any kind of civilisation, but there was a feeling of negativity. Birds tweeted in the skies as wind swept the boughs of treetops, but there was no sign of anyone else.

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"Do you think we should turn back?" said Scott, casting his eyes over to Trevor who was scanning the open horizon which held nothing but trees and, in the distance, mountains coated in a haze of rolling cloud.

There was a distant booming and crashing sound from a thunderstorm up in the foothills. A crack of light briefly appeared just under the patchy swaying fog that lay miles in front of them. A rain storm, no doubt about it.

Trevor wasn't sure what to do. "If we keep moving towards the mountain," he said, slowly. "Then it's likely that when night falls and the temperature drops, we'll have trouble contesting with that storm. Maybe we should wait."

 

Trevor turned around to ask McAnnis what he thought, but when he turned around there was nobody behind him.

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McAnnis had disappeared.

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In truth, he had wandered off five minutes before. As Scott and Trevor discussed why a planet that seemed so hospitable hadn't been logged on any starmap and the sheer fluke of being so close to it.

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Whilst Scott tinkered with his Planet Sorter, which labelled the planet they were standing on as both twelve million tonnes and twelve grammes, five hundred million miles wide and thirteen metres and containing abundant life and also none at all, McAnnis saw something dart behind a large oak. Something with beautiful blonde locks, that made his heart leap.

He said nothing to his two compatriots but simply ran over to the oak to look behind it, only to see the figure in the red cashmere jumper giggling behind a hawthorn fifty metres away.

He knew the figure immediately and his eyes filled with hot tears. It was his wife, who'd been dead for fifteen years. He didn't wonder how, not did he spare a thought for the men he was leaving behind. He simply chased the woman in red with childish wonder.

Somehow, she was alive. He didn't know how, and he didn't care. He tried to call out to her as he followed, tripping over himself as he went, but the words caught in his throat.

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Scott and Trevor spent some time arguing whether to search for him or not before both continuing on. As they came closer and closer to the mountains, the rain began to spit and was hissing down by the time they reached the mountains and the stars had come out.

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They set up camp underneath a pair of sycamores. For covering, they managed to collect branches and twigs to make a rudimentary shelter that protected them from the worst of the rain. 

In the damp little den, Trevor managed to fall asleep. Scott watched the rise and fall of his chest and wondered how it was so easy for some people. How they could just turn off even when trapped on a desolate planet?

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He saw something then, a flash of a tail that whipped past the tents and he stood up. No way, how could it be?

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He peered out into the darkness and could make out his childhood beagle sitting on the leafy ground. It's mouth was lolled open, panting happily. Spit dribbled from it's tongue.

As he stepped out of the den, the dog scrambled up and sprinted away. Scott followed after his dog, unthinking and uncaring as Trevor slept on.

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When dawn broke across the sky, Trevor realised that Scott was missing. He canvassed the area, looking for him. But he was nowhere to be found. Shouting did nothing, he had simply left in the middle of the night.

His fright turned to panic and his panic turned to raw fear that filled his stomach like ice water as he realised he was all alone.

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As he traversed the rocky plateaus, soaked into a shimmering ebony with rainwater, he noticed that the rocks were covered in red patches. For some reason, his fear abated as he looked at them. They were the most beautiful crystals he'd ever seen in his life, a strong crimson that seemed to almost glow outwardly. The world around seemed almost dull compared to them.

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As Trevor looked deeply into one of the crystals, which took up eight feet of rockface and reflected him, he felt more and more at peace, almost entirely forgetting about his companions. 

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He felt the desire to touch it for some reason. It was a deep and uncertain desire and, as he leant forward he felt a twinge in the back of his mind. Some unconscious twitch that something wasn't quite right. His fingers bristled as he felt the micro-hairs on his fingers stand upright.

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He touched the surface of the red crystal, and felt a calming presence.

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Unfortunately it was shattered as he leaned further and further into the red crystal and fell into it. The solid wall instantly turned into a gelatinous mass. Horrified, Trevor tried to tug his arms and legs out, but the red wall of jelly kept pulling him inward.

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The more he tugged, the firmer the grip the thing had on him and the harder it seemed to suck and pull. As his forearms and elbows were devoured, he saw things swimming inside the giant mass. They looked like grey stone tadpoles, but as the reached the appendages that had sunk into the jelly and Trevor felt minuscule teeth crunching through his skin he realised what they were.

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It had teeth.

Living teeth.

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He opened him mouth to scream but at that point the gelatinous wall had claimed his face. And soon it claimed the rest of him.

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McAnnis had been running all through the night and into the early sunlit morning. Eventually, the figure of his late wife stopped and turned to look sat him. He bent over breathless, still fixing his gaze over at his wife in the morning sun.

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She smiled as he shouted questions at her, not responding to any of them. 

She raised her arms and spread them, her smile widening. The green scurvy grass blew in the breeze as he looked at her, painfully remembering their life together.

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McAnnis ran towards her, straight through her, and over the cliff she was standing at the edge of. He screamed all the way down but it was over quickly.

His head hit the rocks at the bottom of the cliff with a loud snap and a lump jutted out of the corner of his neck.

His burbling face turned white and blood ran in a thick flow from his mouth.

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Scott had caught up with his childhood friend in a large meadow, littered with springtime flowers in the middle of the afternoon. He spent a while playing with him, throwing a stick back and forth and laughing at his bounding and cheery dog.

As he looked at his dog, he noticed that it wasn't the dog he'd remembered at the end of his life, with it's braying wheeze and scraping bark from lungs infested with blackness.

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He was four years younger, at least. When Captain had died, the hairs on his nose had been as white as fresh snowfall but they were brown on this version of Captain. The collar around his neck was a vivid pastel blue but had been a dull clay-colour when he'd finally passed away.

His Star Map beeped in his pocket and he took it out, examining it.

It had identified a dangerous lifeform, and so was beeping rapidly.

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He looked away from his dog to check the Star Map. It was probably just malfunctioning again, like it had been since the pod had impacted.

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He stood up and brushed himself down. Maybe it was time to go.

After all, he'd spent twenty minutes rolling in the meadow with his long-lost dog and felt it was time to catch up with his friends. He couldn't quite remember their names, but knew that they'd probably be worried. It was time to put a leash on Captain and head back.

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He looked at the Star Map and noticed that the hostile threat recognised was right next to him. Puzzled, he turned back to Captain.

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He screamed as he saw the creature in front of him.

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And the planet was still once more.

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