Milo was decidedly grumpy.

He had finally fallen asleep the night before after what felt like hours lying there, fretting over his hand and classes and the creepy noises the forest made at night. Then, just as he’d begun to drift off, it had started drizzling on him.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to just lie there and take it. He got his bags and everything else he preferred remain dry under his desk and was able to use his sleeping mat as a water resistant shelter, but it didn’t cover him perfectly, as it kept wanting to slide off of him.

He had eventually managed to drift off again, but when he awoke in the pale predawn of morning he was cold, groggy, soggy, sore, and thoroughly annoyed with the world. A part of his mind cautiously dared to voice a grateful thought about how the rain had never gotten beyond that initial light drizzle, but he ruthlessly crushed the rose-colored sentiment beneath the mighty heel of his disgruntlement. He was determined to hate everything, and no silver lining was going to get in the way of that.

Speaking of which, his wrist hurt worse today for some reason, which sucked. It felt tight and he thought it was more swollen, so he probably had an infection and would die soon. Yay. He ignored that for now and grabbed himself a Soylent. Caffeine. Caffeine was…not awful.

It had stopped raining at some point before Milo woke (nothing to be happy about, just a fact), so once he felt up to it he was able to get up and change into something dry. Then, lacking anything better to do, he rearranged his bag to contain just some bottles of Soylent, water, and any tools he thought he’d need, then slung the bag across his tender shoulders, grabbed his hammer, and tromped off in the opposite direction he’d gone yesterday.

A minute later he stomped back and grabbed one of the spears he’d made before, lashed it securely to his bag with a lot of grumbling, then off he went again.

He proceeded much the same as he had on his last hike, marking trees regularly and staying watchful. This time, however, he hadn’t gone ten minutes when he happened on something interesting and unexpected: a mine—or at least, an intentional hole in the ground.

It looked old and abandoned to Milo, and didn’t appear to have been a very large operation. The opening was small, and the shaft was barely tall enough for Milo if he hunched over. It led steeply downward, braced with rough-hewn beams. The entrance was surrounded by mounds of dirt. Actually, there was a surprising amount of excavated dirt for how small the entrance was. Curiosity piqued, Milo peered down into it.

Hm. What to do here? Common sense says don’t go in the dark scary hole on the strange planet. On the other hand, aren’t I a de facto adventurer now? What kind of an adventurer would I be if I just ignored this? There might be treasure!

He could see a little ways down. The path was very straight, tunneling with purpose at a very aggressive angle. He took a few tentative steps downward, slipped, turned chicken, and scrambled back up. Hm. Maybe a middle ground between running away and diving in.

First dropping his pack, Milo rummaged around the nearby piles of dirt for several minutes until he’d amassed a good little pile of what he wanted: fist-sized stones. He’d also scooted over a few nearby cantaloupe-sized ones with his foot, but those were currently quite difficult for him to move and their numbers were small. Then, after ensuring his hammer and spear were readily accessible in case he angered something lurking in the depths, he lobbed one of the rocks down.

The rock thumped and tumbled its way down the slope. It disappeared into the shadows almost immediately, but Milo heard it for several seconds afterward until it finally terminated with a clatter that was distinctly different from the noises it had made before. Huh. Sounds like there’s something hard down there. Shrugging, he tossed one rock after another into the shaft with the same result, confirming he hadn’t hit a random boulder; there was indeed something big and hard down there.

He felt it safe to assume by now that nothing was apparently coming out of the hole to get him, so he no longer felt obligated to withhold the heavy artillery and proceeded to nudge one of the bigger stones down. It gained momentum rapidly before its journey ended with a much heavier, almost hollow-sounding collision. Milo kept going until he went through his entire pile of stones. Then, because it was kind of fun, he found a few more rocks and chucked them down before declaring a ceasefire and pondering on what to do next.

Regardless of the hole being unresponsive to his provocation, he didn’t want to go down there in the dark. He didn’t have a light source with him, but he remembered his phone back at camp, currently in his gym bag. It had a flashlight function. So, either he could keep going with his original plan of exploring west and then come back here after returning for the day, or he could go back to camp right now and sate his curiosity in the next fifteen minutes.

Immediate gratification it is.

He gathered his things minus the spear (which had annoyingly snagged on plants he passed as he walked) and hurried back, his foul mood of twenty minutes ago forgotten and replaced with the excitement of discovery. He hadn’t expected to find evidence of people so quickly! Granted, it wasn’t on the level of a bustling village by any means, but it was a solid indication that, somewhere nearby, he would probably be finding at least a road.

So focused was he on the possibilities that he wasn’t fully paying attention to his surroundings as he approached base camp. If he had, he’d have noticed that he’d been discovered.

Unfortunately, the…whatever it was…had been attracted by Milo’s blood, judging by the way it was sniffing at his sullied sleeping bag. Also, judging by the way it immediately sprinted at Milo when it noticed him, it either desperately wanted a hug or was keenly interested in eating Milo’s face off.

He didn’t even have time to process what he was seeing. It was big, somewhere between a large dog and a small pony, and it was fast. Forgetting about the hammer in his hand, he released a strangled yelp and sprinted away.

Milo was fast. He’d grown up playing tennis, and his favorite part of the game was reaching balls no one thought were possible to reach. When a bad case of tennis elbow had spoiled his love of the game in his teens, he’d moved onto ultimate frisbee, which required tremendous speed and agility to play well. He was proud of his ability to move quickly on his feet.

This creature was a lot faster. Not only that, it had a head start on getting up to speed. It ate up the distance between them almost immediately with its long, powerful legs before pouncing on Milo’s back and knocking him flat on his face.

Luckily for Milo, either it was jonesing for his Soylent or it had never seen a human with a backpack before, because it started tearing into Milo’s bag like it thought it would find delicious, gooey guts inside. This gave Milo precious moments to form a plan, which he completely wasted by lying frozen in abject terror.

This went on for what felt like an eternity to Milo, but was in reality only a few seconds. The beast, finally seeming to realize something was amiss, ceased its attack on the ersatz turtle shell and moved a step to Milo’s left. It jerked its neck to the side at an awkward-looking angle, scrutinizing him while clacking its thick, stubby beak. It seemed annoyed. Milo met its gaze, trembling.

Prey. He’d been made into prey.

Then, an interesting thing happened.

Suddenly, instead of afraid, Milo grew angry. Incensed. A cold fury he’d never known rose up instinctually from within at the audacity of this…this thing to come and attack him, to try to make a meal out of him. How dare it? His tremors stilled, lips curling in a rictus as his mind grew clear and focused. Controlled. On his planet, humans were the apex predator. Granted, they used big clever brains and tools to accomplish that, but it just so happened that Milo had at least one of those with him now. His fingers flexed around the haft of his steel framing hammer as he subtly shifted the position of his arm. Come the fuck on you big, stupid alien cat. I dare you.

The creature's eyes shifted from side to side, trying to get the measure of him. It made a faint warbling sound from deep within its throat. Milo gripped the hammer so hard his fingers hurt.

With little warning, the creature darted for his neck, but Milo was ready for it. As soon as he saw the beast moving toward him, he rolled away, using the momentum of the movement to help him simultaneously swing the hammer around. The motion felt surprisingly natural to him, familiar, like ripping a juicy, floating tennis ball into the opponent’s open court.

He saw the hammer collide with its skull. Felt the thing’s powerful body crash into him.

And lay still.

Milo lay beneath it, panting with adrenaline.

Just like tennis.