The tentacle tightened on his ankle, until he thought it would be cut off. Holding his breath as he was jerked under the water, he reached down, and tried to pull it off. Sharp needle like pricks on his fingers let him know that it wasn’t just pulling him down, it was also toxic. Ripping at the tentacle, he finally managed to get a finger under the edge, and pulled.

His lungs burned. He pulled harder, but wasn’t getting anywhere. Swimming down, he was able to get his head close to the tentacle, and he bit it.

There was a sudden release, as the creature fled. Swimming to the surface, he spat the piece of tentacle into this hand, and gulped the air as he dragged himself towards the shore. He had to get away from the sinking ship and out of the water. His foot was limp, dragging behind him in the mud, and his hands were quickly going numb.

(HOST HAS BEEN POISONED – GENETIC SAMPLE REQUIRED TO INITIATE EVOLUTION)

Dustin paused his crawl to shove the piece of tentacle into the port, before continuing his crawl. This place was not going to be the death of him!

(GENETIC SAMPLE ACQUIRED. INITIATING EVOLUTION)

By the time he reached the shore, he had feeling back in his hands. Leaning against a tree, he looked at his ankle. There were still needles stuck into the skin. He started pulling them out, but they were so fine he had trouble grabbing them. These things were worse than cactus spines.

The good thing was that as soon as he got them out, feeling began to return to his foot. He was able to stand up after a few more minutes.

(EVOLUTION COMPLETE)

His skin felt funny, and he saw that it was clammier. With a sigh, he realized he probably needed to stay close to the water or risk dehydrating. That stupid squid, or whatever it was, caused him to go aquatic. Looking around, all he saw were plants and bugs. If he overlooked the obvious alien colors and textures, he could almost swear he was in a jungle. There should be plenty of things to get genetic samples from, but the first thing he needed was for this stupid PED to synch better with his mind, so he could choose what it pulled out of the genetic material.

If he was going to evolve into some freakish monster, he wanted to control what he got. This skin was a definite downer.

Dustin touched the buttons until it started to do what he wanted on the screen.

(COMPLETE INTEGRATION 2 HOURS AND 35 MINUTES)

Sighing, Dustin hoped he could survive that long. While it was integrating, he wouldn’t be able to use it to evolve.

Spying a small creature stalking along the edge of the water, he stepped back, further into the shadows, and watched it as it hunted. The fish had barbs that were poisonous. The creature stabbed them with a bone tail, and wiped the barbs off on the closest tree, before eating them whole.

Swallowing, he realized he hadn’t eaten in days. They hadn’t bothered during the long trip to feed him, because they figured he would be able to get something to eat here, or would just die. The water was probably drinkable, but he needed to make sure he evolved to survive any parasites. He didn’t want to survive the large predators, only to succumb to the ones he couldn’t see.

A tickle near his ear made him jump away from the tree. The trunk was swarming with small black beetles. Reaching up, he could feel a few crawling on him, and he hurriedly brushed them off. He was breathing a bit too hard, but he hated bugs. Looking closer, he could see that they had long fluffy antennae. Shaking his head, he didn’t care. Everything on this planet wanted to kill him as far as he was concerned.

He made his way to another tree, and made sure it had no bugs on it, before he looked over towards the creature that had been hunting. It was gone, probably spooked when he jumped away from the tree. He felt a tickle along his hairline, and he brushed it, thinking it was just another bug, but his hand came back covered in blood, and he jumped again.

What now??

Running both hands over his head, he got away from the tree. There was a creature, camouflaged among the leaves, dangling near where he had been. It retracted its tongue, that looked strangely like a long straw, and climbed up higher into the branches. There was a cut, just at his hairline. Cursing, he applied pressure to it, trying to get it to stop bleeding. Who knew how many creatures here could smell blood on the wind?

Keeping a close eye all around him, he started to move. It would be too dangerous to stay in one place. He avoided every tree, not trusting himself to be attacked again, but stayed near the water. His skin would need to stay moist, and he couldn’t guarantee that he would find water again.

A loud call in the air behind him, chilled him to the bone. Whatever felt comfortable calling out like that, wasn’t afraid of predators. Which meant there was a very strong possibility it was a predator, and was probably interested in the fresh smell of blood on the air.

Breaking into a run, he heard something big give chase. Branches blocked his vision, and he knew that if he stopped, it would get him. A huge tree, with an incredibly crazy root system appeared through a gap in some branches, and he darted that way. As he crawled into the middle of the mess, he hoped that it wasn’t some type of giant venus flytrap.

Unfortunately, as soon as he stopped moving, he noticed vines creeping through the roots, coming towards him. He prepared to climb back out, when the biggest monster he had ever seen crashed out of the bushes and started trying to reach him. It had four eyes, all of which were focused on him.

The fur on the beast was stiff along the spine, and the color changed as it moved. Snarling, it fought the roots to get to him. Dustin tried to think of what to do, then noticed that the vines had swapped their target to the creature. Finally, something was going right!