Content Warning: There will be gore, cannibalism, people are going to die (horribly), some messed up stuff will happen, and there might be a tiny little bit (insert sarcastic tone) of cussing and nudity. This story will be graphic at points. You have been warned.

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Prologue: An Unknown Star

Running.

We’ve been running through these forests and canyons for hours. Fleeing for our lives from those monsters. We finally got out of there; we can’t afford to be caught again.

They won’t welcome us back if they catch us, they’ll end our lives in ways I don’t even want to think about. After what I’ve seen in there I’d rather kill myself than be taken alive.

“How much further is it?” I ask the tall, black-haired woman running beside me.

“It’s still a long way to the edge of the Central Wastes, much less the inner wastes. We can’t take the direct route because they’ll expect that.”

It’s been nighttime since we started running, but our escape has been well lit regardless. It’s not dark here like night should be, at least not like nights on Terra or any of the planetary colonies.

I’m in very good shape, but she’s like a machine. If it were just her it seems like she’d barely ever need to stop. She’s been considerate though, letting me take short breaks every once in a while.

We get cuts and scrapes as we run silently through the thick underbrush of the forest. These plants are all strange, species I’ve never seen or heard of before. There are small reptiles scurrying up the trees as we pass, at least they’re not getting in our way. A scent that stings my nose drifts through these woods on the moist air.

Every once in a while we see one of their patrol ships fly by in the distance up above the canyon tops. They look something like ancient aircrafts that used jet engines to propel themselves at supersonic speeds, but these use some different method of propulsion that is unknown to me.

My companion stops me with a hand signal.

“W-why did we stop?” I whisper, catching my breath.

“A tanian is near,” she says, motioning to a group of large bushes nearby, across a small meadow.

“A what now? I don’t notice anythi—“ I stop my sentence short as just then it steps out from the bushes she indicated.

It’s a gigantic, reptilian flamingo with adorable little arms instead of wings. I think its appearance is a bit silly honestly, but the head on it’s extremely long neck has a wide mouth lined with three rows of razor-sharp teeth. These make me take it seriously. This thing is definitely an apex predator.

The beasts noticed us already, probably even before she stopped me. It’s barely making any sound except for the crunching sticks and leaves beneath its feet.

“I’ll kill it, I still have my sword,” I offer.

She laughs at me in a demeaning manner. “Like I even need one! We’ll take it together.”

After it gets a few meters out of the bushes it stops and eyes us up and down waiting for us to make the first move. The thing seems surprisingly intelligent for a rabid beast; it doesn’t want to rush in and be pinned between both of us.

“GRAAAH!!” I let out a sharp, bestial roar to try and scare it off or startle it.

Looks like it worked as the beast’s attention focuses on me. Good, you only have to worry about me big guy, no one else here to worry about at all. There’s certainly no scary woman skulking around here.

Now it’s bringing its neck backwards, cocking it like a spring, and crouching down getting ready to pounce. The moment it starts rushing towards me I break off in a sprint directly at it as well.

When it gets within arm’s reach it rapidly thrusts its long neck outwards with the intention of catching me in its massive, powerful jaws, but right before it’s going to get a bite of my throat, my companion suddenly appears at its left side and punches it in the head so hard I can hear its skull crack.

It lets out a series of yelps and strange barks, maybe it regrets messing with us.

Poor thing never even noticed her disappear off into the brush. Last mistake it’ll make.

While it’s still reeling from the pain, I slide under it and stab into its torso using both my momentum and arm strength to pierce as deeply as possible. Then I drive the heel of my boot into its left shin so it doesn’t get the chance to kick one of us with its hind legs; between the two wounds it’s sustained and this it topples over.

As I stand up and pull my sword out of the beast, I can see she’s got it in a headlock and is choking the life from it. Sometimes I forget how damn strong she is….

It’s kind of funny as it can’t stand up in the position she’s got it in, and the things tiny little arms can’t reach her at all. All it can do is whimper and thrash about.

I should end its misery; we don’t want to waste too much time here.

It takes only three vigorous chops to cut cleanly through the beast’s long neck, severing its head from its body.

As I do this some of its bright orange blood sprays on my companion. She glares at me with her fierce dark green eyes. “Sorry! Please don’t punch me! I like my ribs where they are. And not shattered.”

She lets out an annoyed sigh. It looks like I’m safe… for now.

“You’ve got the sword,” she says, “Cut it up and let’s take what we can. It won’t taste very good and we’ll have to eat it raw as we won’t be able to make any fires in the wasteland, but we’ve both eaten far, far worse.”

Eaten far worse? Shit, eating this thing will be like fine dining compared to what those monsters have been feeding us.

I get to work skinning it and carving off the good cuts of meat. It’s somewhat more effort than I expected and I work up a bit of a sweat, but it’s worth it as we fill our pockets with all the meat we can carry.

As I’m finishing with the carcass the sun peeks over the horizon and I see direct sunlight for the first time since I can remember, but… it doesn’t fill me with as much joy as it should.

“It’s… a r-red giant. H-h-how can t-that be, there shouldn’t be any Terran colonies orbiting that k-kind of star.” I fall to my knees in dismay. My companion urges me that we need to get going again, but I ignore her for now.

I had maintained some hope that this was somewhere around Sol or one of the colonies. That this was a place that I could someday return home from. But with this sight I am truly, finally struck by the reality that this is an entirely alien land, orbiting around an unknown star.

Prologue End

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I’ve not really written very much fiction before, so if you see any logical fallacies, grammatical errors, or something that isn’t explained enough feel free to point them out! And of course tell me what you think of the story, characters, setting, etc.