Rocket found himself in an unknown planet similar to Terra. His ship crash-landed in the middle of a forest where trees were ashen and dead, with branches of skeletal fingers clawing in the air. The sky was a canopy of grey clouds, flashing with lightning and hurdling with thunder. Rain wasn’t imminent, it was just the visage of the heaven—the nature of this planet.

He unbuckled from the pilot’s seat, activating the navigation map that helped him no more than let the wormhole suck him in an unknown place. The crappy map flickered, displaying his coordinates for a second before sparking out of life.

“Unbelievable,” Rocket punched the navigation map. “I’d expect no less from a crappy ship rented for ten-thousand units,” he murmured to himself.

He looked outside the glass pane of his ship where there was an endless sight of dead trees, sunken in an ocean of mist. The outside of his window blurred from the condensation of water outside and he figured that staring stupidly won’t get him anywhere.

He went back to the pilot’s area and tried activating the navigation map once again but the thing was busted and completely useless. He tried punching around the area but it was to no avail and without any tools, he won’t be able to open anything up to fix or remodify it.

From his pocket, he took out a communication pad, hoping he could contact Quill and the others. He’ll have to bear with their puns—that the greatest weapons-maker got stranded, yadda, yadda. The communication pad was active yet the contacts seemed unreachable. It was impossible, Rocket thought. He designed his communication pad himself and he modified it so that it had the furthest reach than the finest tech the universe ever had.

Unless… he wasn’t in the universe. Muttering a curse, Rocket hoped that what he thought was wrong. Again and again, he desperately maneuvered through his communication pad, refreshing it, deactivating and reactivating it but his contacts were out of reach. He was somewhere, God knows where, in the multiverse.

Just perfect, he told himself and went to the crate of junk he got from Knowhere. Not far from the crate, he noticed that there was a drawn smiling face from the condensation outside the glass pane of his ship. He walked toward it and erased it with his hand but it was from the outside. He peeked from the eyes but met the same view as when he first glanced at the barren forest.

He let it slide over his head and opened up the crate of the junk he got from Knowhere. He knew from the first place that he won’t get anything from the crate that could fill up the spacecraft’s parts but he hoped that he could improvise.

One hour of sitting like a child by a trunk was all it took for Rocket to accept that he needed to find a town with fine tech unless he wanted to turn the ship into a bomb, he won’t get any use of the spare parts he retrieved from Knowhere. Getting sucked in a wormhole wasn’t part of his original plan which was rent a cheap ship, go to Knowhere then back with the others—in and out.

He took his big gun with him and smashed the classic red button that opened the exit of the ship. Steam escaped from the cracks of the metal door, falling elegantly to mix with the fog. Rocket jumped out of the exit, landing on damp soil. The mist ate up half of his body as the unforgiving cold penetrated his coat of fur.

He took a three-hundred sixty degree turn to scan the environment but everywhere looked the same except for the trail of excavated land and broken trees his ship created when he crash-landed. He felt ominous about the place and armed himself with his weapon, just in case some dangerous lifeform comes in contact.

Not knowing which direction to take, he chose the path of excavated land his ship created so as he would have a landmark—something that could lead him back should he ever get lost along the way.

Every step was a stride in a flood of mist. It was still and its movement was of the wind’s volition. There was no knowing what was below Rocket except for that he’s standing on damp dirt but anything else—whether there was grass or rocks—was completely invisible. He took cautious steps, pressing on the ground to ensure its stability before pressing the weight of his body to move.

The forest was dead quiet except for the ominous howl of the wind and the cacophony of thunder hurdling by seconds after lightning flashes in the sky. The silence made Rocket jumpy, alarming him of the slightest sound out of the cycle. The feeling of being watched lingered albeit it was a given since he was in a foreign planet with zero knowledge.

Eventually, the excavated path he followed had come to an end and he had to make his way from there, without guide and landmark. He looked behind him—to the last leaning tree his ship had destroyed until the mist ate it up and he was left without a remnant of what took him there.

Always walk one path if lost, Rocket established a rule although he wasn’t quite sure if that rule would apply to an alien planet. He followed it, nevertheless and hoped that he would come to the rim of the forest where he’ll figure things out from there.

For hours, he walked, taking stops to rest but never taking long. Everywhere he looked was the same picture whether he looked from different angles or above trees. It was driving him mad.

A strong wind pushed by and with it, echoed a delighted laugh.

Rocket aimed his gun behind him but he was still alone.

From the lake of mist, emerged monochromatic grey ghosts. It moved as if it had a mind of its own, disobeying the wind and it floated above Rocket’s head to an outstretched dead branch of a tree. One second it was vapor and in the next it was a smiling cat.