Morning came a lot faster than I expected. Luck was on my side last night when I stumbled upon a small cave along the deserted surface of this world. I couldn’t really decipher my surroundings during the night, but when I woke up this morning, I could finally see what kind of place Dr. G sent me to.

All I saw were rocks. Big rocks, small rocks, boulders of various sizes. There was a small, narrow river to the side of my cave, but otherwise, nothing noteworthy.

Great, I thought. I died, I met some weird, creepy guy, and now rocks… A whole bunch of useless rocks. The day couldn’t be any worse.

I couldn’t remember how I died, but I did remember what the most important things were in a survival situation—food, water, and shelter. I got shelter and there’s water at the river. All I needed was food. I mean, I could probably survive without food for a while. Water was the most important anyways. I decided to take a stroll to the nearby river I could see in the distance.

As I started walking through the rocky terrain, I couldn’t help but notice the severe lack of plants. No living thing in sight. What kind of planet was this? Did Dr. G send me to an uninhabitable planet?

The only other food source would be from the water. Like fish or maybe edible seaweed. It only made sense. Unless there was some weird underground civilization that formed after escaping a potential apocalypse. But that didn’t sound right either because the surface of this world was a bit too clean for there to have been an apocalypse. There were no signs of destruction. No trash or waste products. Nothing. I thought to myself, maybe this is some poetic justice for being a heartless and cold human from my previous life. But I didn’t remember being somebody like that. I’m pretty sure I did like… nothing noteworthy. My most recent memories were hazy. How did I even die?

When I caught sight of the water, all my thoughts dissipated into the air. Water! The sight was refreshing. And then I realized that it was yellow…

I looked at it confused. Is water usually yellow? Are my memories of water accurate? It’s like highlighter yellow! Yellow usually meant toxic. Toxic usually meant bad. And bad usually meant death.

I stared for a long while at the yellow water until I saw a huge shadow cast over me. Startled, I looked up. The sudden darkness had me adjusting to the new brightness. And before I could get a clear view, the dark mass was already long gone. From the small speck in the distance, it seemed to have gone in the direction of the river flow. Well, guess there’s more than just rocks.

That thing I had just seen was most likely something worth investigating. Alive or not, it was a sign of civilization. Hopefully a big drone from a much more civilized and intelligent species because I really didn’t like the idea of meeting eyes with a living creature that large.

Okay, I thought. New plan—Drink water? Maybe. Then find that big flying thing. First, I had to really figure out if this weird, pee water was drinkable because I was really thirsty. Like really thirsty.

If I had a source of fire, I could heat the water, potentially killing all the bacteria. But there were no trees. Even if I found flint, there was nothing to burn. If all else failed, I could curse Dr. G out before drinking it, but that was only if I ran out of other options. Well, I think I technically did just run out of all other options.

I tried to smell the water. I leaned down and sniffed a few times. It has no scent. I don’t have a stuffy nose, do I? I sniffled a few times just to make sure. Yep, it’s fine. I looked around for any other living creatures. If they were in it, the water was probably not entirely toxic. Again, nothing. No creatures in sight. Did I see anything green? Maybe some underwater plants? Nope. Nada. What in the world? What a stupid planet. How am I supposed to even survive?

After staring at the yellow water for another minute, I gave up on trying to figure it out. “You know what? Let’s just go out with a bang.” I cupped my hands together and brought some water up to my lips. With many second thoughts, I gulped down the water. It was icy cold. Very refreshing. I could feel the water flow down my throat and into my stomach, the chill following down my entire spine. It tasted like normal water. Guess it’s not urine or lemonade. Thank god, I thought. I hate lemonade.

Now if it had bacteria or a virus, I’d be screwed. But it was either dying from thirst or dying from a potential disease. I’d rather take the risk. Just this once. I’m no survival expert, so I wasn’t going to take any more chances with this world’s Mother Nature.

Since I didn’t have any belongings in the first place, I decided to ditch the cave and follow the river to the place where the unidentified flying object went.

Heh, I snickered. Guess I can call it a U.F.O. The weirdest things made me laugh. It was a good thing nobody was around to judge me.