I felt a cold wind my face. I slowly opened my eyes, only to close them again. My head was hurting so much, it hurt even more than it did after I had too much alcohol last week, at my goodbye-party. Oh no wait, let me correct that sentence, that goodbye-party wasn’t last week, it must have been years ago, I’m not sure how many precisely.

I was so tired, strangely. Mom’s reaction would’ve been ‘See! I’ve always been right! Even if you sleep for thousands of years, you’ll wake up tired! No wonder, it’s not like you’ve ever been able to leave your bed!’ or something along those lines. Mom. If I was able to move, I would have laughed about that thought, but I was too exhausted to even move my mouth. I suddenly noticed that not only my head was hurting, I could feel the pain all over my body. I listened to my own breathing, it was loud and high, like I’ve run thousands of meters through the Sahara without any water and ultimately collapsed and fell down in the warm sand, short of breath, thirsty. But this wasn’t sand, it more felt like rock.

The only thing I remember is that I brutally got woken up from my deep, artificial sleep. The capsule I travelled in probably crashed into this place. I don’t think I’ve been awake for much longer than a few seconds, as I had hit the roof with my head, and believe me, I hit it hard. I’m not even able to remember how I got out of that dang thing and got all the way over here, because I’m obviously outside at the moment. Rather peculiar, how come they still don’t have the knowledge to land this thing safely? I’m quite sure this was not meant to happen, not that I’ve read about the odds that this travel-method would crash though. After all, why would I want to discourage myself to go?

I tried to open my eyes again. Not that it made a big difference, it was dark, very dark. It was probably night-time over here. This did not really look like the commercials, which promised that Aurora would be a happy and civilized place when I would get here. Actually no one knew how it would look like. Travelling to here would take approximately 3587 years, but over the past 300 years so many people had gone already, that they expected it to be an uprising and booming planet by the time I would arrive. So there should be some lamps at least. Scientists also spoke of three moons and stars bigger than human kind had ever seen before. Funny how they apparently didn’t really light up anything, or was I inside a building or something? Oh no, can’t be, I still felt and heard the wind blowing. I shivered a bit, I was so cold. To be very honest, all I wanted at this moment was a light, a warm and bright one. A fire, to be precisely. Dangerous and frightening, but mighty and beautiful too.

Too knackered to be able to lie in another, more comfortable way, I slowly fell asleep again.

A strange sound woke me up. I was still not sure where I was, if Aurora was really as civilised as they said, why wasn't I found yet? Or was I found and did they decide to leave me alone? The strange sound again. It sounded like someone was crying and echoed through this place, it freaked me out. I tried moving my arm, to my surprise it finally moved again. I was able to sit. Pain. Pain. Pain. Not only did I feel a throbbing pain in my head, also my back hurt so freaking much. It was still quite dark, but I was able to see a light far away, this seemed like a sort of tunnel or cave. How did I end up in here?

I heard the crying-like sound again. I decided to stand up and managed arduously. My eyes caught something moving in a corner, it seemed to be something that was about knee-height, a kind of animal maybe? Not knowing what it was and not really caring about whether it was dangerous or not, I approached it. My head felt like exploding, every time I took a step. I was near enough to touch the creature now. Although there was a lack of light, I could see that this was some kind of mix between a fox and a wolf. It was white and had long, shiny hair which made it appear a little puffy.

It. Was. So. Cute.

Hesitatingly, I tried to pet it. It allowed me to, and even started my hand. Company was something I had missed so much, dangerous to touch wild animals or not, it seemed friendly enough. So I painfully crouched and hugged it, while I started crying, the crash, the pain, Aurora, this place, missing home, it got a little too much all of a sudden. The animal had no objections, didn’t judge me and comforted in the way only animals can do that. I wanted to give it a name, but I didn’t feel like finding out whether it was a boy or a girl. Also, giving a name to something will make you feel attached to it, and what if it didn’t stay with me like all the other things that promised me to stay but left me too?

Half an hour later, I stood up, dried my tears and laughed at the animal who looked at me in curiosity. I walked backwards and beckoned it to come with me. I really didn’t feel anything to go out alone, and since this was my only friend so far, I should keep it close. When I could see what was outside of the cave, my jaw dropped. It was like a… How did you call those again? I recognised it from my history lessons. Oh! A jungle! It looked like a Brazilian jungle from centuries ago! It was so beautiful! Plants and animals I’d never seen before, where everywhere! Not really the kind of jungle I would expect, I expected some kind of concrete jungle after all. Close to the cave, there was a huge gap in the ground and not far from that it looked like an explosion had taken place, Pieces of metal were scattered all around this place. This must have been the place where the capsule had hit the ground. I’ve been so fortunate, I probably hadn’t survived if I had stayed inside the capsule. The animal waited for me to continue walking and took the lead, while I walked behind it, astonished by the beautiful forest.

I followed it and it brought me to a lake. I looked at the creature thankfully, it seemed to know what I needed most right now. Greedily, I drank the water and felt the cold substance flow down my dry throat, it felt incredibly satisfying. I knew how to survive. I loved reading the old books  of my grandmother, that even my grandmother had inherited from her grandmother. One of them was about a boy that was stuck in a jungle on Earth, I’d read the book so many times when I was little. Now I could finally put that knowledge into practise. I noticed that I smelled quite bad, and to think that the poor animal had to put up with hugging me. I put off my clothes and bathed in the cold and refreshing water, not really caring whether the animal saw me or not. I don’t think it would tell its friends about a random girl he had seen . When I submerged my head, the water turned red, red of my dried blood. I’d almost forgotten about my painful head, but the wound hurt again when the water got to touch it, nevertheless I tried cleaning the wound as well as I could. After a few minutes of wavering, the animal joined too. We stayed in the water for about halve an hour or so and then I got out as carefully as possible, I got paranoid. What if someone saw me like this? Although I had not seen a single person yet, didn’t mean that there wouldn’t be any. I dried myself with one of the giant leaves that could be found everywhere over here and thought that it was about time to get something to eat. So did the animal, that had still not departed from me. Why didn’t it leave me? Not that I wanted it to leave, absolutely not. It was the only thing I trusted at the moment, but its loyalty surprised me anyway.

It took me to a place with fruit-like objects and started eating them. These were probably okay to eat so I took the same ones and bit off a piece. It tasted really sweet and better than the fruits back home at Earth. No wait, this was my new home. I ate about six of them and filled up my empty stomach. Then we just sat down for some time, till it got dark. The creature stood up and wandered off, presumably going back to the cave. I almost couldn’t believe that it left me like that, but at that moment, as it seemed to read my mind once again, it stopped and gave me a questioning look. Relieved, I stood up too and followed it again.

When we neared the cave, I could recognise the smell of something burning. I quickened my pace and saw that ten to fifteen trees that were like 100 meters from the cave were on fire, what happened? It was not that hot here, so it can’t be that a random fire lightened up because of the heat, together with that, it was quite humid. So someone or something must have started it, but who or what would do something like that and why? The fire made quite a phenomenal impression on me, I’m not going to lie, I liked fires ever since I had been into one myself, I was not afraid. But the mournful and worried face of my little friend made me feel guilty for perceiving the fire in this way. I squatted down and pet its head.

‘Let’s go back into the cave,’ I whispered. ’Don’t worry, it’ll be safe. I don’t know a safer place to sleep at the moment.’

This time, I took the lead. I walked into the cave and the animal followed me, hesitatingly. I noticed that it acted rather anxious, it was probably still afraid of the fire, but I was sure it wasn’t able to harm us anymore, since we went far into the cave. I crouched again and looked it in the eyes.

‘It’s okay, really!’ I told it. ‘Don’t be so scared, nothing will happen to you, I promise.’

I hugged it again. I felt that it trembled but it stopped after a few seconds and buried its head into my hair. Probably because my hair smelled a bit better this time.

Then I heard footsteps. I hold my breath and listened closely, my little friend must have heard it too as it raised its head and moved its ears, it started trembling again. Or was it me this time? I wasn’t sure and I didn’t really care either. The sound of the footsteps came closer and, while still holding my breath, I tried to turn my head. It was too dark to see whether this was a man or a woman, but the shadow of the creature was definitely that of a human, a tall one too. Would I make contact or not? I decided to do it, what was there to lose anyway? I stood up and coughed. Abruptly, the shadow turned around and suddenly, there was light. I could distinguish a handsome and young, but startled face of a man. The light turned off and the man started running. And this all took place in less than two seconds. I ran after him, I wanted to know what was wrong, where I was and why no one had brought me to the civilized world yet. A sudden scream. The boy slipped and fell down, right on his face. The next thing I saw was fire.

Everywhere.

I swear, Exo is going to come soon haha, next week, I promise ^^