Wonwoo’s head is throbbing when he awakens with a jolt, still strapped his seat as smoke fills his lungs. He coughs, eyes tearing up from the thick black clouds, and when his vision finally adjusts he realizes with increasing panic that the interior of his life pod is on fire. He struggles to free himself from the belts, hands shaking as the fire continues to grow in the cramped space, creeping along the pristine white panels as they start to corner him.

Jumping to his feet the second the straps release, Wonwoo stumbles towards the fire extinguisher mounted on the wall just on the opposite side of the life pod. The floor is unstable, swaying slightly underfoot, although it might just seem that way because of his concussion. Wonwoo extinguishes the flames much faster than he thought he would be able to, coughing violently as he falls back against the inner wall and stares up at the closed hatch overhead.

The life pod is just barely large enough to fit him fully lying down in any direction, and if he reaches up, his fingers could just barely brush against the top. There is a ladder directly in the center which connects to two exits, one at the top and the other at the bottom. Above, he sees an orange sky through the hatch window, and below there is dark green water, which explains the constant sway: the life pod is floating on a body of water.

He needs to climb up and take a look at where he is, but Wonwoo clutches his aching skull instead, wiping away blood dripping from the large bump on the side of his head. He remembers climbing into the life pod just hours earlier, alarms blaring and screams coming from everywhere as the Pledis 17 was struck a second time by the strange pulse wave. His life pod had some trouble ejecting after that, just barely launching him out of the spaceship on time and sending him hurtling through the planet’s atmosphere like a meteorite. A wall plate had come loose during the fall and struck him directly in the head and caused him to black out, before he finally came to hours later in his current situation.

Wonwoo takes out his holographic PDA, praying that it works and has some sort of useful information on it, like announcements from the captain or the crew, anything really that could help him. It turns on and begins rebooting immediately, but just before his spirits can lift in expectation, an automated voice announces that the Pledis 17 is offline and that he only had initial emergency information on the damn thing and nothing else.

An incredibly uneasy feeling settles deep in the pit of his stomach, making him feel sick as he thinks of how he was probably stranded here with no definite idea of where he is or what will happen next. Wonwoo’s body quickly grows heavy and sore as the seconds go by, his head throbbing fiercely from the concussion. He can’t bring himself to get up and check on the radio or the fabricator on wall, eyelids drooping as fatigue creeps into his brain; he knows he shouldn’t doze off, not like this, not with a brain injury, but he can’t fight the symptoms. He wonders offhandedly if he’ll die here, all alone, where no one will ever find him.

Just then, as suddenly as he’d woken up, the wall mounted emergency radio transmitter flickers to life despite the electrical sparks coming out of it in every direction. A familiar voice Wonwoo thought he’d never get to hear again crackles out of the speaker, sounding as uncertain and afraid as Wonwoo feels inside:

[ “This is Pledis 17’s exploration team leader, Soonyoung Kwon. This is my fifth broadcast in the past five hours and I have yet to gain a response. I’m located in life pod ten and I seem to have landed just off-shore of an unknown island, and there is nothing else but water in every other direction.

I repeat, this is Pledis 17’s exploration team leader Soonyoung Kwon. Is… is there anyone else alive out here?” ]