My legs wouldn’t move. Whether due to sheer terror or the unwillingness to move forward, I was unsure but there was not question about it that I couldn’t move an inch. I was going to die here. I knew that from the moment I stepped out of the ship a few hours ago and yet it only has just dawned upon me that this is my end: on a foreign planet, lightyears away from my home, surrounded by alien gore. I want to go home. However the decisions that have lead me to be present in this moment cannot be undone. I must therefore, take a step forward, and face this monstrosity that we call the Dilosophacto head on.

I joined the expedition 2 years ago, after failing my exams I dropped out of university and couldn’t find a path to go on. So when the government began to recruit people for the expedition I immediately signed up after all, I was living a doomed life anyway and thought I might as well make some use of it.

In these past two years I have learned how to live again and how to enjoy my existence rather than just waiting on my impending death. Despite the constant threat of dying I don’t regret signing up after all, this mission is nothing but an expedition, to scout out territory for the real soldiers to be informed of. All of us knew that we probably wouldn’t make it out alive but we accepted it.

That’s why, as I lay in a pool of my own red blood, staring up at the ceiling, I don’t regret joining the expedition. It may have ended my physical life, but being on it tought me how to live again.