The sound of a loud hiss reeled me into consciousness. I inhaled and winced as a sharp pain shot through my ribs. The smell of burnt rubber filled my lungs causing me to cough.

My ribs screamed in protest. I groaned in response to the pain and peeled my eyes open. Darkness engulfed every one of my senses. My body started to wake up, responding to all of the things that were hurting it.

My head was dizzy and my mind fuzzy. My memory returned to me in fragments. My ship. My orders to rescue one of our informants from an unknown planet. A crash into an unknown atmosphere that tore my ship to shreds.

The planet had appeared out of nowhere. It wasn’t on my radar, I was sure of it. Right? My head started to throb.

I raised my hand and ran it over my helmet. It was miraculously still in tact. The seal was broken though, because I could smell every god forsaken thing in this burning capsule.

I felt like a piece of meat being smoked in a large smoker. Luckily the rest of my spacesuit seemed to have taken the brunt of the impact.

Despite escaping death by a thread, I wouldn’t consider myself lucky at all.

I was hanging upside down still fastened in my seat. My neck was on the ground and my chin was tucked into my chest.

I felt the blood rushing down from the lower half of my body to my face. With all the noises going on around me and the smoke, I knew I needed to get out and fast. I raised my good arm and blindly felt my way to the seatbelt buckle.

I released the seatbelt from the buckle and my legs slumped to the ground. I let out an agonized grunt.

Something was definitely broken, sprained at best. I rolled over as quickly as I could, which probably wasn’t quick at all. I crawled from under the capsule, pushing away sheets of metal with my right arm.

I couldn’t feel my left arm and I was too scared to look at it in case there was no arm there at all. With one last push, a stream of light broke through the sea of darkness.

My heart picked up speed. Was this the way to heaven?

Was I really dead? For a moment I panicked. I thought I would be free from pain in the Holy place, yet I was in excruciating pain.

I thought back to my very Catholic grandmother, Tota.

“Hell is very hot, Krispa. Everything will burn” she said with a tight lipped scowl.

My lungs burned. I might be in hell. Guilt bloomed in my chest and formed into a knot in my throat.

I continued to crawl until the sun was entirely exposed and shone right above me. I rose to my knees and sat on my legs, shielding my face from the light.

It was hot, but it wasn’t hell hot. I involuntarily let out a sigh of relief.

‘Tota, there is still hope for me’, I whispered, sending my prayers to the sky. I squinted towards the horizon.

I surveyed the terrain around me. Flat grassy land. I winced as analyzed the condition of my left arm. Its supernatural twist told me that it was definitely broken.

I leaned forward putting all of my weight on my good arm and hauled myself to my feet. I ignored the wave of dizziness that passed through me. It was suddenly unbearably hot in my spacesuit but I knew better than to take it off.

The air could be poisonous to my skin even if inhaling it did nothing to my respiratory system. The only thing more dangerous than a foreign planet are the things that inhabit it.

As if I had spoken my fears into existence, the sky rumbled—no, growled. I felt a large drop land on my helmet. It was bright red. I slowly looked up to a sky that was red as blood.

“Holy f—“ I was cut off by the sky morphing into a whirlpool. My face turned hot as teeth formed on the outside of the vortex.

More droplets fell and splattered onto my helmet until it was covered in red. I frantically wiped the blood off and was met with a furry animal running towards me from across the clearing.

My heart slammed against my bruised ribs and my legs felt like lead. Suddenly I felt like I was running out of oxygen.

I turns around and ran towards my obliterated shuttle. Anywhere was better than standing right here.

I pushed past the pain in my lungs and legs and threw myself on the ground, crawling under the metal. I inhaled deeply to calm my erratic breathing. I crawled as far under the shuttle as I could, shielding me from the red rain.

I heard the growls of the creature getting closer. My mind was still reeling about the razor like teeth in the sky.

Where was I?

I felt hot tears roll down my cheeks. Sorry, Tota, I think hell would have been better than this.

I winced at the pain spreading across my entire body. Adrenaline crash.

I closed my eyes and thought about my family back on Earth. My beautiful family.

After what felt like an eternity, I no longer heard the rain pounding on the metal and I no longer heard the growls.

I held my breath. Everything was still.

And just when I was about to let my guard down, a yellow eye peered through the hole in the shuttle wall.

I screamed.