MidReal Story
Botanic Odyssey: Chronicles of Alien Flora
Scenario: I went to a planet to write a botanic lexicon about the plants there.
Create my version of this story
Elara Voss
botanist explorer, friends with crew, tall with green eyes, curious and meticulous
Jaxon Holt
spaceship pilot, friend of Elara, rugged with short black hair, brave and resourceful
Linnea Kael
alien liaison officer, works closely with Elara and Jaxon, silver skin with bioluminescent patterns, wise and empathetic
I was on an alien planet, and I was going to die.
Not really, but it felt that way.
The storm had come out of nowhere, and I was still out in the field, miles from the ship.
I’d been so engrossed in my work that I hadn’t noticed the dark clouds rolling in until they were right on top of me.
Now the wind was howling, and the rain was coming down so hard I could barely see my hand in front of my face.
I needed to get back to the ship before I drowned or got struck by lightning or blown away by a tornado or whatever other horrible things could happen to me out here.
I’d never been in a storm like this before, and it was terrifying.
I’d grown up on a space station, where the weather was always perfect—sunny and seventy-two degrees every day of the year.
This was like nothing I’d ever experienced before, and I had no idea how to handle it.
I grabbed the strap of my backpack and pulled it over my shoulder, trying to take comfort in the fact that I at least had a few supplies with me.
It wasn’t much—just a few days’ worth of food, a first aid kit, and a portable shelter.
If I could get somewhere safe, I’d be able to wait out the storm.
But that somewhere safe was also miles away.
And I had to get there on my own two feet.
I looked around, but I couldn’t see far in any direction.
The rain was coming down in heavy sheets, and it was hard to keep my eyes open for more than a few seconds at a time.
I could see the jagged rocks of the alien planet stretching out for miles with no end in sight.
They were rough and sharp, and they’d cut me to ribbons if I fell on them.
I took a step forward, but the ground was slick with water, and I almost lost my footing.
I was going to have to move slowly and carefully if I didn’t want to risk breaking my neck.
I was used to working on all kinds of planets with all kinds of climates—I was a botanist, after all—and I knew how to take care of myself when I was out in the field.
But this storm had come out of nowhere, and I wasn’t prepared for it.
It was just one more example of how dangerous this planet really was and how much we had underestimated it coming in.
The alien plants were beautiful, but they were deadly too.
And now that we were caught in this storm, things were only going to get worse.
The wind howled, throwing me off balance as it threatened to knock me over.
The rain fell so hard that I could barely keep my eyes open, and within seconds I was drenched to the skin.
I shivered as the temperature dropped, wishing I had brought a jacket along with me.
I’d been so focused on my work that I hadn’t even thought about it, and now I was paying the price.
I took another step forward, trying to shield my eyes from the rain as I looked around for the ship.
I couldn’t see it in any direction, but that didn’t mean much—not with my vision obscured by water and darkness and who knew what else.
I needed to get back there right away before something bad happened to me out here.
I pulled my backpack closer and started walking, my feet slipping on the slick rocks as I made my way back toward the ship.
I had been so sure of myself when we landed on this planet a few weeks ago, confident that nothing bad could happen to me out here.
But now that a storm had come up out of nowhere and I was all alone out in the field, I wasn’t so sure anymore.
This planet was dangerous and unpredictable, and if I didn’t get my butt back to the ship soon, I was going to be in big trouble.
Even as I hurried back through the field, my eyes on the distant ship, I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful the alien plants were all around me.
I started describing the plants as I saw them. The first one was a purple spiral looking plant. It grew in clusters. I had one at home, they say you can only have one domesticated Gent's voyeur in your room, because they start arrogantly humm at eachother and drive people crazy.
There was a mad rush of wind and then a deafening crack of thunder that startled me so badly I almost dropped my pack.
My heart pounded in my chest as I looked up at the sky and saw a flash of lightning cut through the darkness.
I’d always been afraid of lightning—it had always seemed so powerful and destructive—and now it was everywhere around me, like some kind of nightmare.
It was bad enough that it was raining so hard that I couldn’t see where I was going or what was happening to me.
Now there were tornadoes too?
This was worse than anything they’d ever warned me about back home, and all I could think about was how much danger I was really in out here all alone on an alien planet with no one to help me out of this mess but myself.
For a second it seemed like everything went still—the rain, the wind, even the lightning—and then all at once they came back even worse than before.
The lightning was so bright that it seared through my closed eyelids and danced across my vision long after it was gone.
The thunder was so loud it shook me to my core.
And the wind . The wind howled so fiercely it seemed like it was calling to me, beckoning me to come closer so it could tear me limb from limb.
Everything around me was so terrible I wanted to cry—but I didn’t have time for that.
If I stopped moving now I might never start again.
I took a deep breath to try and steady myself and then I trudged on, one foot in front of the other.
The storm went on for what felt like hours but must have only been a few minutes.
The rain never stopped coming down, and I was soaked to the skin within seconds of setting foot outside.
The wind never let up either.
There were a few times when it blew so hard I thought I was going to be blown away or knocked over or even hurt somehow.
But somehow I managed to stay on my feet and push forward.
The lightning came and went.
It was so bright when it flashed that I could see everything around me for miles.
In that brief moment of light, I saw what looked like a canopy of flowers glowing softly in the darkness, their petals shimmering with their own internal light.
They were beautiful, and I wished I could stay and study them for hours, but there was no time for that.
The darkness came down again a second later, and I trudged on, trying to ignore how scared I was and how much everything hurt.
I just had to keep moving, one foot in front of the other, until I finally made it back to the ship.
And somehow—I could hardly believe it—eventually I did.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I reached out and grabbed hold of the ladder, pulling myself up toward safety.
I wasn’t sure how long it would take for me to dry out or warm up or feel right again after everything that had happened to me out there in the storm.
The alien flora around me was so beautiful and so strange—so different from anything I’d ever seen before.
Some of the plants were so colorful they seemed to glow in the darkness, even when there was no lightning.
Others produced their own light—like the flowers that had formed a canopy over my head as I walked toward the ship.
I’d only seen them for a moment before the darkness had come down and hidden them from view, but I would have sworn they were glowing from the inside out, like little stars in the night sky.
It was all so remarkable.
I was an alien botanist studying alien plants on an alien planet, and somehow, after all these weeks of work, it seemed like it was all worth it.
It was all worth it if it meant discovering something new and unique and special.
But as much as I wanted to stay and study the alien flora that surrounded me outside the ship, there was no time to dwell on any of that.
The storm was rolling in—fast—and it was going to get worse before it got better.
I had to get inside the ship before it was too late.
I had to get inside the ship before the lightning struck again or the wind picked up or something terrible happened to me while I was still out here in the open.
As much as I wanted to stay and explore the alien world around me, there wasn’t time for any of that right now.
I had to get back inside the ship, where it was safe.
The storm was growing worse by the second.
The rain was coming down so hard it was impossible to see more than a few feet in front of me.
The wind was blowing so fiercely it threatened to knock me off balance with every step.
And the thunder continued to crash so loudly it sounded like cannon fire echoing across an empty battlefield.
I took a deep breath and trudged on through the darkness, one foot in front of the other, desperate to reach shelter before it was too late to do anything at all.
The rain was coming down so hard it was like being doused with a fire hose.
Every drop felt like a tiny bullet hitting my skin, and it hurt so much that by the time I finally made it to the ship, I was covered in cuts and bruises from head to toe.
Some of them hurt more than others, especially the one on my left arm—I fell on it early in my trek across the field, and it was still throbbing with pain hours later.
But all of that was secondary to the fact that I made it back to the ship at all.
I took a deep breath and wrapped my fingers around the handle, pulling my way up into safety.
As soon as the door closed behind me, the storm cut off like someone had flipped a switch.
It was quiet—so quiet—and the air was still.
After everything that had happened outside, it almost felt like a dream.
But it wasn’t a dream.
It was all real.
It was time to go home.
Part of me had been looking forward to going home.
I’d been on this alien planet for weeks now, trying to study as much of the local flora as possible in preparation for writing a botanic lexicon about the planet’s most important plants.
It had been hard work—harder than I’d ever imagined—but it had been rewarding, too.
And when I thought about what Jaxon had said just a few hours before, how we were probably finished with our work here and would be able to return home soon, I’d gotten excited.
We were going to get to go home!
It had been so long since we’d last visited Earth—I couldn’t remember the last time we’d been back.
And after everything that had happened here on the planet, it felt like we deserved a little break.
But now that we were actually leaving, now that we were on our way back to Earth, part of me started to feel sad.
There was so much I would miss about this place.
I’d barely had a chance to learn anything at all before I was forced to leave, but I’d seen some truly remarkable things.
The way the plant life changed as you moved from the sunny fields near the equator to the frozen tundra near the poles, for example, or the way the local fauna interacted with the plant life, like how the deer-like creatures that roamed the forests seemed to feed exclusively on the flowers of a crested plant with red and white leaves.
There was even one plant that Linnea had discovered while we were out here that produced a type of nectar that could be used as an antidote to a number of different poisons—it had already saved our lives more than once!
But it was the plants themselves that I would miss most of all—their colors, their shapes, their textures, their scents, their bioluminescence!
As I headed down the hallway and into the medical bay to look at my arm, I couldn’t help but think about how beautiful the alien plants were when they were exposed to the storm.
Their colors were so vibrant, they almost seemed to glow in the dark.
And some of them did glow in the dark.
The flowers I’d seen while I was walking back to the ship had been proof enough of that!
I spent a few minutes looking at them and smiling before I remembered why I’d come to the medical bay in the first place.
I had to clean and dress my wound before it got infected, and I had to do it now.
The faster I took care of it, the faster we could be on our way home.
As I cleaned my arm, I thought about all the plants I was going to miss while we were gone.
I’d only just started studying them, and there was still so much more to learn.
But everything would still be here when we returned.
I’m sure there would be plenty of time to study it all then.