MidReal Story
Lost Planet: Survival's Alliance
Scenario: a man stranded on a hostile planet
Create my version of this story
I don’t remember much.
The last thing I recall is the turbulence, the shaking and the deafening sound of metal tearing apart.
I’m not sure how long it’s been or what happened after that.
I vaguely remember my head hitting something hard, and then there was nothing but blackness.
My head is pounding as I force my eyes open.
Bright sunlight assaults my eyes and I squint against it, lifting a hand to shield my eyes.
How long have I been out?
It’s hard to tell what time it is—there’s no way to know how long I’ve been unconscious.
What day it is, or even how long since the crash.
Sitting up slowly, I take stock of my situation.
My body aches all over, and my vision is blurry for a few seconds before it comes into focus.
I don’t see any of the other crewmembers around me, and my heart starts to race in panic as I call out their names.
The only sound I hear is the eerie silence of the alien planet around me.
I climb unsteadily to my feet, wincing at the sharp pain in my side as I do.
“Anyone there?”
My voice echoes around me, but there are no answers.
There isn’t any trace of life in any direction I look—no signs of any of the other crewmembers anywhere, or any indication that they’re still alive at all.
The panic rises in my chest until I can barely breathe, and I try to force it back down.
I can’t afford to lose it now.
I need to keep calm and try to think rationally about what to do next.
The throbbing in my head has subsided enough that I can think clearly again, and I try to remember what happened before everything went black.
We were on a routine mission to collect samples from this newly discovered planet when disaster struck.
The ship’s systems failed, and we plummeted to the surface below.
Shoving aside the broken pieces of metal that are lying on top of me, I stand up and take a look around me at what’s left of the ship.
The once-proud vessel is a mangled mess.
Somehow I doubt that anyone could have survived such a violent crash.
And yet I did.
It’s a miracle I’m still alive at all.
I take a few steps forward and peer out through the shattered viewscreen.
A rocky terrain stretches out as far as I can see in any direction.
I don’t see any signs of life anywhere—no animals or other creatures running around, nothing to indicate that this place is inhabited at all.
And yet there must be something here.
I don’t think we crashed into an empty planet.
There must have been some kind of intelligent life here for us to have come all this way.
I take another look around, trying to get my bearings.
The sky overhead is a different shade of blue than I’m used to seeing on Earth.
It reminds me more of the ocean back home than the color I usually associate with a clear day.
Looking down at the ground beneath my feet, I see some strange plant life and other vegetation growing in various places.
the alien plants wrap around his ankles
I can’t stay here.
I can’t keep standing here and staring at the wreckage of my ship.
I need to try and figure out what to do next.
There has to be some way out of this mess.
I turn and start walking in one direction, putting my hand up over my eyes to shield them from the harsh sunlight.
All I can do is keep moving forward and hope that something will come up.
Some way to get off this rock and back home.
As I make my way through the wreckage of my spaceship, I’m overwhelmed by the scale of the destruction that I see around me.
The crash was much more severe than I’d originally thought.
There isn’t much left of my once-proud vessel now other than twisted metal and debris scattered across the rocky terrain.
For a few moments I stop and consider just how lucky I am to be alive.
It’s a miracle that any of us survived that disaster.
Shaking my head to clear it of that thought, I force myself to push onward.
There’s no time to waste on worrying about why or how I’m still alive.
I force myself to concentrate on the task at hand.
I have to find some way to survive, and then I can worry about getting home.
Stumbling over a piece of twisted metal, I fall heavily to the ground.
I land hard on my side, letting out a sharp cry of pain as I do.
For a few seconds I lie there, trying to catch my breath and force the pain back down.
This is no time for weakness or self-pity.
I force myself to sit up and take a look around me, trying to decide what to do next.
The remains of the ship stretch out in every direction I look, but I don’t see any signs of life anywhere around me.
There’s no immediate threat that I can see, but who knows how long that will last?
If there was any other intelligent life here, they must have seen the crash and be headed this way.
If they haven’t already arrived, it’s only a matter of time before they do.
One way or another, I have to find some way out of this mess before it’s too late.
Getting unsteadily to my feet, I press one hand against the sharp pain in my side.
The pain is still there, but it seems less severe than before for some reason.
Maybe I’m just getting used to it.
The heat around me is unbearable, and I find myself starting to sweat almost immediately after standing up.
Raising a hand to shield my eyes from the bright sunlight overhead, I take a look around me and try to decide what to do next.
What should I do?
The only things I really need right now are food, water, shelter, and a way to call for help if there’s anyone left alive who can hear me.
But how am I supposed to find those things in this alien wilderness?
I don’t see any immediate sources of water anywhere nearby, and there don’t appear to be any buildings or other structures in sight either.
Not unless the crash was bad enough that it destroyed everything in its path.
If there was anything at all that could help me survive, it would have been onboard the ship with me.
he sees a large structue in the distance
Sighing heavily to myself, I start walking towards the edge of the crash site, trying to see if there’s anything that I might be able to use nearby.
Maybe I’ll even get lucky and find some parts of the ship that will help me call for help or build a shelter.
After a few minutes walking through the scorching heat of the alien desert, I start to realize how incredibly difficult and dangerous this is going to be.
The landscape is mostly flat, with only a few small hills in sight in any direction around me.
The ground is almost entirely covered in jagged rocks and pebbles.
I can see a few larger rocks a ways off in the distance, but nothing that will provide me with any real shelter from the sun or any other elements.
The sun overhead is beating down on me steadily and mercilessly, almost hot enough to make me wish I was back in my ship again.
Almost, but not quite.
Ignoring the heat as best I can, I press on through the barren landscape, trying to find something – anything – that might help me.
But no matter where I look or how far I go, it seems like there’s nothing here except rocks and more rocks as far as the eye can see.
The small hills off in the distance don’t look like they’re too far away when I first start walking towards them, but after what feels like hours of walking through the unforgiving heat of the alien desert, I can still barely even see them in the distance over the horizon.
My legs are starting to feel sore and weak from all the walking, and my throat is starting to feel dry and scratchy from dehydration and heat exhaustion already too.
I don’t have much time left before I start to get heatstroke or worse.
If I don’t find some water soon, I’m going to be in big trouble.
Looking around me for any sign of water one last time before giving up and heading back to camp instead, something catches my eye.
There isn’t any water anywhere around me that I can see – not even any dried up riverbeds or anything like that – but if I look very closely at the ground around me and squint my eyes almost all the way closed in the bright sunlight overhead, it looks like there may be some signs of vegetation off in the distance past where I was before.
Maybe it’s just a mirage or my brain playing tricks on me after being in the sun for too long already, but it could also be a sign that there’s water in that direction too.
My survival training from back home says that you should always head downhill when you’re looking for water.
The vegetation is probably growing there because it’s close to a source of water.
If there’s any chance that we might be able to find some water nearby, it would probably be in that direction.
I’m definitely going to have to go take a look at it later.
But for now, I decide to head back to camp instead.
I can’t afford to keep walking around out here any longer without any shade or water to cool me down.
I have to conserve my energy as best as I can so that I don’t die of dehydration before anyone finds me.
Sighing heavily to myself again, I start walking back towards the crash site again.
It feels like it takes me forever to get back to where we crashed from how far away it was before, but eventually I make it back there.
After a moment of panic when I realize that everything looks exactly the same as it did before and that I have no idea which way to go next once I get there, I take a sip of water from my canteen to calm myself down.
I don’t have enough water to waste any more of it right now without knowing how long it’s going to take someone to find me or how long we’ll have to stay alive for.
I take another sip of water and let it sit in my mouth for a moment, trying to make myself feel better.
It’s not as good as actually drinking it, but it helps to keep my mouth and throat from feeling so dry and scratchy for now.
Holding the canteen to my head for a moment afterwards to cool down, I start to feel a little bit better too.
When the moment has passed and my panic attack is over, I put the canteen away and start exploring the area around me instead.
Maybe I’ll be able to find some kind of shelter or something else useful nearby now that I’m looking at it again.
But even after another hour or two of searching through the wreckage of the ship and walking around the desert nearby, there’s still nothing here except for more rocks and pebbles as far as the eye can see.
It won’t be long before the sun starts to go down, and it’s going to be really cold out here after dark without any shelter or anything to keep me warm at all.
Remembering my training from back home, I decide that I’m probably going to have to build a fire pretty soon if I don’t want to freeze to death out here tonight.
It’ll also help to signal for help if there are any other survivors nearby or if any passing ships come by this way too.
Looking around the crash site one last time before giving up on finding anything useful nearby, I realize that most of the wood in the crash site is too wet or too damaged to use for building a fire.
The sun has already dried up most of the water in the area, but there are still a few pieces of dry wood lying around that we could use.
I gather up as much of the dry wood as I can find together in one place and pile it up into a stack.
Then I get a few more pieces of wood together to use with my lighter as kindling and start stacking them up together too.
I have enough food and water left that I should be able to wait another day or two before starting this fire, but the sun is already starting to go down now and it’s getting really cold out here already too.
I might be able to make it through one more night without freezing to death, but it’s going to be pretty close either way and I can hear my teeth starting to chatter already.
I need that fire now, both for the warmth and also in case there’s anyone else out there who might be able to see the smoke and come looking for me too.
Grabbing my lighter and the pile of wood that I just put together, I start looking around for something else that we could use as fuel for the fire too.
I don’t have anything else with me that’s really flammable at all except for the clothes on my back, but I do still have this mirror that we were using when the ship crashed too and maybe that will help us get someone’s attention too.
I’m not sure if anyone will be able to see the fire or the smoke from very far away in the dark like this, but maybe they’ll be able to see the light from the mirror instead.
Holding the mirror in one hand and the lighter in the other, I try moving them around a little bit while looking towards the sky and watching the smoke start to rise up into the air.
Even though it’s only been a couple of hours since we crashed here, it feels like it’s already been days and there’s still no sign that anyone has seen us or that anyone is coming to help either.
But even so, I know that we can’t give up yet and that we’re still doing everything that we can right now too.
I stand here holding the mirror towards the sky and reflecting the light off into the distance until it’s completely dark outside and there are no more stars left in the sky either.
Then I leave it on the ground next to me while I start building the fire instead.
Even though it’s only been a few hours since we crashed here and there’s no way anyone would be able to find us in all this darkness anyway, something inside me just won’t let me stop trying.
Even though it’s been getting colder and colder outside and my fingers are starting to go numb from the cold now too, I stay up all night long signaling for help every hour on the hour until it starts getting light outside.
The aliens might not have ever seen a signal from an emergency beacon before or they might not be looking in this direction either, but maybe someone else will see us if there are other ships out there who are looking for survivors too.
Even though our world is so far away and there are so many other planets out here in space too, there must be someone else out there who can see us and who will come looking for us now.
While I was signaling for help all night long and holding my fingers in front of my face in an attempt to keep them warm, I realized that it was already starting to get light outside again and that it was almost dawn too.
