Prologue;

The grey space was all she had.

She couldn’t remember much after she woke up; just that something didn’t feel right.

She stretched; there was a feeling in her body that didn’t make sense, and she realized that not even her own mind made any sense at that time.

She licked her lips and looked around. She was surrounded by a lot of grey and flickering lights. She stood silent for a moment, as if she was paralyzed and the only thing moving was her eyes.

That’s when she noticed something. A transparent window above her, or at least she thought it was a window. As far as she knew, it was open because she could feel a breeze on her face.

She squinted her dark eyes and saw the bright sky, and even that didn’t seem normal. She skittered away from the open gap above her; once again it didn’t feel like things were right.

“Okay. You are dreaming. That’s it.”

A minute went by.

Then another.

An hour went by.

Then another.

She slumped down on a chair when she realized that it wasn’t a dream. At least not one she could wake up from anyway. The wall behind her was cold against her back, but nothing compared to the ice she felt in her stomach. Maybe if she just counted slowly to one hundred, she could open her eyes, and everything would finally feel right again.

But it didn’t happen.

She must have dozed off, she realized after she woke up. The electronic bracelet around her wrist had stopped, so she wasn’t sure what time it was. Looking towards the open gap again, she got up to take another look. The position of the suns or moons should tell her what time it was.

Instead, her jaw dropped.

For a moment, she thought her heart was going to burst right out of her chest.

She was dancing on a fine line between what her eyes saw and what her brain could comprehend; not realizing that she had stopped breathing until a wave of dizziness hit her. Forcing herself to take slow breaths to keep from blacking out, she stared wide-eyed at the scene before her.

Green and monotone trees towered above her, bleak water in the distance and there was only one sun as far as she could tell.

But the most shocking of all, was what she was now staring at.

They looked like something straight out of the story books – humanoid with two arms, two legs, colorful hair, too much clothing on… and odd peach skin. At least the ones she could see.

Aliens.

She was on the planet of the aliens.

For a moment she stood there frozen, like a deer in the moonlight; mesmerized by what she saw. They were real, she had always thought they were just tales. Then one of them glanced in her direction, and she ducked before it could see her. She tripped over her own feet and bumped her head in the process.

She sat between the rocks until her head stopped swimming. Then she climbed down to the overwhelming grey solitude, and eventually she fell asleep.

When she woke up again, her brain felt like it was splitting apart, and at first she couldn’t figure out why.

She groaned and opened her eyes, but immediately shut them as a searing pain shot through her head. The light above her was bright and she had to roll over on her side to slowly get used to the lightning.

Maybe she was dead?

Once more she looked at the walls, the floor. They were familiar, but her mind was not. She didn’t feel dead, not that she knew what being dead felt like. Still, overwhelming panic set in as her death theory seemed more and more plausible.

She laid still, trying to figure out what it felt like for someone who was dead. She rolled over again, feeling restless and suddenly sitting up. And that’s when it all came rushing back; the fall, hitting her head… and she was among them. The aliens.

Bits and pieces of memories of what had happened before then flickered through her head. The room started to spiral around her, and she almost threw up. Somehow, she managed to hold it down as she fought the hysteria building within her.

Her mind raced despite her efforts; Her parents putting her into the capsule. The smell of something – or perhaps someone – burning, the sound of screaming. The sadness in her parents’ eyes.

Next came memories of the capsule –  and of others.

Instantly she stood up; there had been others in here. Where were they now?

They had all been in the same traveling unit, and had she not seen their hyperbaric chambers? She moved to the sleeping chambers and stared at the stasis pods. She decided not to panic, instead she closed her eyes while breathing in slowly.

Once it got dark she would go look for them.