[Sabre's POV]

......

... Oh, hey... I'm still alive. Ow.

I slowly open my eyes, once again making an attempt at looking at my surroundings. All of a sudden, I feel something poke me. I carefully look up, still kind of out of it.

I'm immediately snapped back to reality once I see the orange creature in front of me, holding a stick. I scream, quickly getting up and backing into the wall, despite my sore body. The creature also jumps back, and then the red one appears.

They both stay there, completely still, looking at me. I'm staying where I am, painfully squishing myself into the corner of... wherever this is. The orange creature notices the red one, and backs up a little bit. The red one then starts moving closer to me, lowering itself to my level. It's about three feet away from me when it talks again.

"Hey there-" The red creature starts, but I freak out and grab my survival knife from my belt using my left hand.

When I point my knife at the creature, it backs up, seemingly surprised. The orange one flinches and reaches towards the red one, but the red one puts its hand up, looking at the orange creature. The red creature then turns its attention back to me.

"It's alright, no need to use... that." The red creature says. I'm still not used to the fact these guys can talk...

The red creature once again steps a little closer, despite my knife being pointed at it.

"You're alright, we're not here to hurt you." The red creature talks again, speaking softly. "Sorry about all this, we didn't mean to scare you that badly. We were just wondering what the heck you were, and wanted to say hello."

It... doesn't seem threatening. It- It might be a trick, though. However, my arm is shaking badly. I remember that that's the arm that got hit by something before I passed out... What hit me?

"Yeah, you probably don't want to be using that arm..." The red creature continues, noticing my pain. It comes a little closer. "So how about you just... put that down..."

The creature is close, almost sitting right next to me. It slowly reaches its hands out, gently clasping its webbed fingers over my hand that's hanging onto the knife. It carefully moves my arm down near my side, and... it actually does hurt a lot less. When my hand touches the cold metal ground, I let go of the knife and it clatters to the floor slightly. The red creature smiles, and the orange one a little ways behind it looks less tense.

"There you go. Isn't that better?" The red creature says. "Heh, you're lucky we knew the way in here, otherwise your injuries would've been untreated. It might not be much, but it's as much as we know how to do."

I remember that I was bleeding before, and use my right hand to reach up to the spot I remember was bleeding. I'm surprised to feel something... soft? I realize that it's some kind of kelp wrapped around my head like a bandage. What in the... Did... Did these things help me? Why?

"I believe some proper introductions are in order." The red creature chuckles. "My name is Red Steve, and my friend back there is Orange Steve. You can call us by our colors for short. There's no need to worry, he's just being a little cautious, and neither of us mean any harm to you. What's your name?"

I look at... Red Steve and Orange Steve a little reluctantly. But... they helped me, so... I guess it's okay.

"I-I'm Sabre." I answer after a few seconds, and the two creatures in front of me smile.

"It's very nice to meet you, Sabre." Red smiles.

Red then motions to Orange, and Orange smiles excitedly and comes over. He seems more... energetic than Red.

"Hiya!" Orange smiles, and I slightly smile back.

Red then turns back to me.

"So, how are you feeling, Sabre? Think anything's broken, or...?" Red asks.

I move around a little bit, making sure I still have feeling in my limbs. I then remember how many times I hit my sides on the way down, and how hard I hit the ground while landing on my chest, and use my right hand to feel both sides of my rib cage to make sure nothing broke. Thankfully, nothing seems out of place.

"I-I think I'm alright, j-just... bruised." I say, looking back up at the two creatures.

"Can you stand?" Orange asks.

"I-I dunno..." I say, trying to get up.

Red and Orange both hold out their hands, and I grab on. They hoist me to my feet, and I'm able to stand up on my own, albeit shakily.

"Maybe it's not a good idea for you to swim home by yourself..." Red says, noticing how unsteady I am.

"Yeah, I-I guessed so..." I say. I then notice my diving mask on the floor, and go to pick it up, but a wave of pain shoots down my spine. "Augh-! FFFFffffffrick."

"You good?" Orange asks, picking up my mask for me.

"That- That hurt." I say, taking my mask back as Orange hands it to me.

I then carefully pull my wetsuit's hood back over my head, and attach my diving mask to it again. While connecting the oxygen tank's tube to the mask, I check for damage. Thankfully, the fall didn't crack the mask, and my wetsuit and other components still seems to be intact.

"Yeah, you're not swimming back by yourself, buddy." Red says. "Do you want us to help you get back to your... pod?"

"Y-You'd do that?" I ask, and both Orange and Red smile and nod. I smile back. "Thank you."

Orange and Red walk over to me and each grab onto one of my arms, helping me stand up straight. We then start walking out of the cave and towards the water.

When we reach the shore, Orange and Red slowly help me into the water. The cold actually feels nice on my aching body. Once we're all submerged, we start swimming towards the direction we all came from. Along the way back to my lifepod, they talk to me. Asking about how I got here, how long I've been here, what happened, and other things related to how I've become stuck in this planet.

"So, something hit your crew's ship, and suddenly everything failed and it went down?" Orange asks.

"Y-Yeah, there was no time t-to figure out what happened before the ship's systems started f-failing." I say. "I was o-one of the last ones to get in a lifepod, I-I'm lucky that I got out before the sh-ship exploded."

"That's terrible..." Red says. "Do you know if anyone else survived?"

"N-No, so far I haven't heard f-from anyone that was on the Aurora too." I answer. "I-I just hope my friends a-are okay..."

I notice that Orange and Red glance at each other, but they don't say anything. Weird.

We soon recognize my lifepod, still floating on the ocean's surface. They bring me up to it and help me climb through the lower hatch once I open it. Once I'm inside, I carefully take off the wetsuit and other gear so I can move around more comfortably. I go to help Red and Orange through the hatch, but when I turn around Red is already poking his head through.

"It's alright, we can climb in by ourselves." Red says, hoisting himself into the lifepod. "You can go ahead and sit down, you need to take it easy."

Orange climbs in right after Red, and they both sit on the floor of the lifepod. Their long fish's tails curl with the shape of the lifepod on opposite sides.

"S-Sorry it's so cramped in h-here." I say, noticing they keep shifting around. "It's not r-really built for three people, a-and I've been bringing stuff in t-to use to survive."

"It's fine, we've been in worse places." Orange says. "Heh, one time we got stuck in a tiny cave for a while because a Crashfish blew up the exit."

"What's a Crashfish?" I ask. It must be some type of creature here, right?

"You don't know what a-" Orange starts, but Red interrupts him with a whisper.

"He's only been here for a day, remember?" Red says quietly. I don't think he realizes I can hear him.

"But the ship crashed a week ago." Orange whispers back.

Wait-

"The ship crashed a week ago?!" I exclaim, and both sea creatures look at me with surprise.

"Please don't freak out..." Red says.

"No no, i-it's fine. I'm just confused t-to how I'm even alive." I say.

Now Red and Orange look confused.

"While my lifepod was e-entering this planet, I was knocked unconscious just as i-it entered the planet's gravity field." I explain. "I only w-woke up yesterday. Us humans can't survive without drinking water f-for more than three days, so..."

"Oh dang." Orange says, realizing.

"Yeah, I have n-no clue how I survived." I say.

"Maybe you shouldn't focus too much on that for now..." Red says. "You shouldn't make yourself panic again or something."

I sigh and try to find something to change the subject.

"Yeah, y-you're right..." I say. "Hey can you tell me a little m-more about what a 'Crashfish' is? They sound like s-something I should watch out for."

Red and Orange spend a lot of time explaining a bunch of the different kinds of fish that live around here. They all sound so interesting... maybe once I'm better I can go out and scan a few of them. Eventually, the sun starts to set, and Red and Orange have to go.

"T-Thanks for helping me." I say as they're about to hop through the lower hatch. "And s-sorry for freaking out at y-you earlier."

"Like I've said, it's perfectly alright." Red smiles. "You had plenty of things to be scared of, it makes sense you'd be a little jumpy."

"We'll see you later! Bye little buddy!" Orange smiles as well.

The two sea creatures then drop through the hatch, one after the other. I wave at them as they leave, closing the lower hatch. They're so nice... maybe this won't be so bad after all.

Hang on- Did Orange call me 'little buddy'? Are- Are we friends? I guess we are, since we were hanging out for a while... Heh, new friends on an alien planet. This is like the plot of some kids' show or something.

I take a while making things from the materials I gathered earlier. Things like batteries, copper wire, just components I need to make other things. I want to make the habitat builder tool as soon as I can so I don't have to sleep on the floor...

Speaking of which, I'm gonna have to for another night. I'm already feeling tired, probably because of all the swimming and running around I did today. That, and I need to rest so I won't feel so sore anymore. While it's a wonder I didn't break anything when I fell, it still hurts like heck.

I carefully lie on the floor again, trying my best to get as comfortable as I can... which still isn't much, as it's a metal floor.

It takes a while to fall asleep, but eventually I once again slip into the unconscious and finally get some rest.

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[Red Steve's POV]

Well, that turned out better than I thought it would.

The little alien, which I now know is Sabre, isn't scared of us anymore. In fact, I think he trusts us a bit. Maybe from us helping him?

Orange and I are quickly swimming back to our homes, and I get to where I need to turn.

"See you tomorrow, Orange!" I say, waving to my friend before I go. "Be safe!"

"I will, seeya Red!" Orange smiles at me, then he swims off towards his home.

I swim to the entrance to my little habitat, and open the door. Before I close it though, I think I see something red and grey swim off behind a rock in front of where my home is. I almost go to check it out, but remember that it's getting dark. I don't want to be caught outside again.

Besides, it was probably just some sort of fish. We still haven't seen a lot of species that go out at night yet, or even some colorations of ones we already know, based off the research from back home. I could always look through the archives on my next visit.

I swim into my little bedroom and curl up onto the bed made of sea grass, creepvine, and various other soft plants. The fabric I made to lay over top of it makes it so I don't feel all of the leaves and such as I sleep. I soon fall asleep, excited for what tomorrow brings with our new little alien friend.

...Still, though, I wonder what that thing was outside...