I screamed loudly enough to curdle milk. The thing was sprinting for me faster than any animal I'd ever seen. It's stick legs were bending grotesquely and it's mouth was open wide enough to swallow my entire head in one bite. I thought over all the training I'd received in my life, and couldn't recall anything about giant monsters trying to eat me. 

I turned quickly and slammed the emergency door shut just before it reached me. I knew it was a bad idea to leave the ship, I knew it! I listened to my breath, heaving like an old engine. I'd run marathons in my life, and even then I hadn't sounded this asthmatic. If I listened even more closely I could hear the monster scraping it's scraggly arms against the door like a tree branch in the wind. 

I locked the door and listened to the monster bang against it for a few minutes. It had eaten Alexander. Eaten him. I'd never really liked him, but never had I wished him dead. All the girls back at the training centre that had been in love with him would be very angry about this. I was too shocked at what I'd just seen to register anything but my need to survive.

Planet Exion, the planet of death. I'd never really heard too much about the pink planet, old legends and things like that usually flew right by my head. I hadn't seen the point of stupid stories of aliens, but now I was seeing how listening could have been useful. I'd never even visited another planet other than Earth and Magmus. Magmus was small and freezing, despite its name. It was also where a major flight training centre was located. I was starting to realize that the one thing my education lacked was experience; the only language I could speak was English, and with all my studying of flight manuals I'd never really learned about species on other planets.     

I slowly crawled to the front of our ship. My ship now. The metal was crushed like a tin can, the controls all extremely damaged. Typical, I'd demolished the first ship I'd been allowed to fly. I'd begged them to give me a ship to myself, just for the day. They'd make me go through years of training before I'd ever fly again. Even if it wasn't my fault.

The window was so smashed that the monster could easily climb in if he wished. I tried to breathe in and out, like I'd been taught in training. I tried not to think about how there was no way I'd ever survive the night. If the monster was stupid, I might just have a chance. It hadn't yet discovered the window.

All I had was a knife, a knife. I was just learning simple driving techniques, we weren't supposed to land. I held the knife in front of me and tried feebly not to cry. I would have to survive, already I'd been smarter than Alexander. Which, truthfully, wasn't a great accomplishment. 

I was going to die. 

I jumped to my feet when I heard the tapping on the door. I forced my legs to move across the floor and leaned in to listen. I could hear deep breathing, it sounded human enough to me. 

"Hello?" someone's voice whispered. It was low, probably a man. Raspy as anything I'd ever heard, like an animal had learned English. Was that possible? 

"What do you want?" It came out more confidently than I'd hoped, almost as if I wasn't scared out of my mind. I willed myself to stand up straighter and act like Alexander always had. If I acted like I knew what the hell I was doing, maybe eventually I would. 

The person only responded with more knocking, so with the knife in front of my face, I slowly opened the door. The hinges creaked and screamed over the sudden usage. I guessed that my slamming the door closed hadn't been too good for the disintegrating ship.

It was a human boy. He might have been a little younger than Alexander, older than me. His frizzy black hair fell to his shoulders, his skin was clean shaven. He was wearing fur clothing, made from some kind of animal. He had a certain shy confidence about him, as if he knew exactly what he was doing but was afraid to make a mistake anyway. It was understandable, obviously mistakes on this planet lead to death. 

Suddenly he grabbed me, pulling me completely from my shuttle and onto the pink sand. We both fell, and he was hovering above me, examining my face like he couldn't believe I was real. His look of amazement turned to a frown as he slowly touched the blood coming from my head. His awe diminished and he sat up, leaning away from me and regaining his confident stance. It was so strange, but what was stranger was the fact the he was on planet Exion. Alone?

"Come with me," he said. His voice was thick like gravel and I couldn't really tell what emotion was hiding behind it. He masked his feelings well, that was for sure. His eyes were dark, but a flicker of light threatened to make its way through and throw his secrecy away. 

My head was pounding from the crash, suddenly I couldn't keep my eyes open. My body relaxed and suddenly I was in his arms, being lazily carried somewhere by a boy I didn't know. If he was a boy at all. Maybe this was death, maybe I'd imagined up a beautiful boy to come and take me to heaven or wherever people went when they died. Maybe he wasn't even real at all and the blood loss was getting to me.

If he was real for all I knew he'd sell me for food. It seemed like that kind of planet. My eyes rolled around inside of my head, reminding me of the last time I'd had a concussion. I'd hit my head on a table end. Again, typical.

I moved my neck slightly to look at the boy again, and that was enough to knock me out.