I open my eyes to find out I’m still alive.

The cocktail of chemicals my suit has already injected into my bloodstream takes away any pain I should experience, but it is the dull lack of overall feeling around my body that pushes me to stand up.

My legs tumble, trying to support a weight they are not accustomed to, but I manage to lean onto one of the large metal pieces that has rooted itself deep into the ground, never to be removed again.

My ears ring, but I already know there is nothing for me to hear here.

I trace the surface of the metal with my gloved hand, ridges and edges in shapes and forms of a language I will never learn.

A memory seeps into my mind, and I am sitting in my cabin back on the ship, the planet I am now standing on looming in, blinding lights flashing in tones I don’t recognize, while pieces of the ship are thrown around, floating and spinning around us in a danse macabre before gravity does its part and we fall.

I open my eyes, reality forming once again around me.

I fumble with a small dial with my free hand until I raise the shield that occluded my view, and unknown shining stars reveal themselves up above, filling the sky in tones of red and purple that blend and caress each other.

The wind picks up behind me, dragging the pieces of debris around the ground, tracing grooves and circles around.

As I turn, I notice I am near the crater’s rim.

And no more survivors.

A shower of metal and plastic rains down. Above the atmosphere, a radiant flare twirls and twists, smoke and fire meeting oxygen and whichever other gasses the men in the preparation center had briefed us about.

I hadn’t expected to survive this journey, nor did I hope to be the only one left standing.

My body feels fine. Or at least not broken. I turn my hand and move my fingers, stretching the fabric of the padded glove. The suit had done its job as they had expected it to do. Was it genetic tampering? Tissue reconstruction? Months of training seem to have evaporated from my memory, but perhaps because of the same motive, I don’t really care at the moment.

I could just sit and die.

It is so easy to let go. The suit would do its best to sustain me for a while, but I could simply disconnect it. That much I remember. And up the morphine—no sense in making it a painful goodbye.

Nobody would know, and nobody would have an idea. Another body among the others that lie around me or somewhere above. They would not mind us not returning when they had access to more of the ship’s technology back on Earth and were more than capable by then of launching their own vessels.

Better ones attuned to our bodies. Or at least easier to handle.

Her voice, woken up from stirring dormant somewhere in my memory, forces me to go on. And not for the first time.

I feel a liquid tracing its way through my face, and I fear one of the many cylinders has sprouted a leak before realizing it is me.

They are tears, letting me know I am still here. And she may be here too.

I push myself against the metal plaque, giving my legs a second chance to support me, but they are better prepared now. The chemicals must be wearing off, for the passage of time feels more present. I feel more present.

Above me, I see the path I need to take, and my lungs yell already for what I’m about to make them do.

I take a step forward, a cloud of dust rising into the air, circling around me before fading away into whatever ether surrounds the atmosphere.

A bright light shines inside the visor, blinding me and making me lose track of where I am about to land my second step.

I breathe in and out and open my eyes to count the flashes.

One. Two. Off. One. Two. Off. One. Two. Off.

I rack my brain, my memory shifting from chart to chart, trying to remember what it means until I eventually decide it must be an oxygen leak, for it is the only thing that really would matter right now, and even then, perhaps I don’t really care as much.

But it also means my time is running out, and whatever may happen after the clock or timer or whatever it is those things used to track the passage of time is going to happen soon.

I need to reach her. Answers may be there, and help may be there. But, most importantly, she may be there.

I fumble with the slabs in my wrist, flicking them up and down until the flashes are gone, replaced by an amber glow which, if anything, at least makes the view more enjoyable.

The walk until the nearest ledge is hard, and I do not know now how I’ll push myself outside of the crater.

There were supposed to be hooks and tools for this, but nobody thought of distributing them before the landing, at least not to the parents. Military always comes first.

I try to test it for resistance, so I extend my hand as far as possible and grab the metal edge—one passenger seat, I think. It holds.

As I push myself to it, I realize the error in my plan. Gravity is not only heavier here but makes my bones denser and heavier. Brittle to someone unused to the proper maneuvers.

My wrist breaks, and I yell, but my ears are connected to the sound system that transfers signals across the suits. There’s only pressure and silence to accompany my pain.

I want to let go.

I wait for the suit to do its job, wait for the drugs to nest again in my brain and fill every nook and cranny.

But nothing happens. I must have turned off the system while attempting to shut off the lights.

My body can produce chemicals on its own, of course, and it does so as everything spins around me, pain creeping into every crease of my nervous system.

The first endorphin shot comes in, and I remember the cotton candy she used to share with me after the town fair opened up every fall.

Sweet and tangy. Artificial, perhaps. But she loved it, which made it the best flavor in the world.

And the bitterest, once she was gone. I wouldn’t push myself to try it again. It wouldn’t be fair. Nothing was fair.

But she was my chance.

She deserved me trying.

I push the pain back and use my legs to plant myself in the crater’s wall, and then I lunge upwards, my left arm lashing out to hug the protruding metal surface, doing a better job of distributing my weight.

Above me, a ray of light reflects on something and hits my visor. One tarp that once before guided the ship. They may still house the sails that launched our vessel across the universe if I am lucky.

I am lucky.

The fabric-like metal feels sturdy at the touch and ends just over the crater’s edge. I do not know if there’s something over there left to counterbalance my weight on the other side, but I take my chances.

I open the slit that holds it and pull as much as possible without disturbing the structure, surrounding my suit with it in an improvised knot.

And I let go.

I drag the fabric down, but it eventually stops, supporting me.

The amber light has lost its brilliance, and I must assume it means something bad. It’s better than hoping for it to be okay and finding the disillusion.

With my good hand keeping the sail aligned, I extend my right one and withheld my breath. I move the arm around the fabric to secure it there, and the pain reignites.

I feel my tendons trying to keep everything together, slowly breaking and loosening.

But I push myself up.

Tingles and sparks run over my back, chest, and face, and I feel wetness spreading out. I wish for sweat instead of blood. Or even tears.

But I push myself up again.

I hear her voice, just as we did months before when the beings first appeared in the sky, and no eye was left undisturbed. When they filled our radios and channels with the whispers of the gone children.

And the promise of getting them back if we were to follow.

So I push myself up.

And up.

Until the pain no longer registers in my mind, and I do not know whether the suit is again flooding my system with analgesics and other drugs, or perhaps my wrist is too long gone now to be of importance to my broken mind.

But it matters not to me when my feet cannot sense more of the wall, and I open my eyes again, and I see the crater below me and the land continuing forward.

I let go of the fabric, and my feet raise yet another cloud of dust, which hovers in the air.

And I walk forward.

There’s no comfort in being alive when you are the only one, but I know this must mean something. They must have played their laughs and giggles and questions and cries for a reason, and even if I’m the only parent remaining, even if I’m the only one discovering the truth and the only one about to hug their missing children, I will go on.

Because even when it is wild and crazy, and I’m putting my daughter’s faith in the hands of the unknown, stuck on a planet which is not my one, and even when it may end me, it still beats the alternative.