4. Surviving the Day (Patreon)

I hit the river with a crash, opening my eyes underwater to find myself face-to-face with a lamprey-like maw of teeth. The creature's mouth is wide open, two long, thin tongues protruding from its gullet and strangling me. I manage to catch panicked glimpses of whatever has me dead to rights. It’s probably much too small to swallow a Mooshian.

...But it can certainly manage me. My split second of calm analysis vanishes instantly, replaced entirely by raw, primal panic.

Holy shit, I'm being eaten by a space monster.

I still have the sharp rock I picked up in my cave, and the thing around my neck is squishy and thin. Brandishing my cavewoman weapon, I bring the pointy end down on the tongue as I try to kick to the surface. I chop and hack and stab but the water slows my already weak arms. Cut, damn you, cut! Cut!

I finally stab it hard enough to draw blood, and the grip loosens. I untangle myself as quickly as I can and kick towards the surface, taking a huge gasp of air, but the second tongue is already reaching towards my ankle. I'm not strong enough for this! I don't know how to fight, I barely know how to swim, and I am, without a doubt, going to be overpowered and eaten.  I only have one option, and I know it.

"Mr. Mooshi!" I scream. "Help!"

Hearing, or perhaps more likely smelling the panic in my voice, he begins to plod over. …Slowly. Horribly, terrifyingly slowly. The monster's other tongue hooks my ankle, squeezing tight, and I'm reeled under the water once more. Jaws snap down on my leg, teeth puncturing my exoskeleton, and I waste precious air to the river as a scream escapes me. I jab my rock at it, over and over and over again, trying to find some weak spot that will make it let go. My only reward is the first tongue zipping out to grab my arm and hold me down. My flailing becomes more and more impotent, blood mixing with the water surrounding me. This is it, huh? One little slip-up, and it's over? What is this bullshit? I never asked for this, never wanted this. I don't know where I am, or what's going on, and now I'm just going to die in the mouth of some space alligator!

Dark spots fill my vision as something wraps around my other arm as well. Yet as I flail and curse my fate, this new lifeline pulls up.

It feels like I'm being torn apart. The whip-eel thing is biting down on my thigh, yanking and pulling as it tries to saw all the way through my leg. But despite its thrashing, I begin to rise. Chitin cracks and my shoulder dislocates, but my head breaks the water's surface.  I gasp for breath, biting down the urge to immediately release the air in another scream. Hope fills me as I see Mr. Mooshi holding my wrist with both of his feeding tentacles, and he has simply too much Moosh for this eel to stop. He begins dragging the both of us out of the water, and seeing this the other Mooshians start wandering over to try and figure out what all the commotion is about. While the eel is substantially less mobile on land, it does seem to have amphibious flippers and it doesn't at all seem inclined to let go of my leg.

I inhale. I think about only fear, how terrified I am of death. I think about all my rage, and how utterly unfair my life has become out of nowhere, for no reason. I think about how much this goddamn eel needs to let go of my leg, roll over, and die, right now.

I exhale. The Mooshians sniff the air. They pick up the pace. And they charge.

Mooshians, I have learned, are not very fast. Until now I have never seen them move at speeds beyond a meandering toddle. Even now, they don't reach beyond the speed of a brisk walk. But Mooshians, as I have also learned, are heavy.  Sir Isaac Newton, meet alien jerk.  Alien jerk, Sir Isaac Newton.

Force equals mass times acceleration, bitch.

Unwilling to give up on my delicious leg, the eel is smashed on both sides by furious Mooshians rushing full tilt. Their massive shells absolutely clobber the hungry animal, and with a wet horking noise the monster's jaw is forced open by the impacts. As I scramble to safety, blackish blood oozing down my thigh, one of the Mooshians manages to get on top of the eel and from that moment on it's already over. Unable to dislodge the indomitable mass of Mooshis, the eel flails uselessly as it is slowly but surely bludgeoned into submission. Eventually, the horrifying creature stops moving. My adorable army of Mooshians let out little huffs of triumph, and return to drinking or grazing. Slowly, of course. Very, very slowly.

I'm in pain. I'm bleeding. I'm terrified. I'm full of adrenaline. Yet for some reason, staring at the corpse of hideous, horrifying monster that nearly killed me also makes me very, very hungry.

Not even totally sure why, I creep up to the body of the eel. I suck up some saliva that had been dripping unbidden from the side of my mouth. I'm hungry, I'm so hungry. Shouldn’t this be disgusting?  It’s a broken alien corpse, why do I want to… agh.  It just... it looks…

Incredible.

I barely have the mental wherewithal to grab and pull the corpse away from the river, just in case another one of these creatures is nearby. Then I briefly wonder if I should attempt to cook it before I realize I've already put it in my mouth.

It is delicious.

No, this is far beyond flavor. It's the single most incredible experience I've ever had in my life. I can't stop. I begin by biting off the tongues for some karmic justice before just tearing into it. The meat is delectable, savory, an explosion of complex experiences the likes of which I have never even dreamed of. I roll the muscles around my tongue, feeling the delicate textures, the way the fibers are aligned, how they must tense and loosen and how much force they get from each expenditure of chemical energy. I pull out the teeth and chew them to powder, feeling the balance of calcium and phosphorus and all the other minerals I can only guess at which make themselves known in my mind as I swallow, analyzing where the composition is strong and where it is weak. I devour the organs, feeling the cells break down in my stomach, protein by protein, in a beautiful cataclysm of impossibly complicated patterns, most of which are exciting and new, yet others familiar and dear. I don't know how long I do this. Hours, perhaps. At some point I vaguely remember some kind of… scavenging creature coming by, but I barely paid it any mind, simply calling the Mooshians over to halt its advance. As an afterthought. Because what is important now, is that I finally have something to eat. I've named it the whip eel.

And I now know everything there is to know about whip eel biology.

I only come down from my insane high as I realize I am meticulously licking the last remnants of blood off my hands and forearms, obsessed with not leaving behind a single drop. The more lucid I become, the more my thoughts start to rush, headache throbbing forward as I start to realize the full scope of what I've just learned. Maybe, just maybe 'everything there is to know' is a slight exaggeration, but as my mind races a mile a minute I find myself unable to comprehend any question about the creature that I don't have a now-instinctive answer to. I see how it works. See how it all works, like god's blueprints laid out before me in such excruciating detail that it's painful to try to focus on too minute an aspect of the infinity now shoved within my head.

Yet while this leaves the rational part of my mind screaming questions like 'how the fucking shit—,' I just don't feel like stressing out about it right now. As confusing and worrying as this all is, it has also given me a massive food baby and a blissful high from experiencing the single greatest meal of my life. Not to mention my super awesome adorable pillbug friends that I can rely on in case anything happens. I lean back against Mr. Mooshi (the first, the greatest, the one and only), and bask in the aftertaste of my triumph.

Eventually, Mr. Mooshi nudges me, apparently interested in leaving. I had almost fallen asleep, but looking up at the sky now, it seems as though night will likely descend within a few hours and it would probably be best to return to my cave before then. As amazing as that experience was, I did almost die back there. Focus. I have to stay focused.

My leg isn't bleeding anymore, but I sure as hell don't want to walk on it. Mounting my Mooshi, I glance around for something I could maybe use as a bowl or bottle to take water back to my cave. I direct him along the shoreline, still feeling wisps of that blissful contentment. Eventually, I see what looks like a large shell. I wonder if maybe it came from a Mooshian.  Poor baby. Well, as macabre as it is, it does look like it will make for a very good bowl. I gather up some water, being extremely careful to look out for anything lurking underneath it, before directing my best friend and savior back towards the cave.

…I realize I have known Mr. Mooshi for probably like four hours, but none of my other friends count when I'm on an alien planet so Mr. Mooshi is my best friend by default. I didn't really have any good friends at home anyway, at least not that I remember. I talk to people online but usually have to hide the fact that I'm a girl, and there’s this really nice person who is in a lot of my classes, that's about it, I think.

…Right? I’m pretty sure that's right. Am I forgetting someone?

Well, regardless, it doesn't take much encouragement to get Mr. Mooshi to head back to my hill. I suspect he really liked that grass. The return trip is about as long and uneventful as the way over. It would probably take me under an hour to get to the river alone, but at Mr. Mooshi's pace it feels like at least two hours until I see my cave again. In fact, the sun is just starting to set when we return, bathing the sky in a red much like that of the local flora. My neck is tender, my leg is sore, but my mind is alight with questions and possibilities. What am I? How did I learn so much, and why? It's beyond cool, I've always wanted to be a biologist and this is absolutely incredible, but… I just don't know what to do with it.

Also, I just ate an entire space alligator and I’m kinda low-key freaking the fuck out.

I dismount my bestest Moosh and haul my way up to the cave, putting as little weight on my bad leg as I'm able. Sitting down at the mouth of this huge hole in the ground, I lean back and look up to confirm once and for all what I've suspected from the start. I was already pretty darn sure I'm on another planet, of course, but one last thing helps me settle it once and for all.

The stars.

The sun dips down over the horizon with a brilliant display, purples and oranges staining the brilliant red. It's a stunning end to an almost literally unbelievable day. My thoughts drift back towards the dream that started it, and the final words left lingering in my thoughts. "See you in a year." Geez. One day in, and I've almost died twice. How am I going to survive a year?

Perhaps sensing my distress, or maybe just because he's had an equally long and exciting day, Mr. Mooshi trundles up next to me and plops down for the night. I give him a friendly pat. He put up with a hell of a lot just because I smell nice, so I vow to make it up to him as best I can.

"Good night, Mr. Mooshi," I say.

"Good night, Evelyn. Don't fall into a river while I'm asleep, you dummy," he responds.

I respond.

…It's lonely out here. As the last of the sunset fades away, the stars come out, and I am dwarfed to nonexistence. They’re brilliant, utterly commanding the sky. Somehow, I forgot about light pollution. This… it's beyond anything I've ever seen before. A masterful tapestry of the universe. I spend quite some time trying to find familiar constellations, but I can't. Maybe they're just lost in the massive spread of stars. It's truly indescribable.

The moon, though… the moon is definitely different. It's not even the right color, let alone the friendly pattern I stared at every night of my life. And it's so big! I wonder how often I’ll get to see it during the day.

One last thing catches my eye as I turn in for the night. It's not as beautiful as the stars or as striking as the moon, but it's something I can't get out of my mind. To the east, far to the east, I see a glow. A vast, wide glow that lights up a whole quadrant of the horizon. I don't know what it is, but it flickers like fire.

That sounds like a question for another day, though. I lie against my friend, and soon I fall asleep.