Page 122 of Pets in Space 10

Hazel

Iwoke to a sound I didn’t recognise.

A hum. High-pitched, mechanical, and way too deliberate to be natural.

I froze, pretending I was still asleep. I slowly opened one eye and stared into the fading darkness of my rocky hideout. Pale light filtered through the trees outside – dawn, maybe. The alien sun rising. Warmth slowly returning to my frozen fingers.

The hum grew louder. Closer.

And then I saw it.

A shape drifted past the entrance of my shelter. Small, hovering, barely the size of a football. Smooth and silver, with a ring of lights pulsing around its middle. No wings. No rotors. Just impossible, silent motion.

In the centre of the lights sat an eye. A black iris surrounded by a ring of silver that turned and widened. A camera. That thing was a drone.

My heart stopped. Just for a second. Then it pounded hard enough to shake my ribs.

I was being watched. It had to know I was here. The overhang gave me some shelter, but I was still exposed.

The drone paused – right outside the hollow.

A beam of blue light swept across the cliff face, slow and searching.

Like it was scanning. When the blue light reached me, a shiver crossed over my skin.

I didn’t move, still pretending I was asleep, my eye almost closed behind shaking lashes. I didn’t dare to breathe.

What was it doing?

It hovered for a few seconds longer, then turned and drifted away – upward, towards the cliffs, towards the mountain range I still hadn’t reached.

I stayed frozen until the hum faded into nothing.

Only then did I let myself sit up, shaking.

That hadn’t been human. Not by a long shot.

The tech was too smooth, too quiet. Drones needed rotors or some other way to stay up.

This had been a sphere flying without rotors or wings.

Even Earth’s top-end surveillance crap didn’t move like that.

And there was something about the way it looked – like it had made intelligent decisions based on what it had found during its scan.

“What the hell is this place?” I whispered.

My voice cracked. I hadn’t said much since I’d woken up on the platform yesterday.

I didn’t get an answer. Just the wind through the trees and the distant cry of something I hoped wasn’t hungry.

I crawled out of the hollow and stood, knees stiff, muscles aching. A new day had begun, and I still didn’t have food. Water. Clothing. Answers. But now I had something new to think about.

Who was watching me?

Why?

And what would happen when they stopped watching and decided to intervene?

I should have got up and started the climb back up the slope that I had tumbled down the day before. I should find water and food. I should do something.

But instead, I just sat there, trying to process what had happened. How I’d come to be here.

I hugged my knees to my chest. The air was warming, light spilling over the treetops, but the ache inside me didn’t lift. My throat ached. My thoughts hurt even more as I remembered.

***

The platform had been metal. Cold. Smooth. A perfect circle floating maybe thirty feet above the forest floor. No walls. No railing. No people. Just me – naked, disoriented, dumped like garbage onto a disc in the middle of an alien forest.

I’d woken up to the sound of wind and a booming voice I couldn’t place.

“Paralysis lifted. The Trials have begun!”

That was it.

No context. No face. Just the voice, and the sudden, stomach-lurching drop as the platform began to descend.

No elevator cables. No engines I could see. Just a slow, quiet fall towards a forest painted in fiery reds, oranges, yellows, as if someone had added the wrong filter to an otherwise pretty picture.

I’d screamed. Not because of the descent, but because I’d finally realised what was missing – my hair. My clothes. My memory of how I’d got there.

All gone.

When I hit the ground – gently, somehow – I ran without looking back. There’d been no other option. Just trees in every direction and the gut-deep certainty that something was watching. Hunting. Waiting.

And in the distance, the roar of a predator had told me exactly what kind of world this was. One where I was nothing but prey.

***

A screeching birdcall snapped me back to the present.

I blinked away the memory and stood, stiff and sore. My mouth felt like it had been stuffed with sandpaper. I needed water. And maybe food. If something edible and non-poisonous existed here. From everything I’d learned about this planet, I wouldn’t have been surprised if my food ate me first.

I looked up at the slope and decided I lacked the energy to climb.

I’d look for water in this valley first before attempting to retrace my steps.

The forest floor was soft beneath my feet – layers of needle-like leaves in crimson and gold.

A little too warm, a little too quiet. But something drew me forward.

I was desperate to see traces of civilisation, of people living here, but I didn’t need my archaeology degree to know that I was alone out here. No ruins, no remnants of sentient life, not even something as simple as a stone circle that a more primitive culture would leave behind.

Nothing but nature, beautiful and terrifying.

After maybe twenty minutes of walking along narrow animal trails, I heard it.

Running water.

I broke into a jog, dodging a tree with bark like cracked clay, and skidded to a stop in front of a stream.

It wasn’t wide – barely the length of my arm – but the water was clear and fast, tumbling over dark, glassy stones.

Would this water be safe to drink?

I didn’t have a choice. Without water, I wouldn’t last much longer. And I highly doubted I’d find a stash of bottled water somewhere. No, if I wanted to survive, I had to take the risk.

I dropped to my knees and drank. Cupped my hands, filled them again and again. It was cold. Sharp. Refreshing. Slightly metallic but not foul.

Once my thirst was sated, I splashed some water across my face and arms to wash off the blood and dirt. I looked at my reflection in the ripples, then turned away quickly.

I didn’t recognise the woman staring back.

Nearby, I spotted a cluster of purple-tinged berries growing on a bush with waxy, triangular leaves. I poked one with a stick, waited. No smoke. No sudden explosions. No snakes waiting in the undergrowth.

Eventually, I plucked a berry the size of an apricot and held it to my nose. It smelled sharp and citrusy.

Screw it. Death by poisonous berry was more appealing than death by toothy monster.

I ate one. The flavour of juicy limes and sweetness of mango erupted around my tongue. Delicious. But I forced myself to wait for a few minutes. No nausea. No side effects.

I ate a handful more, then placed as many as I could on a large leaf which I rolled into a satchel. Just in case I didn’t pass a bush like this again.

It wasn’t much. But it was a start.

I should have felt somewhat relieved after this refreshment, but something was off.

The birdsong around me had quietened.

My skin still crawled with unease. My gut whispered that I should not linger. Not here. Not in this place that suddenly felt too exposed.

I pushed forward, following the stream as it wound through the thinning trees. The canopy opened gradually, letting more sunlight flood the valley floor. The brilliant reds and golds of the forest sparkled like flames above me.

A pile of huge dead branches formed a natural archway.

I stepped through it and into a wide clearing.

The trees pulled back entirely, leaving a circular patch of open ground, ringed by tall cliffs on one side and fiery trees everywhere else.

Strange crystals jutted from the rock walls, glittering like jagged diamonds under the pale sun.

For a moment, I just stood there, breathing hard.

I was already thirsty again.

The open sky above felt unnerving after the dense forest. Too wide. Too vulnerable.

I didn’t like it.

And then came the sound from somewhere up above.

A low vibration. Different from the drone. Bigger, louder.

My chest tightened. I scanned the cliffs, eyes darting. My fingers gripped my stick-spear, holding it close like it could somehow protect me. I knew I didn’t stand a chance if this was a flying monster.

The vibration grew. Louder. Heavier.

A shadow slid across the clearing.

I snapped my head up.

Wings.

Huge, jagged wings that blocked out the sun. A monstrous shape descended fast, slicing through the air like a blade. My legs locked in place, too slow to run, too shocked to scream.

Metal gleamed across massive scales. Claws extended, sharp and curved. Its eyes glowed like molten gold, locked directly on me.

No time.

No escape.

The claws closed around my body, careful but unrelenting. My world spun as I was lifted off the ground, the air rushing past my ears in a deafening roar. I kicked, punched, thrashed, but it was useless. The claws were like iron cages.

The creature climbed higher, carrying me towards the cliffs and the jagged heights where the trees could no longer hide me.

I screamed. Pointless.

Above me, the great head turned slightly. The golden eyes narrowed. And for one insane moment, I swore I saw hesitation in them. Like it was not entirely sure what it was doing.

Or who I was.

Then it beat its massive wings and carried me higher, into the mountains made of diamonds, towards whatever nightmare waited at the top.