Stranded in an alien desert, a man must find his way out and back to his home world
In the blistering heat of the San Palomino Desert near the Macintosh Hills, a man slowly awakes to find that he is stranded and alone. Using what limited resources he has with him, he must find a way out of the desert and make his way back to civilization before the heat and dehydration take their toll. But what he finds once he successfully completes his dangerous journey and makes it to the nearest town will shake him to the core...
It started as the feeling of a gust of wind blowing the sand surrounding him and brushing it against the bare skin of his arms. Barely able to crack his eyes open, he was greeted the blinding light of the hot sun that caused him to close them again before it ended up searing his retina. But what he felt next caused him to pop them wide open.
Pain.
Stabbing the inside of his chest it took him a second to realise that he wasn't breathing. Desperately drawing in a raspy breath and then coughing violently, he turned over onto his hands and knees in an attempt to stop himself. Catching his breath back, he looked around and took in his surroundings. All around him, all he could see were hills of sand and in one direction, what looked to be some mountains. Finally sinking in, the reality of the situation hit him. He was stranded in the desert.
“Oh no... no no no no”, he quietly whispered.
Panic began to set in and threatened to overwhelm him as he scrambled to his feet and fearfully looked around once more and he started to breath rapidly. While he had received some desert survival training, it still wasn't enough to fully overcome the fear that he now felt. Between the airport close to his home and the lab that he worked in was a desert expanse that went on for miles. Because of how him and most of the others that worked at the base had to travel via a helicopter, everyone was required to undertake annual survival training should they crash land and became stranded somehow.
“The helicopter!”
Ignoring the intense heat that the desert floor and sun were assaulting him with, he quickly began to scramble up to the top of one of the nearby dunes to see if he could find any wreckage or survivors. Perhaps he could find one of the pilots or even a radio to call for help. As it stood he was ill equipped for a survival situation as all he had strapped to him was a small survival kit, and a Leatherman. Even if one of the larger survival kits stowed away on the craft survived the crash, then it would greatly increase his chances of living long enough to be rescued. Reaching the top of the dune however his hopes were quickly dashed as all he could see was more sand stretching on for miles.
“But... that doesn’t make sense”, he quietly said to himself.
Feeling the fear starting to rise up once again he desperately tried to think of what he should do next. Although he'd never been in this kind of situation before, he would now have to rely on the training he had gone through to get himself out of this life threatening situation. Remembering the mantra that his instructor taught him, ‘Protection, Rescue, Water, Food’, he realised that he should find some shelter as soon as possible before the desert heat took its toll on him. From his new vantage point he peered out around him to see if there was anything that would provide some cover and protect him from the sun. However, there was nothing close by however and no signs of life to be seen anywhere. The only thing that stood out in the miles of the barren wasteland were the mountains he saw earlier.
Getting the small compass from the kit strapped to his leg, he found that it was to the north of his position and stretched out towards the east before it curved towards south, forming a wall that would be too perilous for him to climb over. To the west of the range however, there seemed to be a gap between it and another mountain that he could just spot from where he was. Finding no other better options and seeing that he couldn’t stay out in the open, he decided that he should head towards them.
Drawing a large arrow in the sand using his foot which pointed towards the range, he took his shirt off and wrapped around his head to make a crude Arabic headdress to protect him from the sun and began his slow and arduous walk towards the rocky peaks. It only then occurred to him that there were no mountain peaks that came anywhere near the route his aerial transport normally took. In fact nothing he saw around him reminded him of the desert that he flew over day after day.There were no dead dried up shrubs or trees, no small rock formations, or no salt flats. It looked more like he was in a desert from Egypt or perhaps the Middle East.
As the man wearily sat inside of an indent that was now providing him with some much needed shade he began to take inventory of what he had with him. The first thing he pulled out from one of his pockets was the security tag that he would use to get him into his lab. It read:
In the top right hand corner of the tag, a small picture of him showed that he had short blonde hair, dark blue eyes, and fairly defined jaw and cheekbones. Although considered good looking by some of his female colleagues, he still did little socialising outside of the work place given his introverted nature. That meant that when he wasn’t working, he was spending a majority of his time at home keeping himself occupied with various hobbies, mostly building and painting models of various planes, tanks, and on one occasion a city. While he was not antisocial by any means he prefered spending the majority of his free time by himself.
Putting the tag down, Jake pulled out the rest of objects that filled his pockets; his phone and wallet. Both of them completely useless out here in the middle of nowhere. Still it didn’t stop him from flipping open his phone to check for bars and sure enough it didn’t provide any pleasant surprises. Sighing, Jake finally turned his attention towards the small bag strapped to his leg that he would now be attributing much of his survival towards. Taking inventory of it he found the compass he used previously, some waterproof matches, a flint and steel, a small plastic flask filled with water, a small flashlight, a signal mirror, an energy bar, and a couple of glow sticks.
Jake cursed his luck at not being able to find anything else he could use.
Why were there no signs of a crash?
Was I even in an accident?
There had to be one right?
“How else would I wind up out here”, he thought aloud.
Jake tried to think back to what happened before he woke up stranded.
“I was getting ready for work... running late so I skipped breakfast.” His stomach growled as if it were in agreement with him.
Jake also remembered the idle chit chat he made with the pilot as they made their way to the helicopter. After this though he couldn’t remember anything else prior to him waking up.
“So I obviously made it to the airport”, he said to himself as he began to pull off one his shoes to empty the tiny mountains of sand from each one. He was also still concerned about what happened to the pilots if there had been a crash as they could still be out there either unconscious or seriously hurt and unable to move. He was positive though that there were no signs of them around him however. Given that he had no idea where to begin looking for them, the heat that the desert continue to hurl at him, and his lack of resources, he felt that attempting to find them would be suicide.
With that Jake swallowed the little saliva he had left in his mouth and his thoughts again turned to staying alive. His watch and the position of the sun told him that it was noon, the hottest part of the day. The journey from where he woke to the base of the mountain had been hard enough, so he didn’t need his meager training to tell him it would be a bad idea to travel out into the sun again. He would have to wait until it got closer to nightfall.
As it was the only discernible landmark he had so far found and his only source of shading, Jake decided that he would continue to go west along the base mountain in the hopes that he could find a way around it. It was the wrong direction from where he would normally travel to his lab, but since he couldn’t even remotely recognise any of his surroundings, he couldn’t be sure if that was the right way anymore. His best chance now would be to find some remnant of civilization.
He also knew that while during the day it was unforgivably hot, the night would be a different story. As there was nothing around he could use to light a fire with save for the clothes on his back, he thought it would be best to carefully continue traveling through the night to cover additional ground and as a way to keep himself warm, using one of the glow sticks to light the ground and the ridge and compass to guide him.
Settling himself in for a long wait he opened up the energy bar and flask from his kit to have a small portion of each, rationing the rest for later.
At least I have the both of you to keep me company. _____________________________________________________________________________
It had been several hours since the sun had completely disappeared and so far Jake had been making good progress by using his strategy. Although Traveling this way was tricky for him as he still managed to trip and stumble on more than one occasion. On top of that the chilling night air wasn’t helping much and it almost made him wish for scorching touch of the desert sun to come back.
In order to keep his spirits up and take his mind off of the cold, Jake started singing any song that came into his mind. However he had already gone through most of his favorites and by this point he was starting to run out of ideas.
“Now a woman who'll kiss on a very first date is usually a hussy,” “And a woman who'll kiss on the second time out is anything but fuss-”
RAAAAWWWWWWRRRRR!!!
An ear splitting roar that threatened to crack open Jake’s skull suddenly erupted from the night sky. Wasting no time he cursed and jumped behind the nearest rock that was big enough to hide behind. There he sat frozen in fear, tightly clutching the green glow stick that still shone brightly.
The glow stick!
With shaking hands he desperately fidgeted and struggled to open the kit strapped to his leg and stuff it inside. Jake continued to breathe rapidly in panic, waiting for whatever made the monstrous noise to come looking for him. The seconds passed however and nothing happened.
Cautiously rising up from where he was hiding that he started to hear the slow and heavy sounds beating wings pound away at the air right above him and ducking back down slightly he tried to make out what it was as it flew off and away from his hiding place, but staring at the light that illuminated from the glow stick for last couple of hours had left him with poor night vision. From what he could make out though he could see it was big. Too big and bulky to be able to physically fly on wing power alone.
The sun began its daily ritual of bringing about the dawn of a new day. Ever since the events of the previous night however, Jake had not moved from his hiding place, and was still curled up in a futile attempt to keep himself warm. Somehow he managed to get some sleep but for the most part the intense cold and the fear from the creature he saw gave him a restless night. There was no way he was going to continue on with the glow stick acting as beacon for anything else that might be out here. Jake couldn’t even bring himself to use his flashlight as a slightly less obvious alternative. So there he stayed cold, frightened, and miserable, and not moving from his spot until the sun was bright enough to clearly light up the landscape.
That morning as Jake finally managed to bring himself to move and continue along the rocky landscape his thoughts naturally turned towards what had spooked him previous night. He wanted to believe that it was a dream of some kind, but it had been too real for him to simply disregard as that. The monster’s horrible roar was still firmly imprinted on his brain. Jake tried to think of all sorts of theories that would logically explain what kind of creature it was and out of all them there was only one he kept coming back to...
It was a dragon.
Of course Jake found the idea of it being a dragon to be ludicrous and yet it was the only thing that he could come up with that seemed to fit with the vague outline of what he saw.
There’s gotta be another explanation, he thought to himself as he continued to climb over the rocky terrain that lay before him, but for the life of him he couldn’t think of one. Climbing up onto one of the boulders nearby to get view of what lay before him, he was greeted by yet more desert, rocks, and the other mountain peak that he could see in the far off distance.
Maybe I should’ve asked it for a lift. _____________________________________________________________________________
Jake violently shook the now empty flask above his parched mouth to extract as much water as possible from it. It was now the next day and progress had slowed down considerably. He would continue to travel during the morning until it got too hot for him to bare. Finding some shade, he would wait until it was twilight before moving off again. He had even managed to again, try and cover more ground during the night deciding to be as quiet as possible and using his flashlight instead of the other glow stick. But there was no end of the desert in sight. Jake had seen nothing that could or would help or rescue him as he plodded along. No planes, no helicopters, no animals, not even any insects or arachnids for him to try and catch for sustenance. Although he loathed them he knew he couldn’t afford to let his phobia make him pass up any opportunities that presented themselves.
Angrily, Jake cursed and hurled the now empty flask at a nearby boulder. The desert was giving him nothing but taking everything. His skin was dry and burnt from the sun, and his lips were cracked and parched from the lack of moisture he could find anywhere. His spirits were declining rapidly as he was struggling to fight of the depression that was bearing down upon him.
Leaning back against the rocky wall that was shading him Jake closed his eyes and his thoughts turned towards his family and friends. As his father and brother had died in car accident while he was just a baby, because of this his mother coddled him while he was growing up. Naturally she was against him leaving home to go out working in the middle of a desert at a top secret and undisclosed military base. Even as Jake tried to explain to her that it was only for research and development, she seemed to be convinced that it would be too dangerous for him. But what drew him towards the offer were the machines, in particular the fighter jets and the chance to work with them and Jake could not ignore the opportunity.
Jake fought back tears as he wondered if he’ll even make it out alive.
As the sun had eventually sunk enough for Jake to venture out again, he looked over at his discarded flask and flashed back to something he saw on a Man Vs Wild episode, causing him to groan depressingly. He'd just thought of a way he could get some more fluid to put in it.
Jake cringed as he looked down at the yellow and foul smelling fluid that was now in his flask. Still he knew that desperate times called for desperate measures and that tomorrow morning, he would have to man up and do what was necessary. Once again he continued to travel during the dark after the sun had gone down and was surprised to see that his flashlight still had some power left in it. There had been no more signs of any giant flying monsters looking for him at night and Jake was convincing himself that he must have hallucinated the entire event somehow. That still didn’t stop him from becoming brave enough to start singing again or use the other glow stick.
Later on, morning broke open across the sky signaling the beginning of a new day. Inside an indent, Jake was brought awake from the light that was now shining in his eyes. The flashlight had finally given up sometime during the night and still not being able to bring himself to crack the other glow stick, he instead opted to find comfortable place to try and get some sleep. Now that morning had arrived, Jake’s attention turned towards the kit and the dreaded flask contained within it.
Maybe I should go and see where I ended up first
Pulling himself up he walked over to a ledge to get a better view of the landscape, he was surprised that he was a lot further he thought. The mountain peak that he spotted 2 days ago was now only a couple of kilometers away from where he stood.
Guess I better reward myself.
Groaning as he took the flask out and as he was about to take his first reluctant swig, he stopped and stared at disbelief at what was roping its way around the base of the mountain. Jake rubbed his eyes and then continued to gawk at it. It was the most beautiful thing he'd seen since waking up in the desert. It looked like it was stream.
Forgetting all about the flask, he quickly set about making his over to the mountain that was across from him, keeping his eyes on it as much as possible like it would disappear as soon as he looked away. _____________________________________________________________________________
Jake started to laugh as maniacally as his dry throat would allow him to. Staggering over to the stream he dunked his head under the water and greedily drank to quench his thirst. From the other mountains, he mostly stumbled along in a daze to the stream mainly fueled by his desperation to get to the only source of water had seen in days.
Now his prospects looked infinitely better. Not only did he have a permanent source of water but he could follow the stream to find his way towards civilization and use it to keep himself cool during the day. There was also some dry vegetation around the water source such as grass and bushes that he could use for fire.
For the next few days Jake continued to head upstream, finding what cover he could during noon and resting during the night. Food was still a concern though as Jake had long since finished the energy bar from the kit and he was now on the lookout for anything that seemed edible. He managed to catch some scorpions which he kept in his kit after detailing them to cook them at night over the fire.
They still tasted awful.
It wasn’t until the fourth day of traveling upstream that Jake finally spotted something that to him resembled a paradise. It was a town, and surrounding it were hundreds of trees. Quickly making his way towards it, it seemed to him that his ordeal had finally come to an end.
Jake had finally reached the outskirts of the trees that were near the town. To his pleasant surprise he found that it was actually an orchard full of apple trees and without hesitating, he quickly plucked one of the fruits within reach and sunk his teeth into it. The taste was extraordinary and it caused a shiver to go down his spine as he wasted no time in devouring the juicy fruit. The trip over from the stream had been mostly uneventful, and to help pass the time walking towards the town Jake indulged himself with fantasies of having hot food, a hot shower, and a soft bed to sleep in for that night. What dominated his mind the most however was what everyone must be thinking. Did they think he was dead? Was that why he hadn't seen any rescue teams or search parties.
More than that what happened to the pilots? Admittedly he hadn't thought about them much as when he wasn't able to initially find them his thoughts strictly turned towards keeping himself alive. Thinking about it now, he started to feel sick. It had been days where he left since he first woke up and if they were still somewhere out there, he may have unintentionally left them to die. Sure he at least made an attempt to look for them but he couldn't shake the feeling that he should have spent more time looking around before heading over to the mountains.
Why was there no signs of a crash?
Marching on, Jake continued to try and figure out the enigma of how he ended up where he was but to his frustration he still couldn't remember anything past him getting on the helicopter. It had been bothering him relentlessly, and It was as if the time between then and when he became conscious again in the desert had ceased to exist. While he continued to ponder about it, a soft thumping noise coming from up ahead brought him out of his thoughts. It sounded as if something was striking one of the trees in the orchard. Making his way towards it, what he saw stunned him.
It appeared that making the noise was a tiny horse looking creature that was kicking the tree. What was strange about it however is that it had a white coat of fur but with a mane that was cherry red. He could also see a picture on it’s flank which looked like a single cherry.
Jake stared at it for a few more moments before looking down at the nearly finished apple that was in his hand.
Ok... so either these apples have been laced with Acid somehow... Or someone with paint and too much time on their hands got bored.
If it were the latter, he had to commend them in particular on the artwork. The picture was very crisp and precise and as he painted models himself, he could imagine that doing kind of high quality art work on a live animal would be difficult.
Well I guess I better go and introduce myself to the locals
As Jake approached the foal, he saw that it was kicking the tree in what seemed to be in an attempt to make the apples fall down. When one finally did it stopped to gently pick it up in its mouth and then taking it over to a nearby wooden bucket, dropped it inside.
“Wow. Smart horse”.
Speaking aloud got the foals attention and it turned to look at him. While they both stared at each other Jake saw that aside from its strange colours, its eyes took up a huge portion of its head and that it also it didn’t to have as an elongated face as a horse usually should. Suffice to say he'd never seen anything like it before.
“Well you're definitely the strangest thing I've ever seen”.
Upon saying this however the creature slowly started to back away in fright before bolting away from him. To add to the surprise the creature had already gave him, it sounded like it was screaming something as it ran off.
Did that thing just scream out “MONSTER”? _____________________________________________________________________________
It was another bright sunny day at Apple Loosa. Dozens of the towns inhabitants, all Earth Ponies, were busy harvesting the forest of apple trees that had finally bore the fruits of their labour. It had been over 2 years since the first settlers arrived bringing with them hundreds of trees to be planted for the then newly forming community, and although things hadn’t gone as smoothly as possible given the troubles they had experienced with local buffalo tribes, it was now transforming itself into a thriving and prosperous town with many of the excess crops from the orchards being traded with Dodge City that lay towards the east.
The ponies who were all working together like well oiled machines, gossiped with one another as they continued to harvest the seemingly endless amount of apple trees that surrounded them. Off in one part of the orchard however the calm serenity of the environment was shattered by a childish voice followed by the galloping of tiny hooves, as a small filly raced towards one of the stallions working to clear his section.
“BRAEBURN!”
Not not hearing her the stallion continued kicking the tree that he stood under which in turn caused all of the apples from it to fall down into the carefully placed buckets underneath it.
“Braeburn!”, the filly yelled at him again this time getting his attention.
“Well, howdy there Pip! How goes yer pract-”.
Before he could say another word though, Pip cut him off and blurted out in between breaths, “There’s a .... monster ….. in ….. in the … orchard”.
He looked at the young pony for a few seconds before blinking once. “What in tarnation are ya talking about. You know we don’t get any critters wandering around this close to town”.
But Pip was still keeping a serious look upon her face. “It’s true! It walked on two legs, and was so big that it could pluck the apples from the trees, and it had no fur except for on the top of its head, and it wore clothes, and...”
Braeburn looked a her with confusion and disbelief as she continued to go on about the ‘monster’ that Pip saw. It sounded like nothing he had ever heard of before but he knew that the other fillies and colts living in the town liked to get into all kinds of mischief.
“Now are ya sure that it ain’t any of yer friends foolin with ya?”.
“I know what I saw!” Pip shouted back causing Braeburn to wince slightly at the volume of her voice.
"Alright alright, just calm down for a second."
There was definitely something about the look on young Pip’s face and the way she spoke that made him believe she wasn’t fooling around.
Well somethin’s definitely spooked her.
He thought for a few moments before sighing. Although it might put his schedule back a couple of hours he couldn't just ignore the terrified filly. “Alright. Show me where you saw it”.
Wasting no time Pip quickly took point and lead Braeburn towards where she had been practicing harvesting. After following her for short while they eventually came to a clearing where Pip's buckets still sat where she had left, one half full with apples. The 'monster' however was nowhere to be seen. Her eye's started to water. "But... but it was right here. I swear...".
"Now hold on. I'm sure it's just wandered off someplace else", Braeburn said reassuringly. "Let's just have a look around here and find out where it might have gone." _____________________________________________________________________________
You've gotta be kidding me
Jake stared in disbelief at the scene that was in front of him. Walking around all over the town were more of the strange horses like the one he saw earlier. He was just about to stroll on into the town before the spectacle had frozen him in his tracks and now all he could do was stand near the edge of the orchard as his mind tried its hardest to somehow come up with an explanation for what he was now witnessing. All of the creatures wandering the town each appeared to have their own different color scheme with only one or two he would consider normal. If that wasn’t enough many of them appeared to be wearing hats, vests, or some other kind of clothing, as well as each of them having a different picture on their flanks. But perhaps what mind boggled him the most was that although he couldn't quite hear them, these creatures seemed to be talking with each other. In fact, he swore he could make out one going over to what appeared to be a stall which another one of the creatures was standing by, then handing over what appeared to be a coin of some kind before taking some apples from the stall and then walking off.
Witnessing all of this, Jake’s brain seemed to stop functioning as he slowly backed off in a daze to one of the trees that surrounded him before plopping down against one and just staring out into space, completely oblivious to everything around him, and to the two creatures coming through the orchard that were now approaching him.
