As night began to fall, he began to recall thoughts of Earth simulation he experienced. Beautiful beaches with ivory colored sand. The season called Winter where cool breezes would remove the sweat from his brows. He imagined whatever he could think of to get through another wretched night on this planet.
He thought to himself, “Now that I’m out of that swamp, I could finally gain some ground and make up some of the time I…”
A sound of a crackle caught his attention.
In the distance he could see what looked like another human being. He called out, “Hey! Someone out there?!”
The sound of someone walking became louder. It was close.
As he began to walk towards the direction of the sound, it became louder, harder, and more rapid. The sound of walking became the sound of running. He began to panic.
“What the hell is that?” he thought to himself, “I… Where did that…”
He reached in his pack and began looking for his radio. As the the distance of the sound narrowed he began to stumble and dropped his pack. After a failed attempt at recovering his backpack he began to look for a place to hide.
There was a hole that looked large enough to fit him in the ground just ahead of him. As he ran closer and closer to it, the sound got louder and louder, and the image he saw ahead of him grew larger and with it, a cloud of black dust. He slide into the hole.
Three feet above him, he could see the dust rushing over the hole and what looked to be orange colored objects. At the speed they were traveling, they were impossible to make out. The dust seemed to go on for hours. He sheltered himself there for the night and when he woke in the morning, with the dust cleared and a calm quiet wind, he arose. What he saw startled him.