Monday - October 22nd, 2121:

  After lying motionless for what felt like hours, despite mere minutes passing, my peace ended as the raven flapped its wings and landed on my chest, pecking softly at my visor. Despite the bird's exceedingly large proportions, it was surprisingly soft-bodied atop me.

  "What's wrong?" I asked as if the raven could reply. There was something about those eyes so full of intellect that I couldn't help but speak to it. "Is something coming?"

  The raven craned its neck, tilting its head while maintaining eye contact. A soft croak warbled from its throat before it turned its gaze northbound. Staring toward where Orion should be with such smoldering intensity that I couldn't help but startle and rise from the ground, causing the raven to flap aggressively off my chest and land on a nearby branch.

  "Do you know something?" I blurted, my voice scraping harshly from the voice box. "Do you know where the Orion is—where my friends are?"

  It blinked at me, feathers ruffling as its breath pulsed. It was not a beast. Nor a man. It could not speak or communicate as humans could. But despite it, the raven had a way—a lingering connection that spoke unlike anything else.

  You're insane. It's nothing but a monster that'll stab you in the back the moment you let your guard down. A venomous whisper lashed against my racing thoughts. I feigned not to hear it, for the raven was my best hope in this alien world to find some answers. Before I could let that voice overpower my beliefs, the raven croaked loudly, breaking me free from the stupor as it flew high and hovered, its gaze shifting between me and the north.

  It began to fly. And I followed.

  I felt the heaving inferno in my lungs as I raced after it, muscles flaring as it maintained a distance that egged me on, pushing me to continue after its back.

  The further I went. The more grueling the journey became.

  All around me, the forest erupted with life, violent snarls, and thunderous roars. The branches flailed and snapped, attempting to strike at me from all directions. My heart drummed like an orchestral symphony as I dodged, ducked, and weaved through the brimming alien wilderness.

  The raven brought me to a series of craggy cliffs. Their uneven edges placed me at the precipice of a certain death were I to be careless. But it was an escape from a just as certain doom from the encroaching wildlife.

  I had to move forward, to trust its guidance and pure intentions. For there was little else I could genuinely believe in when everything seemed to want me dead.

  The ashen-grey cliffs turned into a serene calm where wildlife seemed to vanish, causing much-needed peace to my frantic psyche, fatigued from the relentless chasing. Following the raven, I crossed through uneven terrain and narrow cliffs, one after the other. As we went higher atop the mountain, a forceful wind buffeted against my body, but I resisted its violent urges, focusing purely on the raven's back.

  As we ascended higher, the cliffs broke free from the colossal trees that towered over the land below. I could finally see my surroundings in their dreadful, gloomy glory. Overgrown trees peppered the area, stretching far beyond the horizon, and spindly growths stirred between them, shifting and shuffling with grotesque signs of life.

  I climbed the path, awestruck and bereft of words. My attention gradually unfocused off my guiding raven and turned fully to the alien terrain—it was hard not to as the ever-expansive horizon teemed with new sights and sounds I never could've imagined.

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  My awe didn't last long before a thunderous quake slammed against the mountain, causing my body to tremble and nearly causing me to slide off the edge. In my distracted state, I hadn't noticed a gaping cavern in the cliffside, its blackened depths like an endless void where no light could penetrate.

  But that in itself was wrong. Lights flickered into existence. Two became four. Four became ten. Ten became dozens upon dozens if not hundreds.

  From within the endless black, a towering creature stepped out, hundreds of eyes gazing with unwavering determination. Its talons scraped against the stone cavern's underbelly as its wings pulsed, eager to unfurl, the bladed beak adorning its face pried open slightly, letting a verdant vine-like tendril squirm as it edged toward me.

  "Kee-kee-kee..." Its chittering vocalizations struck like the hysterical laughter of a starved predator.

  I heard the raven's deep croak thunder from behind me as the eagle-like creature stepped forward. My body quickly drenched in a cold sweat that trickled down my spine as I caught in the crossfire of two predatory beasts.

  'Holy shit,' my thoughts pulsed as I kicked into gear, rushing past the cavern, ascending the cliffside. But the creature was fast and vicious. It snapped out from the chamber, jolting its talons toward my torso and capturing me in its vice grip. The raven swooped down, pecking at it, but the large raven was but a plaything next to the colossal eagle.

  I felt my body slam against the air as vertigo struck. The creature thrust off the mountain, whipping up stormy winds with each flap of its enormous wings. My screams choked out in gasps. I felt so devastatingly powerless in its grasp.

  What're you doing!? Stop throwing your life away and do something useful, you damned coward! A voice stabbed into my mind, causing my body to spaz and breaths to hasten, slamming violently against my chest.

  You gotta live, kid! Roger's voice echoed in the back of my mind.

  Weren't you going to find us? Catherine's voice whispered.

  You have a mission! Captain's domineering tone chimed.

  The voices clawed against my panicked psyche, propelling me to act—to fight for the slim chance of survival they desperately craved. I roared a primal, animalistic sound that magnified as it scraped out of the voice projection box. I reached upward, grasping the eagle's long blade-like feathers and ripping out a handful. Simultaneously, the raven swooped down, drilling its beak into one of the eagle's eyes, eliciting dreadful cries from the creature.

  Its wings flapped erratically as its body squirmed, rising and falling with increased increments. Blood ran down from its wounded eye, hardly enough to blind the hundred-eyed creature but enough to cause its thoughts to muddle with fury and pain as it lowered its altitude sufficiently to strike against the crown of several trees.

  I wasn't sure whether the eagle was deliberately trying to launch me against the trees, but it was a prime opportunity to attack it. I grasped at its feathers, plucking several more from its monstrous body.

  My actions also stirred the raven into moving as it swooped down and drilled into the eagle's face, gouging out another eye with such deathly precision that the creature tensed and its grip loosened, causing me to fly from its grasp, slamming against the trees as I fell.

  I flailed, arms grasping every vine and branch that came across my path as I attempted to grab onto the tiniest sliver of a chance at survival. As I descended and the ground expanded before my eyes, I felt a surge of weightlessness as something grabbed my oxygen tank, pulling me upward. The raven's claws firmly grasped around the thick metallic joints, wings fiercely flapping as it slowed down my descent just enough to hit the ground with a dull, painless thud, rolling into several bushes as a sigh of relief escaped me.

  '...am I alive?' I thought as I stared up above.

  I could see the eagle circling overhead. Eyeing me, yet oddly, it seemed apprehensive.

  "Kee-kee-kee..." It chittered, its verdant tongue writhing from its beak before it turned and flew off toward the mountain.

  If I had the energy to jump and scream with joy—I would have.

  I lay in the bush, breaths pulsing from my chest as I gathered my wits. After a while, I shuffled to raise myself, my hand grasping at something firm beneath the bushes. I turned toward the foliage and parted it, revealing the edge of something familiar.

  "No, that can't be!" I screamed, and unwillingness painted my face beneath the helmet.