Chapter Text
Max was running. Alarms blared all around him as he rushed down the corridor, metal clunking under his heels. He rounded a corner and stopped abruptly to lean against a vent cover.
He stood there, paralyzed, and desperately willed his breathing to be as quiet as possible. Behind him the chittering of the disgusting creatures who ran the ship he was currently stuck on grew fainter. He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.
It came out in a small cloud of air, and he shivered. Christ, he was so fucking cold. He rubbed his red-tinged hands over his shoulders, trying to get some warmth back into his body. He swore under his breath when the thick, brownish goo they were covered in smeared all over his thin shirt.
Fuck, he forgot he was still covered in that stuff. He smashed through at least four of the weird insect aliens that were guarding him on his way out of his cell, spraying himself with what he assumed was their blood in the process.
Now, the entire colony of them were hunting him, screeching every time they saw him as if he was the intruder. Well, they could suck his dick, he didn't ask to be here. Wherever here even was. He assumed he was in space, after catching a glimpse of the too empty darkness outside of the few windows that were visible from the glorified cage he was kept in. He had no idea how he ended up on a fucking spaceship with real life aliens. One minute he was on Earth, walking home and the next he woke up to a human-sized cockroach staring at his face. Simply lovely.
They kept him in that cell for roughly a couple of minutes, staring at him curiously before he snapped out of it and tried to escape. It was laughably easy to kill them, all things considered. They weren't particularly heavy and their exoskeleton was as durable as a thin piece of ice.
It was quite satisfying to crush their beady heads once he got over the disgust of it all. He tore his way out of his cell and rushed towards the nearest exit. Now he's here, confused, panicked, sticky and cold. Stuck bemoaning his fate, Max didn't notice that the strange alien chittering returned, this time much closer than it was before. He didn't notice the soft click-clack of claws coming from the vent he was pressed up against. Didn't notice them getting louder and louder.
Suddenly, the vent cover came loose with a bang. Max fell to the side and turned to see one of the insect aliens crawling towards him. Its black shell gleamed in the artificial light, and it stood up on its two hind legs to snap its pincers at him. He screamed and shuffled backwards, desperate to create some distance between him and the alien.
It advanced on him, undeterred by his attempts to run away. Max grit his teeth, grabbed it by the closest leg and pulled. The appendage tore off like paper, and the alien hissed, snapping its pincers at Max furiously in response. He dodged and moved as if on autopilot, adrenaline coursing through his veins. He grabbed the alien by its small, stubby head and smashed it against the wall, repeating the action when it didn't stop moving right away.
He managed to swipe a hand through his hair in relief, when he felt the entire ship lurch. The room erupted in a kaleidoscope of color and the alarms grew even louder in volume, screaming in that clicking language. The whole floor tilted as the ship turned into a nosedive, plummeting down into the abyssal darkness. Throughout it all Max held onto the walls of the ship, praying for a fast and painless death as his vision went black.
The smell of smoke filled his nose as he tried to reorient himself. His eyes felt like sandpaper, burning and watering whenever he opened them. Eventually he managed to blink away enough of the dirt blocking his vision, and took in his surroundings. He was sitting in the ship's wreckage, debris strewn all around him.
Some of it was burning, producing the foul smoke he had smelled earlier. However, nothing moved other than him. It seemed that no other aliens survived the crash.
Oh well. Sucks to be them. Max stood, pleased that he had no broken bones or pulled muscles, only a couple scratches and bruises he could ignore until they healed. He stretched, brushed the dirt off his scrubs and stepped out of the wreckage. Turning his gaze to the sky, he gasped. It was filled with long, wispy clouds, swirling together in intricate circular patterns. Reds and oranges melded together with the beige of the sand-filled air, as though painted onto the sky. Underneath, high sandstone peaks dipped into valleys and long planes of desert. Wind pulled at the giant sand dunes sitting between them, scattering sand all around the planet. Max winced as a particularly strong gust of wind blew stinging sand into his face. He turned his head and faced a strange-looking area with piles upon piles of box-shaped rocks stacked on top of each other.
He approached them and felt around for any clasp or lid that he could open to find out what was inside. The rocks appeared to be crates for storage, however their coverings were too heavy for him to open on his own. He sighed and gave up, moving on to explore more of the area.
It looked like a sort of camp, with equipment of some kind sitting abandoned in all corners of the space. Cranes and platforms lined a small closed off section, surrounded by more of the massive crates. Max hummed as he moved to the other side of the camp, careful to keep close to the boxes in case he was seen. It seemed like an area for cargo, almost like the docks of the many ports he'd seen back on Earth. Maybe aliens had entire planets for that kind of stuff. He wondered what they could possibly be transporting that required a whole planet.
He moved to continue forward, when he heard a voice ring out from somewhere up front. It was a sound he'd never heard before, a combination of hissing and melodic squeaking that almost sounded like a small animal. He froze, flattening himself on the side of one of the boxes. Silent footsteps shuffled from behind one of the crates, and a creature resembling a fox with large pointed ears stepped out of the shadows. It continued chattering in that strange language as before, a paw raised to its ears. Max crouched slightly and began following it.
They weaved between more boxes before the fox abruptly stopped. It turned to a stone tablet attached to one of the crates and began typing some kind of code onto the surface. The wall that stood before it suddenly gave way and a flight of stairs appeared instead, leading down into complete darkness. The fox moved to go down, and Max paused.
It probably wouldn't be his brightest idea to follow it down there, where he was out in the open for it to see him. He could hear his father in his head yelling at him for even considering it. But, his father wasn't here and Max wasn't known for his good ideas, but his good results. So, he collected himself and followed the fox down.
The corridor was dimly lit by artificial torches, casting yellow ambient light onto the walls. He could see the shadow of the fox a couple meters in front of him. He crept along the wall, careful to keep his shadow behind him. As they approached the end of the staircase, the corridor opened up into a large hall with a high ceiling, supported by tall rectangular pillars. Looking past the entrance, Max saw a bustling road filled with various shops and stands, indicating what they were selling with signs written in a square foreign text. Actually, everything in the hall was cube shaped.
All the houses and shops had a distinct cubic architecture, all sharp edges and corners. They resembled the crates from the surface. The inhabitants probably took them down into the cave system and repurposed them into living spaces. Max was intrigued, he'd never seen anything like that. The structures that weren't made of stone boxes were instead carved right into the walls of the cave, still in that geometric style, with smooth and precise lines melding together into a symmetrical yet haphazard design. As if the person creating them hadn't given their positioning much thought and simply stacked one right onto the other.
Max snapped out of his musings and noticed that the fennec alien he was following had disappeared. He quickly moved towards the start of the road, head down to hide his features. The passersby didn't pay him much mind, only an occasional vendor shouting an offer at him, which he ignored. After passing several alleys he ducked into one, and silently watched all the different kinds of aliens going about their business. Most of them were bipedal, but Max saw some on four or even six legs at one point. One snake-like alien was even slithering. While there were many different kinds, the fennec fox aliens seemed to be the majority, probably the native species.
Scanning the crowd once more, Max made eye contact with one of the many fox aliens. They stared at each other for a couple long moments, when suddenly the fox began pushing through the crowd to reach him. Max swore and turned into the alleyway. He started running, pulling himself through the narrow spaces connecting the back alleys together. The fox was gaining on him though, much faster than his hurt, pathetic human legs.
He took a couple of random turns, desperately trying to throw the alien off, but it continued to gain on him. He took one final turn when the alleyway abruptly ended. With nowhere else to go, he turned around and prepared to fight his pursuer. The fox dashed into the dead end and slowed to a halt, staring at him with calculating eyes. It hissed something in its melodic language and when he didn't respond, began rifling through its pockets.
It pulled out a small translucent bag of reddish powder and reached inside. When Max moved to try and attack it, it grabbed a handful and threw it directly into his face. Blinded, Max clawed at his eyes, swaying in place as his whole world began to spin. He cracked his eyes open slightly and saw the fox advancing with caution.
That didn't matter though, as his vision gave one final spin and he collapsed into the darkness once more.
Max awoke to a strong jolt wracking through his body. His hands and feet were both been tied together with some kind of glowing chain, the lower part of his face wrapped in cloth. He tried to wiggle around to figure out where he was, when a door slid open right in front of his face. He squinted, harsh light assaulting his vision. A different fox alien marched up to him, and hauled him out of what looked like a transport wagon.
He was dragged through a tight, rocky passage and into another cave clearing. He gasped quietly at what he saw before him.
A building carved from the sandstone wall surrounding it rose all the way up towards the ceiling. Its entrance was supported by more of the rectangular pillars similar to those in the hall, but much more grandiose. Small, cube details intricately decorated the windows that arched along its perimeter.
Looking through them he could see a sea of people milling about inside of the building. It reminded him of the large Colosseum he saw in Rome during his work visits, with its slight curve and sandy color. He didn't have much time to admire the architecture though, as he was once again being dragged through the crowd towards the entrance. As they manoeuvred around the mass of people streaming in and out of the arena, he caught the distinct smell of smoke and incense. Fires were lit everywhere, hung in metal bowls hanging from the ceiling. Banners and flags were pinned at almost every surface, green, red and orange decorated with strange symbols and pictures. It was almost like a sports stadium with all the aliens gathered together to cheer for their favorite football team. He even thought he saw a smoke flare going off somewhere in the distance.
He was tugged inside through a side entrance. They entered a much gloomier corridor, walls bare and lacking all the fanfare that he saw outside. They passed by doors that looked suspiciously like prison cells, and Max felt cold dread settle in his gut. Goddamnit, not again. And it didn't look like it would be as easy to break out as it was on the insect alien ship. You can't crash an underground colosseum.
They made their way down the corridor until the fox suddenly stopped and hauled open one of the cell doors. He was pushed inside. The alien threateningly hissed at him and then promptly left him standing there in the dim light with his limbs still bound.
That was when he noticed a small bundle cowering in the corner of the room. He approached it warily, curious to see what they locked him with, when the bundle suddenly moved. Its feathery wings ruffled and it tilted its head up to look at him.
Holy shit. Max was roommates with a fucking bird.