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  I didn't sign up to be Tarzan, but I was sure as heck summoning his bravery in the face of danger. My preferred works by that author had always been mother fucking Barsoom though. Call me John Carter, because I was going to go for broke and die doing something stupid and brave.

  Making sure there really were no visible alien hippo-crocs lurking nearby, I gently lowered myself into the water to avoid making any splash or creating ripples. Deadly slow, I moved through the water. There was nothing to stand on here, but I could propel myself forward by kicking off debris that was deeper down. This allowed me an element of stealth that I was grateful to have.

  When I made it to the tree trunk that provided a walkway above the water, I wanted to break down and praise whatever gods were out there smirking at my predicament. They were definitely assholes for putting me in this situation, but at least they had a sense of humor and some kind of fair play policy. Maybe.

  The trunk was firmly lodged, probably with the underwater end stuck in the muck down below. I slopped my slimy wet form onto it and, sticking my arms out to balance, managed to stand up. I was actually safely out of the water. Careful not to slip, I moved along at a snail's pace, edging forward and barely lifting each foot as I shimmied along the trunk. The part above water was not slippery at all, but the bottoms of my boots were.

  Growing more confident by the second, I allowed myself to take slower breaths, tasting the strange alien air properly now. It was clean, and much easier to breathe than the city air I was used to. Better than the stale recycled air that had been in the pod. Now beneath the overhanging vines, I just had to climb up. They'd made us take fitness tests to be allowed into the New Hope program, and I had always prided myself on hitting the gym at least two or three times a week since my mid-twenties. At just thirty years old now, I was in the best shape I'd ever been in.

  I bent my knees, eyeing the targeted vine my hands needed to grab onto--and jumped. My boots betrayed me and I slipped, just a little. That was enough to mess up my aim and leave me grasping at the very end of the vines. They felt more than sturdy enough to support my weight, but I'd grabbed on too close to the water. My feet dangled in the slimy lake and I couldn't help but kick out my legs, as I repositioned my weight to keep hold of the vines. I had a handful of them in each hand like I was climbing a double rope obstacle. The kind that was crazy hard to get balance on.

  The splashing alerted the natives of the lake. They were now starting to wheel around from their respective locations and swim to where I was hanging like a strung-up goose. A live one, flapping around and making way too much commotion for my own health. It would be easier for me to just climb up a single strand of vines, so against my urge to live, I released my left hand and rocketed it over to hold onto the other, successfully. I was half twirling on the vine now from the motion. It gave me a good panorama of the lake as I moved, showing me all the big monsters coming over to give me a proper welcome to their planet.

  "Now or never." I used the momentum to hoist my right shoulder up to grab on higher. Another success! A few more similar movements had me a good five feet higher up the vines. They didn't show any signs of breakage either. It seemed like I'd just gotten out of harm's reach as I dared to look down and saw that two of the water monsters were right under me. They were coming halfway out of the water now but didn't seem to be readying for any kind of leap. Short of making a hippo-croc pyramid to get to me, they had to know they weren't going to get this tasty morsel for a late lunch.

  Once I'd gotten onto the closest limb of a tree that could hold my weight, I knew it was all over. Safety at last. I got as far away from the water as possible, hanging out over the shore, then let myself drop. I didn't stop running away from the lake until I was beyond the nearby tree line of the surrounding jungle. If those things could move on land, it didn't interest me to observe and find out first hand.

  I was panting heavily from the exertion of getting to land, and didn't notice the fibrous network of overgrowth covering the jungle floor. My boot got caught on it and sent me tumbling to the floor. Despite how the plant-life on this planet had already betrayed me, it was soft and cushioned my fall. Spinning around onto my ass, I looked back toward the lake. None of them had tried to follow me. Maybe they hadn't even bothered to watch my progress above them. I slid along and pressed my back up against a large tree to catch my breath.

  2

  The sounds of nature all around were so exotic, alienating as I sat there to recover my energy. The sun was oppressively hot but this was a nice, cool place to sit beneath the tree canopy at the edge of what looked look a prehistoric jungle. I wasn't about to go running off exploring, although each minute that went by made me feel like more of a failure for just sitting there.

  Truthfully, I was getting more anxious as my senses absorbed how primal and untouched this place was. If those things were able to thrive in a seemingly normal lake, what else was out there waiting around the next tree to rip me apart? And I didn't even have a weapon.

  One thing that helped calm my nerves was a moving group of what seemed to be flightless birds. They had tiny wings tucked at the rear of their fat, round bodies. They could have been space chickens if it weren't for their long, thin heads and spout-like beaks. They didn't seem to notice me, or they just didn't know to be afraid of humans; probably both, since there weren't any humans on this planet other than me.

  As one came right near me, still not seeing me, I thought about trying to get its attention. The "space chickens," as I'd decided to call them, were grubbing around for insects in the soft dirt. They lifted their feet high as they walked to avoid getting their slender talons caught in the green-brown ground coverage. That stuff was damn comfortable to sit on, even if it was a tripping hazard.

  The largest of the strange birds stopped to ruffle its feathers. That was its final mistake. Something came out of the air and struck it hard enough to send it to the ground, from where it didn't return. A four foot stick stuck out of the poor thing, and blood quickly began seeping from the entry point.

  "Lucky shot!" shouted someone. It was a woman's voice, oddly enough speaking in a language I could understand, heavy accent aside.

  Someone else whispered, also in a familiar female timbre. "Quiet, you'll scare them all away," they warned. The prediction was proven accurate as the closest of the flock of space chickens began squawking to alert the group of danger. They flapped their winged and launched into a hobbled kind of flight, catching the air just long enough to move past a nearby clutter of bushy plants. They were out of my vision now, but something far more interesting came into sight.

  3

  As I was seated there, I had no time to react and make myself unseen. Two barely clothed women came running in near silence from the jungle in the direction the birds had taken off. They both held a short, light spear of the same make as the one that had ended the bird's life. Harnessed to each of their backs with woven straps were quivers holding several more of the projectile weapons. My eyes were immediately drawn to the spears and their life-ending tips of what looked to be steel.

  One of them stopped first while the other continued to give chase, not noticing me. Until she realized her comrade wasn't keeping up. "Are you coming or--wha-a-t?" she exclaimed with appropriate shock.

  "Do not move," the first said. Her face was honestly lovely; soft, and unfitting the murderous scowl she had fixed on me. Both of the women were nearly six foot tall, maybe just an inch or so below my own height. Their bodies were firm, with tanned skin and toned muscles throughout that betrayed a lot of physical activity beneath the primitive sun.

  "I won't." All I could do was agree. Judging from her voice, the prettier one had been the markswoman. They'd been out of my field of vision when the spear had been thrown, and it had gone right through the plump fowl. Making mince meat of me wouldn't be a problem for the two of them if they decided I was a threat. It wasn't unusual for women in tribal Earth societies to hunt, but I had to assume there might be even
larger men nearby.

  "He speaks Attul!" the taller of the two women said with astonishment. She was stockier than her peer but still athletic. Her face was more angled and thin, and she had round, auburn eyes that glared at me like a bird of prey.

  Neither of them wore more than loincloths, and I was suddenly far too aware that they were topless. It was a struggle not to stare but my life being on the line made it more than manageable. At first, though, I was unable to help but stare for a second too long at their exposed breasts.

  "Are you here for the women then?" the hawk-eyed woman said. "It was not enough to take away our--"

  "Hush now," said the other in a tone that was soothing but commanded attention. "Do you want to tell this bizarre stranger all about us, then?"

  "I didn't mean to stare. On my planet it's not usual for women to go around with their... wearing so little." A little skin hadn't made me blush since I was a teenager. But the last thing I had on my mind was other women. My thoughts went out to the nearby lake and my poor, beautiful wife's body that lay there awaiting my return. I wouldn't let myself die before I could give her the proper burial she deserved. Then this place could have its turn to finish me off, if it could pry my life away.

  Both of them looked down at their chests and then smirked to each other. "He is a prude," Eagle Eyes jested to her friend. The shorter, much more attractive, tribal woman sneered. "It is no wonder he is out here all alone."

  "Excuse me?" I was taken aback. Here I was, probably millions of miles away from my home world, and these two alien women were talking smack about my manhood.

  They really were alien in appearance too, now that I had steadied my shock and taken time to inspect them. Careful not to offend, I looked at their bodies in more detail. They looked human on a preliminary level, but subtle differences were soon clear. Eagle Eyes really did have a gaunt appearance that was unsettlingly inhuman. Her limbs were long and narrow despite their muscles. The shorter woman had the same type of exaggerated athletic physique, only less pronounced.

  Their eyes were very wide and a striking bright auburn, with wide irises despite the sun still being bright as it slowly descended. Their noses were quite thin and dainty, and their cheekbones were as high as supermodels would have.

  My head started to spin as the gravity of my situation hit me yet again. This was not my home. These were not people of my own species. Their customs could be wildly different. For all I knew they might be cannibals.

  "Wait, did you say 'your planet'?" asked the pretty one. Where Eagle Eyes had her dark brown hair cropped short, this one had blonde hair not unlike my wife's. Each thought of Sarah flashed an image of her unmoving body from my memory, only my mind made it worse; a green-blue color to her skin and sunken eyes, more like a zombie than what she'd actually looked like. I shook my head and shuttered profusely as though I could blink away the image.

  "What is wrong with you?" the blonde woman asked. Something in her gaze made me feel like she was genuinely concerned for my wellbeing. It was enough to make me risk opening up a little. I had nothing left to lose, right?

  "Apart from being crash landed on a planet I've never heard of? My wife is dead and her body's stuck in our pod on the lake."

  They looked befuddled, which was expected. "Pod? You came from a plant?" asked Eagle Eyes, lowering her spear in the face of her confusion.

  "No, not a pod like that. Uh, space ship? Transported us from the stars?"

  They seemed to understand my meaning now. So this place must have experienced higher technology than loincloths and throwing spears. Eagle Eyes raised and lowered her head in what I hoped was a universal gesture of comprehension. "We have heard of such things, but only in legends. Flying carts that defy the rule of nature. Where did you come from?" Leveling the tip of her spear back towards me, she demanded, "What do you want here?"

  "Please, show him some respect. Did you not hear that his wife has died?" the blonde alien reprimanded with a sense of reverie that was reassuring. Their people had some basic human decency then, even if they were of another species. Maybe I wasn't going to die today.

  "Thank you," I said to her with a forced smile, before lowering my head. "The pod is our flying cart. It's stuck on fallen trees in the middle of the lake over that way." I pointed to the area I'd come from. "I only want to retrieve her body and give her a proper burial."

  "Ah, you bury your dead in the ground. We have heard of others with such customs. We can help you with the oracs in the lake," said the blonde. Her eyes were shining with a new determination now. It was as though the chance to help another person was feeding her inside. Something drew me to her in that instant. Something that made me feel utterly ashamed of myself given that Sarah's corpse was the topic of our conversation.

  It's your duty to keep going on. If you can continue your bloodline, do it. Sarah's words resurfaced in my mind like she was right there whispering in my ear. No, was my reply. I could never do that. I forced my eyes to find nothing but abhorrent ugliness in the woman.

  "No," I said despite my desire to accept. I wanted as little to do with this woman as possible. It felt like Sarah was watching me, judging my attraction to this alien.

  "Let us leave him here then. We have our kill," said Eagle Eyes. Evidently deciding I was no threat to her, or maybe in a display of domination, she turned and walked over to the dead space chicken. Picking up the spear and shish-kabobbed bird, she shouldered the shaft and carried it that way. The weapon had really gone through the dead center of its body and stuck in completely. Its blood had coagulated and didn't run any more.

  "He is far from home. Is that how you would treat a visitor to our world?" asked the blonde. Her kindness was making it hard to hate her, but her friend wasn't exactly winning me over.

  "If he is from another world as he claims, then he could say where he came from," insisted Eagle Eyes in a harsh tone.

  "Earth," I said.

  "Earth? Ha, see, he is full of brahim shit."

  I began to stand. Not only because my ass and back were starting to get sore, but to show this rude woman that I wasn't afraid of her. "I came from Earth. I doubt you have the knowledge of astrology to understand anything about that though."

  "Remain civil," said Eagle Eyes. I wondered why I hadn't given the blonde a nickname in my head yet. Maybe I was too hesitant to let myself become familiar with her in any way.

  "That doesn't make sense. How did you come from Earth if you traveled to Earth?"

  Realization didn't dawn on me; it hit me like a bag of fucking bricks. "Are you telling me this is Earth? That's impossible."

  "We do not care what you believe, wanderer. Go back to your own people, wherever they are."

  The blonde walked over to her friend and whispered to her so I couldn't hear. They carried on this way with a short conversation as I stood there dumbfounded. With the magic apocalypse, as the news had named it, it was more than possible that this could be Earth in the future. Maybe our pod hadn't even left the planet. Then why wasn't it destroyed? Could we have somehow been turned around and come back? Or stuck in orbit? My head was spinning again, enough to make me physically dizzy. Standing up might not have been the best idea, as I felt sick all of a sudden.

  If these weren't aliens, they were definitely descended from the human race. If that were the case, there it was: they'd managed to carry on their genes without our help. Would Sarah really expect me to carry on now? Was this world worth living on? I no longer felt far away from home, but I was still more alone than I'd been in my entire life.

  "Will you allow us to help you retrieve your wife?" asked the blonde again, signaling that they'd finished their secret conversation. "It is our duty to help you."

  "Thank you," I said, too thrown to keep up my wall of resentment toward her. She was only being nice, after all. "I can't put you in danger like that. I'll do it by myself." I was by myself, and I figured that’s how I would be until something on this post-apocalyptic Earth killed me. It seemed
stupid to start believing I'd managed to end up in the future instead of on another planet, but that really did seem more likely than our pod happening across a planet where a human-like species was speaking plain English to me.

  "We will respect your wishes then. Goodbye." Then the lovely blonde followed after her impatient friend. She favored me with a little wave, forlorn in her movements. With that, they disappeared into the jungle.

  I could hear them talking to each other as they moved, otherwise silently, away. "Oh, fuck it all. Very well then!" shouted Eagle Eyes.

  The blonde reappeared and I felt my heart beat a pace faster, making me feel ashamed. "I will tell you one thing to help you with the oracs, the lake animals. Do you see the black berries in the bushes, over here, and here?" She pointed them out nearby. "They give an effect of sleep and are useful for calming aggressive animals. We crush and throw them into water to ease our fishing efforts."

  "You mean, if I do that, it'll put the hippo-crocs, I mean the oracs, to sleep?"

  She shied away from an immediate answer and shrugged. "I doubt that, but it will increase your chances."

  "Oh, well thank you."

  "It is the least I can do to help you. Also, take this weapon as a show of good faith and wishing that you give your wife her final resting place," said the blonde as she handed me one of her spears. That gesture elicited a grunt from good old Eagle Eyes with her shitty attitude, who I could not see but could still hear very close by in the jungle.

  4

  Now gripping the spear in my hands like it was a link to the past, I figured that interaction went as well as could be expected. I wasn't set upon by some man-eating horde anyway. An overall win given my situation. "You're really going for the bottom of the barrel now," I remarked. "And still talking to yourself."