I couldn’t see a thing. The darkness was all encompassing. My body still ached from the crash landing, but I was somehow still alive. I felt for serious wounds and was surprised to find all my appendages remained intact. The only injuries I suffered were a swollen ankle and a dislocated shoulder, which I promptly popped back into place with a great deal of pain.

Luckily, the nanite implants in my lungs had calibrated themselves to this planet’s atmosphere, allowing me to breathe. I was still groggy and a bit light-headed, but things could have been worse.

The black void that surrounded me sent chills down my spine, so I tapped the forearm interface on my cyberskin. I enabled the illumination mode, causing light strips on my arms and chest to put out a soft white glow.

I found myself in a small windowless room barely large enough for the bed I laid upon. The walls were mismatched panels of blue, silver, and red. It was like the entire place was built by colorblind construction workers. A single door served as the only entrance into the space.

“Where the hell am I?” I mumbled to myself.

“Glad to see you are awake.”

I spun around searching for the speaker, but there was nobody there. The unidentifiable voice was coming from directly inside my head.

“I apologize. I did not mean to startle you.”

The door opened and what appeared to be a teenage girl joined me in the room. It was only when I shone my light upon her that I saw all of her alien features. She was small in stature with long, blue tendrils in place of her hair. Her fingers and toes extended to twice the length of her hands. She wore no clothes, so I could see that the rest of her bare body looked like that of a typical adolescent human, albeit an extremely pale one. Everything appeared normal except for her face which was lacking one major feature: She had no eyes. Her forehead simply went straight down to her nose.

“Where am I? Where’s my ship?”

The voice inside my head responded, “We found your vessel in ruins amidst the great plains. You were in critical condition, so we brought you back here to the safety of our village. My name is Nia.”

She was communicating telepathically. I figured that was the reason why I could understand her. It wasn’t like listening to somebody’s normal speech pattern. It was as if her alien thoughts were being implanted directly into my skull and my brain had to slowly sift through the information.

“I’m Commander Marley Duo of the Kessel-Nine. Were there others at the crash site?”

“All others aboard your vessel have perished. I am sorry for your loss.”

The news hit me hard. A gnawing sensation filled the pit of my stomach. My navigator Alicia, my engineer Dillan, and those rambunctious Vinha twins. All dead. My crew was gone and I was the only one left. A sense of panic flooded my mind.

“You have to take me to the crash site,” I urged her.

“I am afraid there is nothing to salvage. The great plains are vast and your vessel is scattered into a million pieces.”

Not only was I alone, I was stranded. Nobody would be looking for me because my crew and I were traveling in uncharted space when my craft went down. I had thrust the Kessel-Nine to its limits, desperate to become the first explorer to cross into the Velthus System. Even after my engineer warned me of the dangers, I stubbornly pushed forward until we could see the purple stars of Hyperion. It was a hollow victory that had cost me my crew. Even worse, nobody would ever find out about my achievement since there was little hope of returning home. I slumped down on my bed in despair.

Nia sat down beside me and wrapped her elongated fingers around my hands. It was her way of consoling me. Having lost everything and everyone I’d ever known, it was comforting to know that this alien girl was here for me in my time of need.

I was allowed ample bed rest to recuperate from my injuries. During which Nia taught me about her culture and her people. Fextrils were a race of blind telepaths that used their hyper-sensitive skin to navigate their way through this world. Therefore, interaction with their environment was limited to the things that they could touch, taste, smell, or hear. I tried to describe vision to them, but they had no concept of sight and couldn’t even fathom the sense. Even their telepathic abilities didn’t allow them to understand something so foreign to their physiology.

I suspected that the Fextrils never developed eyesight because their world lacked sunlight of any kind. A heavy layer of atmospheric gas completely blocked out the closest star’s rays so that no light ever reached the planet’s surface. Perpetually plagued by darkness, they never had a need for vision.

At first, it was difficult to distinguish time without any sun or moon for reference. Nia explained to me that her people measured time passing by the fluctuating levels of gravitational pull. When I first arrived, my cyberskin told me that I weighed ten percent more on this planet than I did on Earth. However, every few hours I would feel myself grow lighter until I was only one-quarter my original weight. It would cycle back and forth like day and night. During the light weight intervals, known as denba to the Fextrils, they would head out to gather their food. The reduced gravity allowed them to move at a faster rate and accomplish their tasks much more easily.

As the gravitational cycles passed, I learned about their social hierarchy and Nia’s high status among them. She was the king’s daughter, highly respected and revered for her wisdom. I would have been abandoned at the wreckage site if it weren’t for her pleas to aid me, so I had her to thank for my life. She was my teacher in this new world and I eventually forged a strong bond with her.

On the twelfth denba, my swollen ankle no longer bothered me so I asked if I could journey outside the village to explore. Nia agreed and we headed for the great plains. Since the illumination mode on my cyberskin only provided enough light for me to see my immediate surroundings, I decided to construct a large torch from vines I found at the marsh near Nia’s village. Igniting them was simply a matter of recalibrating my cyberskin to produce a small electrical bolt to set the vines ablaze. With my newfound light source, I was ready to explore the fields with Nia.

When we arrived, there were hundreds of other Fextrils already there, each one padding at the ground searching for something.

“What is it that they’re seeking?” I asked curiously.

“Spuds,” she replied. I had been eating the stuff for several cycles and thought its texture was similar to that of a spongey yam. Not my favorite thing to eat, but I wasn’t going to insult my hosts by rejecting their food.

I watched as the foraging Fextrils picked up spuds from the ground, sniffed the ends, and then tossed most of them aside. I picked up one of the discarded pieces and handed it to Nia.

“What was wrong with this one?”

She ran her fingertips along its spongy exterior and then sniffed it in the same way the other Fextril had done.

“It is customary to leave food behind for the planet. We do that so the spuds can grow and fuel future harvests.”

“Why don’t you just plant these in soil and cultivate the crops periodically? On my planet, we call that farming. It’s much faster than this foraging method.”

“This way is sustainable. It minimizes our impact on the land.”

I shrugged, a gesture completely lost on the blind alien. Their methods seemed incredibly inefficient, but it wasn’t my place to correct them. I held my tongue and continued walking with Nia.

Next, I was shown a spud silo in the process of being constructed. Nia told me it was nearly complete. A group of Fextrils were securing together the last few leafy panels to create walls for the dome structure. I walked up to the silo and could feel how flimsy it was.

“Aren’t there building materials available that are more dense than this? I think you should reinforce your silo with something stronger.”

“That is the material we have always used.”

I knelt down and inspected the ground. Underneath the moss and spuds were sheets of vegetation that felt leathery. I handed a strip of it to Nia.

“Wouldn’t this material be better suited for your construction needs?” I asked.

She rubbed it between her long fingers and then gave it a good sniff before setting it back down on the ground.

“That is not what we use for building silos, Commander Marley Duo.”

Again, I shrugged. I was sure some wild alien animal would be able to break into that dome fairly easily. However, I didn’t want to interfere with the Fextril’s way of doing things.

We continued on until we reached the Nectar Trails, a place where oversized fruit was abundant, growing on arched trees that rose fifty feet into the sky. Nia told me that as a child she would walk through this place with her mouth open and head tilted back. Occasionally, nectar would drip on to her tongue. I considered telling her about the enormous fruit overhead from which that nectar came, but then decided against it. The Fextrils seemed to be set in their ways and an introduction of this new food source would only be met with resistance. They were happy eating their spuds, so why not allow them to continue.

Halfway through the trail, I noticed a set of large footprints intersecting our path.

“What kind of creature created these tracks?” I asked her.

Nia used her long fingers to feel the indentation on the ground. Her mouth was agape as she slowly backed away.

“It approaches.”

“What approaches?” I asked with concern. I could sense her aura of dread being transmitted telepathically to me.

“The Behemoth comes once every hundred cycles. It is a creature of unimaginable power. I must tell my father to prepare for its arrival.”

“Is it heading to the village?” I ask bewildered.

“Yes, we must offer it our spuds.”

After seeing how difficult it was for the Fextrils to acquire food, I was bewildered as to how easily they were willing to part with it. They spent hours upon hours feeling through moss fields for these spuds with their elongated fingers and toes. All of that work just to offer it as tribute to the Behemoth?

“What reason do you have to feed this creature?”

“It protects us.”

“From what?”

“From the danger up above. Our ancestors told us that this is the only way to maintain balance in the world.”

“I’m from up above and I assure you there is nothing you need protection from. Surely, there must be some other way to appease this beast,” I said.

“This is how it has always been, Commander Marley Duo. Why do you question the ancient ways?”

“Because the ancient way isn’t always the best way.” I couldn’t stand idle anymore. The Fextrils needed my help. My opinions about food gathering and construction methods might not have mattered, but this was different. This Behemoth was terrorizing the poor Fextrils through fear and I wasn’t going to stand for it.

“You don’t need protection from the dangers above. That’s ridiculous. The only thing you need protection from is that beast. I can provide you with a way to eliminate the Behemoth once and for all.”

“How? We cannot communicate with him.”

“Then we use force to make him understand he’s not wanted here.”

“We cannot overcome the Behemoth through physical means, Commander Marley Duo. It can smell us from afar and would surely decimate any attempt we make upon it.”

“I know of a way to eliminate the Behemoth. Just trust me.”

I used the lights on my cyberskin to follow the giant creatures tracks. We walked almost two miles before finally finding the slumbering beast resting on a hillside. It was so large that I initially mistook it for a rock formation. The Behemoth was easily two hundred feet long with armored plates covering its back. It’s thorny tail curled around its massive body guiding my focus to its monstrous jaws. It looked like a cross between a dinosaur and scorpion. I now understood why it was so feared by Nia’s people.

“It sleeps,” she told me, ears perking up between her blue tendrils. “Are you going to eliminate it now, Commander Marley Duo?”

I snuck around the Behemoth to examine its features. Just like the Fextrils, it did not possess eyes. If it couldn’t see me, that meant I would have a huge advantage over it in battle. Still, there was no way I was going to kill a creature of that size with the pulsebeam I had on my cyberskin. I needed more firepower.

Nia and I returned to the village and asked her father to assist us. I told him that with his help we could slay the beast that had been bullying his people for generations. I asked him to come with me to the crash site and help me piece together one of my ship’s cannons. The king was apprehensive and did not approve.

“Your plan is foolish. There is nothing powerful enough to fell the Behemoth. We will simply give it what it wants in exchange for its protection.”

The king was as proud as he was stubborn. I tried to describe how I could shoot it from a distance, but he wouldn’t listen. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the concept of vision. It didn’t matter that I was a skilled marksman because he couldn’t even begin to understand what eyesight was.

Frustrated by his inaction, I took matters into my own hands. I began recruiting Fextril citizens to aid me in repairing my ship’s cannon and mounting it on the village’s tallest tower. Nia was reluctant to help at first, but my unwavering confidence in the weapon’s abilities eventually swayed her. With her help, I had the weapon rebuilt and operational in time for the Behemoth’s arrival.

The gravitational pull increased and it was the end of the denba. The Behemoth was set to arrive. Sure enough, I used my cyberskin’s scanners and detected the lumbering creature heading straight for the village through the canyon. I placed torches along the rock walls so that I could see it from afar. I lined up my shot and fired a pulsar beam directly at it.

The creature’s pained cries echoed throughout the village. Its armored backside crashed against the canyon wall and an avalanche of rocks buried the giant beast.

I had done it. I had slayed the Behemoth.

I descended the tower, expecting to be received as a hero. However, the king saw things differently. I told him I’d slayed the creature and he responded with outrage.

“You’ve doomed us all, Commander Marley Duo. You are banished from this village. May the dangers from up above consume you first.”

I pleaded with the king to let me stay, but he wouldn’t listen. His mind was made up and I was escorted out of the village. I bid Nia farewell and set out into the unknown darkness all alone.

I was sure the king would regret his decision to banish me once he realized how much better things were without the Behemoth. Maybe he would even invite me back in a few denbas when he saw how plentiful the spuds were. In the meantime, I’d have to survive on my own for a while.

First, I constructed a shelter out of the leathery material I found on the ground. It was much sturdier than the leafy substance the Fextrils used to build their silo. Then I gathered up some spuds and ate them without sacrificing half of them “for the planet.” Finally, I picked an oversized fruit from the Nectar Trails and brought it back to my shelter. I was all set. I had food and shelter. Riding out this rough patch would be easy.

Or so I thought.

My assumptions were completely off the mark. When the denba ended and gravity increased, my sturdy structure came crashing down on top of me. The flexibility of the Fextril’s leafy domes were what allowed them to remain standing during the heavy cycles. Then there were the spuds which I ate without inspection. Several bouts of diarrhea were enough to teach me a lesson I wouldn’t soon forget.

As cycles passed, something odd started to happen in the sky. The darkness that permeated throughout the planet began to fade. I investigated the matter and made a shocking discovery. The Behemoth was responsible for the thick layer of atmosphere that blotted out the planet’s sun. After it’s cyclical feast, it would go into a hibernation and release a noxious gas into the atmosphere. Without the Behemoth pumping out that gas, there was nothing to block out the light.

With each passing cycle, the rays grew brighter. The light from the planet’s sun intensified more and more. Temperatures rose to an unbearable degree. My cyberskin warned me that the planet would get hotter until it could no longer sustain any life. Eventually it became so bright that I could no longer handle it. I woke up one denba and opened my eyes too quickly. The flash of light flooded my retinas and I was plunged into darkness once more. I had lost my vision permanently.

The danger from up above was real. I assumed I knew what was best for the Fextrils, but I was wrong. In the end, I was the one too blind to understand this planet.

I see that now.