No Man’s Sky

It’s raining outside. 

Every once in a while, a plane from the Chicago Air Show whooshes past. I can hear the pitter-patter of raindrops tapping on the ivy covering my tiny backyard. Or is it the giant banana leaves catching the toxic acid rain? Wide leaves sprout from thick, hairy stumps and crowd the sky of this lush moon. I can't be sure where each sound is coming from anymore. It's like a lavish symphony.

An engine sound whooshes past high above as I sneak among overgrown mushrooms and iridium deposits. I’m trying to get a better look at the massive lizard-like creature on the barren sand lake. What was that whizzing sound? A spaceship in a fast, low orbit, perhaps? We’re in a massive crater surrounded by gargantuan rock formations. The overgrown lizard is the only animal I can see here — the first of its species I’ve encountered.

The caustic thunderstorm is eating away at my suit. I should find a sandstone cave and take shelter. I have a vague recollection of a city, I think with tall skyscrapers, but fragments of this distant memory are fading. A half-shadow of a word tries to cling to existence, Cheeg, Chakagoo, something like that, but it’s too late, it disappears completely.

I step on a thorny flower, which crumples loudly under my boot. The sound startles the lizard. It suddenly looks in my direction for a second; then immediately vanishes into the thick underbrush. The acid is slowly finding its way through the layers of my suit. Warning, toxicity levels rising, its computer declares in a soothing, almost maternal voice. I think I'm lost.