GuNNhead

Not knowing the planet, he’s not sure if it’d be safer inside or outside of the cave in the case of an earthquake, so he starts slowly walking out of the cave, wishing his suit was repaired enough to do a tectonic scan. He’s fairly deep inside the cave, but the more he walks out, the stronger the vibrations get. He hears a rumbling coming from inside the cave. Thinking it to be a cave-in, he starts running for the exit. His foot gets caught on the soft ground near, tripping him up enough that the origin of the sound catches up to his position.

In one direction he can see the light of the entrance, illuminated by the fire. In the other direction, however, it is much, much more horrific than he fathomed. A mountain that was within the cave is bearing down on top of him. A giant funnel web spider has come from his depths, disturbed and enticed by the man’s disturbing vibrations upon its web. A smackerel of food wandering into its trap, it comes for him. Every move he makes, it can sense, but there’s nothing he can do, it knows exactly where he is, it can hone in on every breath, every heart beat. He stands for not but a second, then sprints for the exit with everything he’s got. It quickly maneuvers and strikes, fangs digging into calves, sending him tumbling further toward the exit. He swings his wrapped branch, hitting its massive, hulking exoskeletal armor. The spider does not even realize it was attacked, and hones in again for the kill. He swings again, nailing it directly in the center of one of its eight eyes. It strikes again out of anger before recoiling in pain, missing, and sending the man even closer to the exit; despite its size, the eyes are incredibly vulnerable. He notices the fire nearby, and lights the make-shift torch, and aims for another of its eyes.

He throws the entire lit torch; his shot is sure and true. The spider ducks, and the torch goes soaring over its head, majestically missing its intended target by meters. Though, with a lot of luck, the flame hits a soft spot on its back. The part it hit starts moving, violently; it’s caught fire, and catches the surroundings ablaze. Soon the man realizes what he hit. This spider on this planet carries its young on its back, and he hit one of the many young, setting it ablaze, which then set others ablaze. They scurry, leaving the mother, and heading to the safety of the inner web. The rest of the old, dry web catches like wildfire. The giant mother doesn’t know what to do, sent into a panic, she begins wavering back and forth, hitting the sides of the walls, and rocking the cave. Her actions crush the remaining clutches still attached to her back, some of their blood and guts puts out parts of the flame, but it is of no use, it’s all happening too fast, and she catches fire herself. She too now retreats to the back of the cave, only to meet her burning end in a giant fiery mess. The man can only watch, seeing only familiarity within death. Nothing survived in that cave, save for him. He walks out with it still blazing behind me.

The man slowly walks in the opposite direction, not really knowing what to do with himself. Unbeknownst to him, synapses are reforming, and thoughts occur without knowledge… They think that commonly, there’d some sort of recognizable thing to do, but this place doesn’t quite lend itself to their regenerating neural pathways, neither does my situation. They believe for a moment that it’s all about perspective, perhaps they are simply bewildered. His thoughts turn to hunger as its memory wrenches about his gut. “I think I remember… food. The giant bugs ate, I should too”

He walks into the jungle, in search of something to eat, or some signs of civilization. Though he especially and unknowingly searches for his mind. He comes upon a tall tree, with a cornucopia of large, yellow orbs at the very top. They remind him of fruits. The tree is far too broad around to climb, and he does not yet fully realize who he is, who I am.
“Okay,” he says aloud, “Let’s see if I can find some way to get those down.”
He searches for materials through a fog of recollection. A strong tree branch right at his feet in the brush seems optimal. There are another few smaller sticks around, he thinks perhaps to throw. Looking around, there’s nothing else that sparks recognition.
“Well,” he says, looking up, holding and shaking his materials gently, “I guess the food’s there… now… shelter?” He stretches, and feels a familiar twinge at the base of his neck. His suit’s repairing itself, slowly, alongside his perception. I may have enough power in a few hours. “…and kindling, for fire.”

He walks with his batch of mismatched wood through the jungle, it is nightfall by the time he finds a large cave opening. He goes into it, knowing that while it’s not the best shelter imaginable, it is still far too small for that mantis, and that he’d hear anything else coming, as they’re so large, “so,” he decides, “it should be good enough for the night.” With his kindling gathered, an electrostatic discharge from his hand starts a fire near the mouth of the cave. Still unknowing about his surroundings and his place in them, he looks around the cave curiously, and walks a bit deeper, casually exploring it. His suit constructs full spectral viewing lenses on instinct, with him unrealizing. As he gets deeper, he gets to softer ground, colored off-white. Walking even deeper, the ground gets softer, and thicker, it is no longer a covering on the ground, it is the ground. He picks up a piece of it and finds out that it’s some sort of string. He pulls, but it seems endless, so he roughly cuts a long bit off, and ties it to his piece of wood for a make-shift torch.
The ground starts to gently vibrate. “Must be a small earthquake…”

A body is suddenly awakened by a splash of cold water; no, not a splash, a torrent. Drowning under water, and, while refreshing in comparison to being under three feet of sand and dirt, still means death if one remains under it. The man swims upwards, against the current, and breaks the surface. He’s behind a waterfall, in a small rocky alcove, the sound of the falls echoing peacefully yet forcefully all around him. He stays for a tick, catching his breath, gaining his bearings before going back under the water, to get to the other side. Once under and out, he re-emerges, and sees his surrounding: a dense jungle. Swimming for the beach, he wonders what he could possibly be doing here.

He reaches the wet sand, and lays there for a moment, composing himself. Then, he is slightly annoyed by a buzzing. It’s loud, so figuring it’s close, he swats it away, but it does not disappear. In fact, it gets louder. A gentle breeze cools his face, and he tries to ignore the buzzing and flapping of wings. The sound soon becomes deafening, and to his closed eyes it seems a cloud is blocking the calm sun. He opens them to see some sort of giant wasp hovering over him, as tall as the trees around, salivating over this morsel of food laid out before it. Its large pincers could easily slice him in half, and he would be worried about that, if the wasp could not swallow him whole with just as much ease. It strikes with its strong mandibles – he rolls to the side, and just barely evades an acid filled death inside the belly of this giant insect. Confused that it has missed its target, and gotten a mouthful of sand, it scuttles around, breaking down trees in its wake. It regains its bearings, as the man heads for the tree line for cover. It attacks again as he leaps behind the tree that its giant pincers cut in twain like butter. Disturbed, it scuttles around again, flapping its wings, sending a gust of wind the man’s way, knocking him off his feet. He gets up as the wasp-like giant hones in on him once more, staring at him, locked on his movements with its large compound, insect eyes. The man runs without looking for a path, his eyes locked firmly on the wasp. As it is about to strike, he runs into a tree, and falls down. The wasp takes this opportunity to go for the final death-blow. Its pincers are about to grasp the man, and tear him into pieces, when it stops suddenly…

A loud screech emanates from it, a tortuous, deafening screech. The man looks again at the wasp, as it lifts into the air, six arms flailing, its wings not twitching; a giant, green single sythen claw through its abdomen. An even larger praying mantis is the owner of this claw, and it grasps the wasp tighter, bringing it to its mouth, and it starts devouring it, head first. The man stares on in amazement. The sight is magnificent and terrifying. The mantis chews through the wasp’s body quickly, yet savoring every bite, the wasp’s legs twitching the whole time. When it finishes its meal it is left with only the wings, which it tosses to the side nonchalantly, before returning the way it came, its belly made large and black, filled with the chewed carcass of the now-digesting wasp.