Wishful Thinking

His world consisted only of smoke, flame and that constant screaming siren.

The starship's sensors had frozen over completely and off of those readings, the autopilot had taken control
and steered him directly into an unknown planet's gravity field as the engines burned themselves up.

There he sat uselessly pulling up on the control stick and frantically mashing buttons but he knew there was
nothing he could do. No way to override the computer. The programmers had counted on him to make mistakes but
never the autopilot.

He marveled at how quickly the ground was racing towards him and began pulling up on the useless
stick even harder, but who was he kidding? No, it was clear to see that the atmosphere had already burned
up his controls too.

Maybe he could slow his ship. "Did the air brakes still work?" he wondered. He desperately began flipping
the switches to engage them, but they too didn't seem to be firing.

The ground drew up to him and he felt his eyes close and every muscle in his body tense.
"This is it. This is the end," he thought to himself. He barely cracked open an eye but quickly shut it again.

That's when he heard the crash. He heard it way before he felt it but when he did, he felt it in every bone
in his body. He hit the ground with a sickening thud. He must have been thrown from the wreck somehow.
He lay there sprawled on the ground, his muzzle in the dirt. He felt nothing. Was he dead?
No, the pain crawled up to him. Oh no, this was much worse then being dead.

How long did he lay there panting, fading in and out of consciousness? Minutes? Hours? Days? He could not
tell.

When he could finally breathe again, think again, he slowly pulled his golden eyes open one by one until
all six were staring at the alien world around him. He had to admit to himself that he was terrified of
what he saw but he took in his surroundings none the less.

He lay about twenty feet from the main body of the starship, still where he had been thrown, in piles
of smoking wreckage that used to be his home. Metal shards jutted up from the rubble like jagged
teeth from a gaping mouth. Flames were busily engulfing everything and a sickly white ash fell
about him from the smoky star studded sky. Gigantic plants that towered above him swayed in a
sharp cold breeze. He didn't have anything like those on his home planet.

Achingly pulling himself to his feet, he took notice of a dull throb in his arm. A ragged gash was
etched across it. Reaching down he pulled a strip of fabric from the rubble, which no doubt used to
be a lining for the interior of the ship. Clenching his teeth to keep himself from whimpering he
began tying up his wound. "At least I'm still alive..." he thought to himself.

Just as he was pulling his bandage tight a high pitched scream echoed from behind him. Flinching,
he yanked his bandage way too tight and a throbbing pain shot up his shoulder. He spun around to
see a strange figure obviously frozen with fear. "Strange, only two eyes," he murmured to himself.
It's short flat face was also very bizarre, almost disturbing, like it was missing a key feature.
He doubted if this nasty, half bald lump of flesh could help him but it never hurt to try.

He took a step forward and gave a reassuring gesture, "Please! I need your help! My name is Pilot and..." (well, that was
what his friends called him. No one could really pronounce his real name...) He was cut off by another barbaric screech.
The alien slowly began to back away. It babbled something indecipherable in its native language and then it
took off running, almost surely to alert the others of its kind. He would have to get out of
here, and soon.

"Never mind then!" He yelled after it. Pilot watched as it crashed through the underbrush into the distance and disappeared.
His fur and tail blew in the crisp night air and he shook his head as ash settled down on it from of
the dark blue sky. (Imagine that. A blue sky!)
He stood there confused. Why had the creature been so afraid of him?! He had done nothing to harm it!
How strange. If it had been so afraid then he was sure others of its kind would be, too.

So there he was, this would have to be his new home forever. "How ironic!" He thought.
His friends called him Pilot, yet HE was the one stuck down here while they were among the stars.
He was the one marooned on an alien inhabited planet where everything feared him.
An alien world, where he was hurt, scared, and lonely, with no one to talk to but himself.
Oh, how he wished he were up there among the stars and not down here.
Maybe someone would notice and come looking for him.

No... He was completely alone and he knew wishful thinking would get him nowhere.



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