Chapter 1

Elian awoke to darkness.

For a moment, he was still lost in the hazy world of dreams, half-remembered images slipping through his fingers.

Then reality slammed into him, hard enough to make his head spin.

With a groan, he sat up in his cryopod, the restraints automatically unfurling and sliding away at his command. The thick, reinforced glass of the pod”s lid was already open, the thick, hot air of the ship filling his lungs.

He coughed, shaking himself awake. Hot air? The generation ship”s air was usually cool, filtered, clean.

What was happening?

Elian looked around for someone else. His pod was the last of the row, furthest to the back. As everyone had been getting into their pods, he”d joked about having the worst seat on this trip.

From his position, he could look out over the long rows of cryopods.

They weren”t opening. Their lids were closed firmly, their screens blank. The rest of the cryobay was dark, lit only by the frantic, pulsing flash of emergency lights.

The silence was absolute, the kind of deep, profound quiet that was almost its own presence. There were no hums of machinery, no distant echoes of human voices — nothing.

The ship was dead.

Elian”s heart began to race. He”d been told that the journey to his new home would be a long one, but he”d be asleep for the entire trip. He”d been told that he”d wake up to find his new life on the colony planet ready and waiting for him.

A place to belong, waiting to accept him. A place to finally call home. He”d counted down every day until launch.

But now something was wrong.

Elian winced as a shower of sparks rained down from a ruptured ceiling panel. The acrid stench of burnt circuitry stung his nostrils, setting his eyes watering. Red emergency lights flickered and strobed, casting the corridor in an apocalyptic glow.

He had to move. He stumbled to his feet, still clumsy from his long sleep.

Just… just get to the control room. You can open the pods from there. Wake the others.

The thoughts pounded in his head, drilled into him by training. He tried to remember all of those training lectures and information packets, running over those In Case of Emergency… procedures as a mantra to focus his mind against the growing sense of panic fluttering in his chest.

He staggered out of the cryobay, desperately heading toward the command center. It was… around here, right, down the hallway — hot, why was everything so hot?— and then you followed the emergency lighting…

Elian rounded a corner. The corridor opened up into a gaping void, the path ahead reduced to twisted and shredded metal.

The hull had been torn open.

They”d crashed.

Smoke billowed. The ship was burning. Elian coughed, waving a hand before his face as his eyes streamed. He fumbled for his shirt, yanking the thin fabric up to cover his mouth and nose.

This was insane. He was just a passenger, a nobody. He was supposed to be a colonist on a new planet, building quarters, planting food, securing safe water.

Not this. Nothing like this.

What the hell was he supposed to do if the others didn”t wake up?

There! Through the smoke, he could see the door to the control center, illuminated by flashing emergency lights. There was just enough of the corridor remaining for him to get to it.

Gritting his teeth, Elian clambered over debris, shards of metal biting into his palms. When he brushed against some, squeezing past, it burnt, making him hiss with pain. An alarm blared, the piercing shriek setting his teeth on edge. Warning lights flickered erratically, painting the smoke in lurid shades of crimson.

Just a little farther. He had to wake everyone else. He had to…

Finally, he was there. Elian surged forward, scrambling over the debris, heart pounding in his ears. He slipped through the doorway, eyes wide, breath rasping in his throat.

Most of the screens were off. The ship was running on backup power, only showing the essential panels. The flickering emergency lights cast an eerie crimson glow over the bio-readings of the cryopods.

Hundreds of them, all in a list.

And they all read the same thing: NO LIFE SIGNS.

No.

He didn”t know how long the word echoed in his mind, hollow and numb. His legs felt like lead, rooting him to the spot. But the acrid stench of smoke soon stung his nostrils, jolting him back to reality. A curl of black vapor was drifting lazily from a ruptured console, the first tendril of flame licking hungrily at the plastic housing.

Elian”s heart stuttered in his chest. He spun on his heel, shoes skidding on the deck as he fled back the way he”d come. Smoke now billowed in thick clouds, stinging his eyes, clogging his lungs with each ragged gasp.

He couldn”t think, couldn”t process. His mind reeled in terror and denial. It couldn”t be real, it just couldn”t. Not when he”d finally dared to hope that there was a place for him—

No. Stop it. Don”t go there.

Focus. Survive.

The words were a lifeline, pulling him back from the brink as he scrambled over the twisted wreckage. Pain blossomed in his palms, in his knees, but he barely registered it. Just keep moving. Don”t stop. Can”t stop.

There! The emergency lights led to what he needed: the emergency exit. It was just ahead of him, a thick, circular hatch built into the bulkhead.

Elian lunged for the manual release, yanking down on the lever with every ounce of strength he possessed.

Please don”t be broken, too…

Please don”t let me be trapped in here!

Finally, with a shudder and a groan of protesting metal, the hatch cracked open, a sliver of harsh light bleeding in from outside. Elian grunted, bracing himself as the hatch swung wide, the effort pulling the breath from his lungs.

Then he froze, eyes widening in shock at the sight that greeted him.

Not the lush, verdant fields of the colony planet that he”d been promised. Not rolling meadows and full blue lakes shimmering beneath an alien sun.

Just… desolation.

A vast, empty plain of rust-red rock and dust stretched out to the horizon. The sky above was a bruised, mottled canopy of sickly greens and burnt oranges, roiling stormclouds flickering with silent lightning.

Elian”s breath caught in his throat, a hollow ache blossoming in his chest.

But there was no time to stare. The ship gave a violent shudder, the squeal of tearing metal echoing from somewhere deeper within its mangled interior. Smoke billowed through the corridor, stinging Elian”s eyes, forcing him to turn away with a ragged cough.

He had no choice. No alternative. Staying meant a slow, choking death as the fire consumed what little remained.

Out there… No matter what it looked like, at least he had a chance.

With a grunt of effort, Elian hauled himself through the hatch and tumbled down the short distance to the planet”s surface. Loose gravel skittered beneath his boots as he fought to keep his balance, the howling wind tugging insistently at his pathetically thin sleeping clothes.

All around him, the wreckage of the starship lay scattered in a wide debris field. Twisted shards of metal glinted dully, the flickering flames casting an eerie crimson glow over the devastation. A thick plume of oily black smoke billowed skyward from the ruptured hull, roiling and churning in the biting wind.

Elian turned in a slow circle, heart pounding as he scanned the blasted landscape. Nothing. No movement, no signs of life or civilization as far as the eye could see. Just endless miles of that flat, rusty plain fading into the murky twilight. In the distance, it climbed into sharp, jutting hills, covered in a forest of thick, skulking trees.

What planet was this?! Where in the universe had their journey taken them? Elian raised his gaze to the bruise-colored sky, squinting against the biting wind.

No familiar stars or constellations. No shining moons to offer even the faintest sense of familiarity or comfort.

Just that seething, storm-wracked void stretching endlessly overhead.

Elian was alone. Utterly, hopelessly alone.

With a visible effort, Elian straightened his shoulders and began to walk, putting one foot in front of the other. Away from the burning wreckage, away from the bitter ashes of a dream turned to dust.

Alone, but not beaten. There had to be a way to survive this nightmare.

He had to believe that.

He had no other choice.

The wind howled across the desolate plain, whipping up swirls of rusty dust that stung Elian”s eyes. He finally reached the cover of the woods, ducking out of that infernal wind.

He shielded his face with one hand as he surveyed the barren landscape. Night was falling fast. The sickly green skies were already fading to inky blackness, the last feeble rays of the alien sun disappearing over the horizon.

Elian”s breath was beginning to plume in frosty clouds before him. He hadn”t expected the temperature to plummet so rapidly. But there was no time to dwell on it. He had to find shelter.

It took most of the dwindling sunlight to find a small crevice tucked up between jutting alien rocks. Elian began methodically settling down into it, curling up into a ball.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Don”t think about the flames licking at the ship”s mangled hull. Don”t think about the cryopods and the lives they were supposed to protect.

Just focus on the task at hand. One step at a time.

He tugged his knees to his chest, movements stiff and jerky in the cramped confines. The wind screamed past outside, a banshee howl that set his teeth on edge. His stomach roiled, reminding him of just how long it had been since his last real meal.

He was supposed to wake up to the medical team offering him rations. He was supposed to sit quietly for thirty minutes while his vitals were monitored, getting his strength back.

He wasn”t supposed to flee a burning spaceship, and curl up in the woods like a lost creature.

Elian groaned, resting his head against his knees. Outside, the first few pinprick stars were winking into existence, alien constellations charting their stately paths across the bruised canvas of the sky.

How many light years had he traveled to wind up here, huddled alone beneath a foreign sky?

A lump rose in his throat, the grief sudden and visceral. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the tears came anyway, hot, stinging tracks that cut through the grime on his cheeks.

This wasn”t how it was supposed to be. If only he”d known. If he”d had even an inkling of the nightmare that awaited them all, maybe he could have…

Could have what? Stopped it? Changed the course of events? Don”t be a fool. You”re just a passenger, a name on a manifest. None of this was ever in your control.

He was so tired. Now that the adrenaline from the escape had ebbed away, bone-deep weariness dragged at his limbs.

Elian”s lashes fluttered, his breathing evening out into the slow, steady rhythm of encroaching slumber. Exhaustion clouded his mind, the ragged edges of despair fraying into blessed numbness—

A sound. Faint but distinct, subtle underneath the mournful keening of the wind.

Elian”s eyes snapped open, body going rigid. He held his breath, straining to hear…

There it was again. A soft sound, like a footfall. Coming from outside the shelter, somewhere out in the endless night.

He wasn”t alone.