The launch pad is slick with dew and the reflected sunrise. I linger at the top of the escalator, the whole city rolling out below me in pinks and brushed metal. My bag, studded with commemorative pins and a faded college patch, feels even heavier than it did at customs. I can still see Hannah's transport—a slender silver needle—pushing up into the cloudless violet sky. She's heading back to Kepler University for our second year, the same college light years from Earth that I'd followed her to last year. There's a trick to keeping your eyes on a departing ship, a trick they never teach you at orientation: never let your gaze linger on the tail flame, or you'll start to believe it's your own hope burning away.
I pull my jacket tighter and watch until the last echo of her shuttle flickers out. I could have gone with her on the earlier transport, if I'd changed my mind about staying an extra day at home. I didn't. Now it's just me, my bags, and a ticket on the late-morning jump back to campus. The terminal is almost empty, just a couple of maintenance workers rolling foam mats and a mother trying to reason with her sniffling toddler. Everyone else is either gone or waiting for the evening slot. I slip down the slick corridor, letting my steps ring hollow and loud.
My assigned pod is #118, a stubby bullet of white ceramic and clear plastic tucked under the launch overhang. I drag my bags up the ramp, passing the silent rows of identical vessels, each with its blinking green "READY" light. #118's hatch is open. Inside: a bare plastic entryway, the faint tang of ozone and cleaning solution, a row of hooks with a disposable poncho dangling like a threat.
The tiny spacecraft is actually set up like a small apartment for the full day journey ahead. I dump my things in the back storage area and take inventory. To the right, a fold-out twin bed tucked in the corner with recycled foam. In the center, a small living area with just enough room to pace. To the left, a compact kitchenette with a mini-fridge, one induction burner, and a set of utensils. The bathroom is just beyond—a tiny space with a curtained shower and a pressure-flush toilet. I resist the urge to check if the water is hot.
The small window is streaked from the night's rain. The view is a glossy mural of the city's edge, launch towers silhouetted in the distance like half-spent matches. My chest pinches. Somewhere out there, Hannah is checking her seat belt and texting me three smiling cats and a comet emoji.
I press my palm to the launch pad's call button. The entire pod vibrates as it's loaded into position. There's a gentle hiss as the air cycles and the hatch slides closed with a clunk. For a moment, it's as if the whole world exhaled and left me floating. The fact that there's no pilot—just me and an AI—makes my stomach twist with anxiety.
The intercom chirps, "Hello, Luna. Welcome aboard shuttle 118." The AI's voice is crisp and feminine. "Your estimated arrival is 14 hours, 32 minutes. Would you like the news, music, or silence for the duration of your flight?"
I consider. "Silence, please."
"Confirmed. Safety protocols begin in three, two, one—" The AI goes on about the safety in the small pod. Then it tells me to seat and how to buckle up, which I already know how from the previous year.
Then the count down to the launch starts, "Three, two, one, lift off."
The launch is almost anti-climactic. The force shoves me back into the contoured seat. My cheekbones tingle. I see the city tilt away, glass and steel replaced by the wrinkled cloud deck and then nothing at all. The pod's hull rattles as it punches through the atmosphere. For a second, I imagine the whole thing will just come apart, leave me tumbling through pink air and freezing to death.
But then the gravity stabilizers cut in, and the pod shifts into light speed travel mode. The stars outside stretch into long white lines, and suddenly we're racing through space faster than anything should move. I know the science—millions of tiny scanners throughout the galaxy track every ship to prevent collisions. The last crash happened over ten years ago. But knowing the statistics doesn't make me feel any better about an AI piloting me through the universe at light speed.
For a while, there's nothing to do but breathe and count the seconds. I pull out my phone and scan the last messages from home. A reminder from the registrar about my alien languages credits. A sticker from Hannah, one of her favorites: a cartoon cat bashing through a cardboard box. I type out a reply, then delete it before sending. Instead, I open the small fridge and find the standard meal packet—rice, beans, and a tube of orange sauce—plus a water flask with the university's logo. I pop the cap, take a sip. The water tastes like nothing.
I pace the tiny living area, tracing the floor's grooves, tapping on the instrument panel just to see if anything responds. It doesn't. The interior is as stripped as a monk's cell. Even the wall art is just a faded university banner, curling at the corners.
I try to read. I try to nap. Time flattens out, becomes a slow drag of minutes punctuated by the gentle whirr of the air vent and my own pulse, sometimes so loud I think it's the engine. Being trapped in this tiny metal box, surrounded by the endless void of space, makes my skin crawl. I miss solid ground, trees, the feeling of dirt under my feet.
Halfway through the trip, I realize I've been clenching my jaw so hard that my molars ache. I've been drinking water constantly because of my nerves, and now I really need to use the bathroom. I make my way to the tiny space, grateful for even a moment of movement.
I'm washing my hands, staring at myself in the mirror above the sink, when the first warning hits.
At first, it's just a muffled ping, like the oven timer in a neighbor's apartment. Then the light above the comm panel blinks from green to amber. The pod shivers, just enough that the water in the sink ripples. A second warning ping, louder, is followed by the AI's voice: "Attention. Space debris field detected. Course adjusting."
The pod jerks. My stomach drops, and I catch myself on the edge of the sink. "Course adjusting," the voice repeats. Through the tiny porthole, I can see flashes of light—probably rocks being deflected by our shields.
I try to head back to the main cabin, but the pod lurches again, harder this time. There's the unmistakable rattle of something bouncing off the hull. The sensors ping louder, like a heartbeat sped to panic.
"What's happening?" I call out, voice hoarse.
The AI responds: "Multiple debris contacts. Attempting evasive maneuvers."
There's a rapid-fire series of clangs, like hailstones on a tin roof. The pod rocks and tilts as the AI tries to navigate through whatever field of space junk we've hit. I brace myself against the bathroom walls, but the space is so tiny I'm getting thrown around like a rag doll.
That's when everything goes wrong.
The pod's interior suddenly darkens, emergency lighting flicking to red. A long, low howl fills the air—first mechanical, then almost animal. My head pounds in time with the rising alarm.
"Anomaly detected," the AI shouts, her voice warped by static. "Prepare for impact. Black hole! Warning! Take your seat! Black hole! Warning!"
But I'm trapped in the bathroom as gravity flips inside out. The pod spins, hard enough to slam me against every wall of the tiny space. My teeth click together, tongue crushed between them. My vision splotches white, then gray, then flashing red. I'm sure that at one point my body hits the ceiling light.
I scream, but the sound is vacuumed away, replaced by the shrieking whine of the hull straining against whatever force has grabbed us. The entire pod lurches, caught in some invisible current, tumbling end over end.
I'm weightless for a second, then pressed against the ceiling, then thrown against the wall so hard I see stars. My senses jumble. I taste blood, smell burnt plastic, hear my own heartbeat louder than the alarms.
The AI keeps screaming: "Warning! Warning! Black hole! Unable to break free!"
It's absurd, but I almost laugh. A new black hole, opening right in our path. What are the odds? Maybe I'll die before I ever make it back to campus. Maybe they'll find my body and wonder who packed this many books about alien linguistics for a second-year student.
The pod shudders one final time, then slams to a stop. I hit the bathroom wall with a sickening crack, and everything goes black.
I wake up sprawled on the bathroom floor, my left arm throbbing, my right hand completely numb. The alarms have stopped. Instead, there's a new sound: wind, sharp and insistent, whistling through cracks in the pod's hull.
I crawl out of the bathroom to find the main cabin tilted at a crazy angle. My bags are scattered everywhere, one ripped open with clothes spilled across the floor. The pod's hull is cracked and smoking.
It takes three tries to work the manual release on the hatch. When it finally opens, a wall of bright light floods in, and I squint against it.
I expect to see the familiar gray landscape of some moon, or maybe the metallic domes of an emergency station. Instead, I'm staring at grass. But not just any grass—bright yellow grass, swaying in an alien breeze.
I stumble out of the wreckage and immediately fall to my knees. The grass is soft and warm beneath me, and for a moment I'm just grateful to be on solid ground again. But as my vision clears, my relief turns to shock.
Everything is wrong.
The trees surrounding the clearing have deep red bark, like dried blood. Their leaves are brilliant yellow and purple, colors that should never exist in nature. The sky overhead is a rich lavender, with clouds streaked in orange and crimson.
I sit back on my heels, staring in disbelief. In all my studies of planetary science and alien worlds, there was one universal constant: every planet capable of supporting human life had the same basic colors. Green grass. Brown tree bark. Blue skies. It was a fundamental rule of atmospheric composition and plant biology. Every habitable world we'd ever discovered followed this pattern.
But this planet breaks every rule I've ever learned.
I push myself to my feet, legs shaking, and turn in a slow circle. Yellow grass stretches as far as I can see. Red-barked trees with their impossible purple and yellow leaves cluster around the edges of the clearing. The lavender sky seems to pulse with its own strange light.
This should be impossible. A planet with this atmospheric composition, this alien biology, shouldn't be able to support human life. I should be dead from toxic gases or radiation. But I'm breathing easily, and my body feels normal despite the crash.
Behind me, my pod smolders in the alien grass, one wing completely torn away. Somewhere in the distance, something that might be a bird makes a sound I've never heard before.
I'm alive. Against all scientific probability, I'm alive on a planet that shouldn't exist.
I take a shaky breath of the strange, sweet air and realize I might be the first human being to ever set foot on this impossible world.
The thought should terrify me. Instead, as I stand surrounded by yellow grass and purple sky, I feel something I haven't felt since leaving Earth: wonder.