Cosmic Dominion: Rise Beyond Realms

The deafening boom of my impact echoed in the landscape around me. But I couldn't hear it. The only sound that I could hear was my ragged breathing—and my screams…

"ARRRGHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The pain tore through me. It was relentless. My body, or what was left of it, was a wreck.

Skin?

My skin… it was gone. It peeled away by the heat of reentry. My muscle was totally exposed. My bones? Every single one of them was shattered, grinding against each other like shards of broken glass. 

I lay motionless at the bottom of the crater. I opened my eyes, and the steep, jagged walls of the crater rose like a cage around me. The ground beneath me was hard and cracked, and the soil was totally dry. I could also see faint lines of alien grass sprouting here and there.

The air was stifling. The heat pressed down on me, relentless. I couldn't see the horizon or the vastness of the alien world outside. The only thing I could see was the jagged lip of the crater above, silhouetted against the massive, fiery sun that loomed in the burnt orange sky…

My breathing was shallow, and each inhale tasted like hot dust. I looked up at the walls surrounding me. "Great. Just great. I survived the fall, only to die in this damn hole…"

My thoughts were quickly drowned out by the pain. It clawed at me from every angle.

"ARGHHHHHHHHH!" I screamed, my voice echoing in the crater wall. "It hurts!!!! Every part of my body hurts!!!!"

I slowly tried to lift my arm to check the damage, but even the slightest movement sent waves of excruciating pain throughout my body.

"My skin...!!!" I gasped. "There's... nothing left!!"

I could see my raw muscle fibres and tissues. The sight of my raw, blistered muscles exposed to the open air made me kind of feel dizzy. Blood came from every inch of my body and pooled around me in thick, dark puddles.

"Why am I still alive?!!!" I screamed into the emptiness, the raw desperation in my voice cutting through the silence.

The alien landscape offered no answers. The only sound was the soft rustle of the red grass and the occasional groan of the wind.

I laughed bitterly, my voice cracking. "First years of floating in nothingness... and now this? A perfect little wasteland to die in?"

The laugh turned to a cough, then a choked sob. "Maki..." I whispered, my voice trembling. "I'm sorry. I don't think... I don't think I can keep going."

4 days passed...

"WHY?!" I screamed, my voice raw and broken. "WHY WOULDN'T IT END?! JUST LET ME DIE!!!"

I lay in the middle of the crater, unable to move a single inch. The heat of the sun overhead baked the air around me, and the hard, cracked earth beneath me offered no comfort. 

I gritted my teeth, and my lips cracked with the effort as I tried to speak. "Is this it?" I croaked, my voice hoarse and barely audible. "My body... It's completely devastated. Please let me die. Someone please take my soul..."

Time passed very slowly. Each second was agonising. The sun blazed overhead, and the intensity of it sucked every drop of moisture out of my body. Every breath was a struggle. 

"Arghhhhhhh!" I screamed. My voice was ragged and broken, tearing from my throat as if it might release the pain. But it didn't. It never did..

I glanced at the jagged walls of the crater, my vision swimming. I begged to die every day, but I kept on living... or surviving. The pain was far worse than death.

"Just... kill me already!"

The echoes of my voice faded into the suffocating silence. Nothing answered—not the planet, not the void, not even the darkness that I begged to take me.

The days blurred together. The sun rose and set, the relentless heat never wavering. My body refused to give in, clinging to life. My mind, however, wasn't as strong…

I began to hear voices—whispers on the scorching wind, faint and indistinct. They called my name, mocked me, taunted me…

"Shin... you survived five years of nothing... just to end up here?"

Another voice sneered, its tone cruel and cutting. "You can't even move. You're pathetic..."

"Shut up," I whispered, clutching at the ground with trembling fingers. "Just... shut up..."

The voices only laughed, their mocking tone echoing in my mind.

By the end of the first week, I was totally broken. My sanity teetered on the edge. The weight of the pain and isolation dragged me deeper into despair… 

I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my blistered palms. I closed my eyes, and tears streamed down my face. "Maki..." I whispered her name. The memories of her were a lifeline and a curse at the same time. "I'm sorry... I couldn't keep my promise... I'm sorry..."

"Get up…" a voice whispered—not the mocking tone of my hallucinations, but my own voice. It was quiet but firm.

I blinked, my tears drying in the oppressive heat. "Why?" I muttered the question directed at myself. "Why bother?"

"Because you're still here…" the voice replied. "Because you survived this long. Because giving up isn't an option."

The pain was unbearable, but my mind screamed not to back down without a fight. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to push through it...

I growled, the words directed at the void, "You want me to keep going? Then I'll keep going."

Time had lost all meaning. For about a month, I had lain in the crater motionlessly, totally unconscious. 

After about a month, the intense pain had begun to dull. My skin, once stripped away to raw muscle and bone, had started to mend, the blistered patches smoothing over, though still tender to the touch. My shattered bones, somehow, had knitted themselves back together…

Slowly, I opened my eyes and blinked against the harsh light of the massive sun overhead, its rays baking the ground around me...

I raised my arm weakly, expecting to see the charred remains of my skin. Instead, what greeted me was... normalcy.

I stared at my hand, flipping it over slowly, my fingers trembling. The skin was smooth and whole. Not a single blister, burn, or gash remained…

"What...?" I whispered, my voice cracking. My other hand shot up to touch my face, my chest, and my sides. The pain was still there, but the injuries... they were gone…

 I muttered, running my hands over my arms and legs. "No way, I just... healed after everything..."

My fingers brushed my ribs, expecting jagged edges where bones had once been shattered, but all I felt was solid, unbroken bone beneath unscarred skin.

"What the hell is going on?" I exclaimed in shock, my voice echoing off the walls of the crater. "Did I... dream the pain? No. No way. That was too real... too much."

I sat up slowly, my body still kind of stiff. The walls of the crater loomed above me. It was jagged and steep. But now they didn't feel as imposing as before…

I braced my hands against the dry earth and took a deep breath to prepare myself. "Alright, Shin…" I muttered to myself. "Time to move. You've survived reentry, a crash, and... whatever this is. You're not dying in some random hole on an alien planet..."

With a grunt, I pushed myself to my knees. My legs wobbled beneath me. After lying in the crater motionlessly for so long, my legs became unsteady, but I forced them to hold. One shaky step, then another, and I was upright…

"Okay…" I said while looking up at the steep incline before me. "One step at a time. You got this..."

The climb was gruelling. Every pull on the jagged rocks scraped against my palms. Sweat poured down my face, and the sun's heat bore down mercilessly…

"Come on…" I growled, my muscles straining as I dragged myself upward. "Just a little further..."

My fingers slipped on a loose rock, and I slid back a few feet. "Damn it!" I shouted. In anger, I slammed my fist against the wall...

For a moment, I wanted to stop, to give up and let the heat and exhaustion consume me. But the flicker of determination inside me flared brighter…

"No..." I said with gritted teeth. "Not today...."

With one final push, I threw myself over the lip of the crater and onto the dry land above. I lay there motionlessly for a moment while gasping for breath. The heat outside was intense…

When I finally found the strength to sit up, I glanced down at myself one last time. I still couldn't believe my eyes. I was able to heal after that. I stood slowly, my legs no longer trembling. The oppressive weight I had carried for so long felt... lighter.

"What is this place? Where am I?" I muttered while staring at the barren landscape in front of me. "What the hell is going on here?"

I stood at the edge of the crater. Although my body was healed from the outside, but I could still feel some pain. The landscape before me was alien and harsh. It was a desolate expanse of cracked, sun-scorched earth that stretched endlessly in every direction. The air shimmered with heat, the distant horizon rippling like water in a mirage…

The sun above was massive, its searing orange glow dominating the burnt sky. It hung low, its rays baking the land with an intensity that made every breath feel like inhaling molten air. Sweat poured down my face, soaking my shirtless torso and stinging the tender skin that had only just healed…

I muttered while wiping the sweat from my brow, "Seventy degrees Celsius, at least…. Hell isn't supposed to be this dry, is it?!!"

I scanned the horizon in search of any sign of shade or shelter, but I found none. The fields were barren. There were some crimson grasses here and there, swaying faintly in the heated breeze. But the patches of alien grass offered no rest from the oppressive heat. 

"Of course, no trees…" I said bitterly as I shielded my eyes from the heat with a trembling hand. "No caves. No freaking umbrellas. Just wide-open nothingness and a sun that wants to turn me into barbecue…"

TO BE CONTINUED