'Hoo?'

  After what seemed like an eternity, Glenn began to feel a force pulling him in a direction he couldn't define—he'd lost his sense of direction for a long time; in fact, he'd lost all his senses.

  In fact, he was barely conscious and regularly went into a state of coma, a coma that lasted hundreds of thousands of years. When he woke up, he felt amused for some mysterious reason; since he had left Earth, something inside him had broken.

  Despite his precarious situation, he was laughing—inwardly, of course, smiling—as if he were hearing jokes all the time. He had gone mad, completely mad; his memory of his previous life was totally erased, and he was still wandering in space.

  Although he was indeed psychologically unstable, deep down he felt pretty good, feeling a warm recuperative energy moving fluidly through his body, causing him no pain or discomfort; in short, he felt fine.

  But for some time now, he has been attracted by an invisible force. To where? He didn't know and couldn't assume. So he continued to be drawn towards the unknown, with no real hope of getting out of his situation.

  Time continued to pass, and the pull was getting stronger. Glenn was beginning to pick up great speed.

  'Ho? What is it?'

  He was slowly beginning to feel where the pull was coming from; his head was even pointing in what felt like the right direction. Forced a little, he turned and swung his head towards the source of the pull.

  'Huh?'

  With his breath coupled, Glenn had a giant ball in his field of vision—a shiny ball of metal with thousands of points of light on it.

  Glenn was currently hurtling towards this giant ball without slowing down; in fact, he was even speeding up.

  It was hurtling towards a planet at full speed.

  Just thinking about the future fall, Glenn frowned seriously.

  This is going to hurt.

  Time continued to pass, but this time Glenn was fully conscious and in full possession of his senses. It had been millions, if not billions, of years since he had experienced so much action.

  He had already crashed into two, three, and a few dozen meteorites.

  But that was all.

  It had never hit a planet.

  And fortunately!

  If it had, it would have been stuck for eternity on a planet with no life or anything.

  Luckily or not, this time there was life, or so it seemed from the thousands or hundreds of thousands of points of light covering my surface.

  Either there were cities lit up, or there were particular beings or plants on the surface.

  Either way, it's better than nothing! Well, It would be nice if there was some intelligent life, so we wouldn't be too lonely.

  Time continued on its inevitable course, with the space between the metal planet and Glenn shrinking very rapidly.

  He was able to take a closer look at what could be seen on the surface, but there was nothing in particular.

  The lights simply seemed bigger, and at regular intervals, they went out, which wasn't enough to prove the existence of an intelligent species, but it greatly reassured Glenn.

  The idea that he might finally be able to communicate with something gently filled him with an emotion he hadn't felt since…

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  He didn't even know himself.

  Despite this burgeoning excitement, there was also a touch of apprehension.

  He didn't really want to leave the tranquillity of the soul he had finally achieved; in the meantime, he might have gone a bit mad, but at least he felt good.

  And then the interaction with others—he couldn't remember ever having spoken to anyone, only vague images appearing from time to time in his mind.

  Just to remind him that he was coming from somewhere.

  The pull was getting so strong that he was beginning to feel his body stretching towards the planet, but strangely enough, he was feeling less pain than on previous occasions; perhaps he'd gotten used to it.

  Or maybe the strange sensation coursing through his body was preventing him from feeling excruciating pain.

  In any case, he had accelerated until he was so close to the planet that he could see its different zones, marked by numerous lights and shadows.

  Glenn was content to follow the force of gravity, accelerating again, and an indescribable heat surrounded his body.

  The pain was quite intense, but the strange sensation dancing through his body did its job and made it bearable.

  It was still a very unpleasant sensation.

  Although the flames surrounded his face and covered his vision, Glenn could make out the shapes covering the metal planet, and if he lifted his gaze a little, he could see for the first time other similar planets behind the one he was hurtling towards.

  They all looked the same—almost exactly the same. But the heat was getting too strong and was stinging his eyes, and he found it hard to keep them open.

  He felt he would soon have to close them because of the pain, so he concentrated one last time on the giant metal surface in front of him. Distinguishing for the last time the thousands of lights populating the different zones

  The moment he closed his eyes, they all faded away.

  But even though his eyes were closed, his mind was wide awake, feeling all the warmth of the fall. Until now, Glenn had never experienced this type of sensation, which made him particularly anxious.

  'Fuck! Fucking hell! What the fuck! What the fuck is this? I didn't sign up for this! Fuck!'

  All at once, the heat seemed to rise to exceptional power, and Glenn's body seemed to melt. But, thanks to its increased regeneration, it automatically replenished itself, making the pain barely bearable.

  But before he had time to think about it, the temperature changed completely, turning freezing cold, and the thermal shock was so powerful that he almost exploded.

  As his rapid fall continued, the sound of a huge explosion was heard, followed by immense pain.

  Glenn had passed through what was probably supposed to be the stratosphere.

  At this point, the sensation of speed increased again, but the heat was gone, so Glenn opened his eyes and faced the surface of the planet, which was not hidden by outer layers.

  The planet was made of grey earth and metal, with huge bits of metal scattered across the land.

  'Ha!'

  What shocked Glenn most, however, were the thousands of points of light that filled his field of vision. They weren't strange creatures; they were thousands of lamps running through what appeared to be specially designed-buildings.

  Glenn could also see shadows moving between the buildings and what appeared to be streets.

  In the distance, he could see gaping holes dozens of meters long, or at least what appeared to be dozens of meters. Around these holes and inside them, there were also these giant lamps, providing illumination over a very wide area.

  'Mines?'

  In the same place, lots of shadows were walking around, going in and out of what Glenn assumed were mines. Each shadow came out a little bigger, from Glenn's point of view, so they were going in to look for something.

  While he was thinking, the ground had become dangerously close. However, the shorter the distance, the faster Glenn felt he was going, which was obviously not a good thing.

  Frowning seriously, Glenn noticed that, in the grandest and most horrible of coincidences, he was about to fall onto one of the giant blocks of metal.

  'Shit! What have I done to deserve this?'

  The block was getting bigger and bigger in Glenn's field of vision, and he could only dread the sharp pain he was about to feel.

  'I'll probably explode Before reconstituting myself.'

  Just thinking about the prospect sent shivers through Glenn's entire body.

  'Huh? Wait, what? Did I shiver?'

  For the first time in millions, if not billions, of years, Glenn had shivered; he had felt something other than pain and calm.

  But before he could ask about it, the block of metal had arrived. Or rather, Glenn had arrived and collided violently with the block.

  In an instant, Glenn's body shattered into thousands of tiny pieces before immediately coming back together and reforming his body, but the shock was still terrible and made him faint as soon as he was fully reconstituted.

  After a while, Glenn reopened his eyes, but a powerful light prevented him from doing so; it had been some time since he had seen such a powerful light, and his eyes were no longer used to it.

  Despite everything, he sighed.

  'Well, it was a pretty quiet arrival, wasn't it?'

  Just then, a muffled sound reached Glenn's ears, causing his eardrums to ache.

  'Wait, a sound?'

  It had been a long, long time since he had heard any sound, apart from his own inner voice.

  With as much effort as he could muster, Glenn managed to open his eyes just a little, so that even on the outside, he couldn't tell whether his eyes were open or closed.

  The light passed through his pupils and burned his eyes, but Glenn still managed to leave them open.

  What he saw at that moment sent him into a state of imminent shock.

  'Wh-What are these things?'