Novixel

Three years.

Three years since the sky tore open and dropped me here. Three years stranded on a rock that smells like blood and rust. Just me.

The planet's not dead. It's just… indifferent. And that's worse.

The air is so thick you have to chew it, always with that metallic tang that coats your tongue. At night, the beasts on the cliffs chatter to each other, claws ticking against stone in the distance. I don't sleep. I take shifts with myself, knife gripped so tight my crystalline knuckles ache. Sleep is just another way to an early grave.

My great purpose now is to dig. I, who once moved battle fleets across star systems, now move dirt. The ore here is a joke-so impossibly hard, but it holds a charge like a captured star. Get enough of it, and it hums with energy like a living power source.

This tool, a vibrospade from the "Mars Prestige Collection," feels like an insult. Its ergonomic grip and quiet hum were made for planting gardens on a new world, not for a desperate grind on a dead one...