She hitchhiked. Planet to planet.
Sometimes she'd communicate. Sometimes she wouldn't even speak.
Deserts. Jungle planets. She preferred wastelands.
She lied. Made excuses. Fake backstories.
She did whatever it took to survive.
Humans looked at her body with thirsty eyes. Aliens didn't care how much of her skin was exposed.
Interplanetary ferries. Money. She improvised. Sold wreckage, animals, scraps. Even stole sometimes. Just to get through.
Passing by an outpost. Guards pointed their guns at her. A warning shot.
"Wait!" she screamed. "I just need food!"
Passing through a desert plateau, a Kafilah found her by the dry water well. Hungry. Thirsty. Dying. They took her with them.
Two guards found her on an interplanetary vessel. "That woman—she has no ticket! Grab her!!" They threw her off at an orbital station.
She was looking at a cake through the glass of a bakery. Wrapped in two pieces of old cloth that barely covered her femininity. She looked like a beggar. Shopkeepers yelled her away.
Winter. Looking at a town from a distance. Eating dried-out bread. Wrapping a thick coat around herself. Sitting on a grassy hilltop near an empty hut.
Trapped in a steel cage with other slaves being taken to the next town—where all the captives would be sold.
Jungle planet. Beautiful scenery. Mountains. Greenery. She set up a camp. Lived off fish in the lake. She stayed there for weeks.
Canyon. Thugs chasing her. She fought them off, but there were too many. And they were relentless. She hid behind a rock. Watched them wander off.
Orbital station. Waiting for the next interplanetary cruisership. Sitting with a beggar. Looking up at the dome. Eating leftover food people threw at them.
Rain-soaked megacity. Neon gutters. She warmed her hands over a vent and traded a bottle cap for a bowl of broth.
Dragging wreckage through a town. Wrapped in a single sheet of fabric. Carrying a worn-out backpack. She sold the scraps for thirty units.
Space elevator terminal. Public queue. Denied at the turnstile. She swept the floor for two days to earn a few units and buy her ticket.
Walking on the shoreline in trousers. Heavy storm and rain. The city asleep. No one dared get out of their home in such a storm. She took all the downpour, sitting on barrier rocks, watching the thunder, the clouds, the ocean waves, and city lights.
Cliff monastery. Wind bells. She traded an offering to the temple—colored seashells. The monks gave her shelter, a bowl of rice with tea, and an orange sheet to cover her upper body. She left with other pilgrims.
Shroom farm under a crater. She helped pick caps; her pay was a sack of spores and shrimps.
Glacial cave. Mirrors of ice. Testing limits of her body. Submerged naked in ice-cold water, exhaling smoky-breath. Watching a hotel on the glacier's top.
Savanna rail-worm. She rode the living train across grass seas, paying with a pouch of thistle seeds.
Prairie. Bandits killed a touring couple, stole their rental hovercar. She couldn't reach in time. She buried the bodies. Slipped the datapad in her backpack and moved on toward the next town.
Floating ocean colonies. Pirate city. Death ring. She was brought as a slave. Lost the fight to woman to save her life. They beat her. Tried to rape her, but she defied. They threw her into the ocean to feed the sharks. Other slaves didn't make it.
Village. Feeding barn animals. A kind couple let her live with them. But Thelarian soldiers and mercenaries tracked her down. She escaped.
New Mecca. Planet Abu Bakar. She traveled on a stolen horse. Couldn't enter the main city. Wandered around the town for weeks before sneaking onto a tourist starliner.
Space bus. Traveling to a moon. Reading her magazine-pad that was always in her backpack. Always studying new things when she found time.
Looking at the ocean. Screaming at the skies. Tears in her eyes. Wild storms. Lightning. Thelarians folks who had given her refuge. Jumped into the ocean. Swimming aimlessly. Swimming for hours. Fighting the waves.
Island. She woke up dizzy, thirsty, and hungry. A mountain towered in front of her, carved with a strange alien face visible even from afar. Her first spark of deep-space archaeology curiosity.
Riding a capsule on the back of a desert worm. Reading a book. Other passengers noticed she was topless. She didn't care.
Junk colosseum. Wreckage of hovercars, trucks, and spaceships. A forced match. She refused to fight. Broke the gate chain instead, and ran with the others.
Wreckage of a spaceship in the desert. Bonfire. Reading books. She threw a piece of meat to the dog-like animal that had been tailing her.
Free charity line at a shrine. A monk pressed a steamed bun into her palm. She split it with a stray dog and moved on.
Rooftop greenhouse. She mended a torn tarp; the keeper paid her in wilted greens and a needle.
Graveyard shift at a noodle stall. She washed bowls till sunrise, ate the last ladle from the pot.
Mercenaries chased her through the streets. An electrified net snapped around her. The shock rendered her unconscious. She woke just as they were preparing to load her on a ship. She broke free—laid waste to a dozen guards, and escaped.
Eve woke up. She remembered being offered a bottle of juice while sitting on the streets. Now she was in a harem, dressed in scented silks. Women surrounded her. She stood, broke through the door, and escaped the castle.
Drifting on a lifeboat. A Syndicate strike had completely destroyed the ocean liner.
That was the story of the first 10 years.
She had baked in experiences of journey through Andromedan worlds. Even decade after, she only looked like a 19 year old. Her body defied aging.
But she was still unaware of her xenomorphesis and Alien Trigger.
She tried to live among people. To live with others. But if it wasn't the harsh cruelty of these Andromeda worlds, the Thelarians and mercenaries always on her tail...
... Finally made her decide—she'd rather be alone, away from civilizations. On her own.
She already lived in shadows. Without an identity. In the quiet. Now drifting further away from beaming life.
Now she lived only on barren wastelands. Planets like Thalen's Reach. Lawless, isolated worlds.
She learned to be a survivor. She learned to live alone. Sometimes, studied ancient alien ruins.
She thought somebody would embrace her. Humans. Aliens. Or machines. But she was rejected.
Where she was accepted, when she was finally allowed to live—the Thelarians wouldn't let her stay long.
So this became her life. Wastelands. Always on the move. She become... a Nomad.