When I awoke, the sunlight had softened into a reddish-pink glow as the brilliant orb descended into a mountain range. The tall grasses blew in the wind near me, and I left a distinctly human-shaped impression on it.

  I sat up, my body aching and my lungs exhausted from the labor they’d incurred hours earlier. So it hadn’t been a dream, I thought to myself as I tried to get my bearings.

  Trees stood to my right, about a football field’s pace away. I found myself in some kind of gully where the foliage wasn’t quite as thick. Bugs hovered around the grasses, and I swatted some away from my face. My space suit would protect me from getting bit by any of the little flying pests, but none of this helped me to figure out where I’d landed.

  How did I get back earthbound anyway? I struggled to recall what had happened. The test rocket I’d been piloting began to overheat, I’d lost communications with the team on the ground in Florida, the instruments went haywire. I remembered slamming into the earth, the XR-7 filling with smoke, and then I’d blacked out.

  When I came to again, I was on the ground. I must have had the wherewithal to have turned the ship around and piloted myself to a landing. I could have died of a ship malfunction and had to count myself lucky.

  Then there was the girl. The beautiful redhead could only be described as an angel. She had the kind of figure that made a man forget his better judgment. I needed all the judgment I could get right about now. Plus, I had my on-again-off-again girlfriend back home.

  I had been about to end it forever, I recalled, before she stopped me on the phone. She must have felt bad for me, thinking I wanted to hold onto her memory as I went to my mission. In truth, my work was all that drove me. Constant training to hone my body and mind, flights, and meetings with government officials—it was beyond a full-time job to be an astronaut, and she hadn’t known what she signed up for when we first started dating.

  I grimaced as I regretted how our relationship had dwindled, gone from those first weeks of hot passion to barely calling to check-in. It might be for the best to start something fresh if only I could find this redheaded girl again and figure out where the hell I’d landed.

  From her attire, she looked like she might have some German or Dutch to her. Her blouse was an earthy red, conforming to her ample chest. The rest of her dress was green. Around her neck, a glowing stone dangled. She was so otherworldly. And the ears. Those ears! Were they real?

  The woman was nowhere in sight. Some rustling in the grass sounded as if there might be some mice or rabbits roaming in their habitat. I hoped there wouldn’t be any snakes or more dangerous critters around. I needed to get to my ship and retrieve my flare gun, pistol, and knife.

  And the M.R.E.s I’d brought along. My stomach grumbled with the pangs of hunger. How long had it been since I’d had my last food and drink?

  I pushed myself to my feet, my legs wobbly after hours of being strapped into the cramped rocket cockpit, and then laid down for even longer. It took me a moment to get my balance, though once I had it, it felt like everything was lighter where I stood than I remembered life being.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I took a step, and it ended up being a small leap. What was going on here? I had to be imagining things.

  The sun kept setting, and a few bright stars glimmered in the sky. That was when I noticed something nearly making my heart stop in panic—two moons hung in the sky.

  This couldn’t be possible. I had to be seeing double. I’d inhaled too much smoke. That was it. First, beautiful women with pointed ears, and now this? Impossible. I had to get myself to a medic as soon as possible and treat myself for a concussion.

  At that point, a figure came through the treeline, lithe and moving with elegance through the grass. The woman had returned.

  I stepped to her, much more cautiously than before, in case I accidentally leaped in the air again. This was all wrong. My shoulders tightened as I became more on edge.

  “You’re awake,” the woman said, her voice both soft and with a slight raspy sultriness that was as intoxicating as her form.

  “I am. Who are you?”

  The girl cocked her head at me in curiosity. The way she examined me was cute and innocent. “Lyrielle. And you? What happened to your ears?”

  “Lt. Colonel John Robinson,” I said. I couldn’t help but laugh. “And what happened to your ears? Did it get caught in a rice picker or something?” I shouldn’t have said it. It was insensitive and a stupid joke.

  “Rice picker,” she repeated before slapping her thigh and bursting out laughing. “You are a funny one. But we should get you back to the elders. You were in bad shape when I found you. I had to go visit with the seer of the old mountain, so I couldn’t stay, but I laid you down in hopes you would be able to rest and recover. I see it worked.”

  I looked down at myself and couldn’t help but reach to touch my round ears as I did so. Was I the strange one in this area where I’d landed? I’d never heard of a country with pointed ears before.

  “The elders?” I turned to look around. We were in an open field, though the tops of a small city loomed in the distance. The walls were white, shining, like something out of a magical fairy tale. “Listen, I need to get back to my ship and grab my belongings, see if I can’t work my communications system, and contact the boys back in Cape Canaveral for pickup.”

  “Cape…?” the girl looked perplexed.

  “Somewhere far from here, apparently. Say, do you know where we are anyway?”

  “Nytherra.”

  That wasn’t any country I’d ever heard of. “Is that the town name?”

  “My kingdom,” Lyrielle said. She sounded confident in those words as if she were accustomed to being a leader.

  “Kingdom. Right.” This was getting beyond ridiculous. “Okay, I’m going to go back to my ship and see what survived the crash.” I jutted my thumb over in the direction of the craft.

  Just then, a rustling came from the treeline nearby. Twigs snapped, and voices spoke amongst themselves.

  “We really should be getting you back now,” Lyrielle said. She grabbed me by the wrist.

  I yanked my arm backward. “I’m sorry, you’re pretty and all, but I have no idea what’s going on here.”

  As I spoke the words, a group came from the treelines. These were men, fair-skinned, wearing leathers. Some had bows, others swords, and two had longer spears. It looked like an old hunting party. These men had similar features to Lyrielle, pointed ears, and all varying between blonde and red hair as if they were part of the same tribe or clan. Except these men didn’t look happy to see me.

  They trained their weapons on me. One man stepped forward in front of the others, blond with blue eyes and smooth skin that gave him a youthful complexion even though he carried himself like a hardened soldier. “Step away from the princess,” he said.

  “Princess?” I asked. This couldn’t be real. I either had a worse concussion than I’d thought, or I’d died and ended up in the afterlife. Two moons, strange creatures with pointed ears, I had to have lost my mind.

  With speed like the wind, the men rushed forward and grabbed me by the arms with all too real force. I struggled, but there were too many of them, and soon I was restrained. The blond man’s sword hovered at my throat.