#touchdown comic

I was the first one awake after it happened.

The soft swaying of the ship, which had woken me up, had reminded my groggy brain of trying to fall asleep on Stratt's Vat.

That immediately caused me to shoot out of bed, sending me into a spiral, because oh no, no, no, this is wrong. The centrifuge must be broken, it---

But even after 14 years and 8 months in space, the body never forgets the familiar feeling of bobbing water.

My body already knew where I was before a single neuron would have time to tell me to panic.

July 8th, 2035

Evading Detection from all of Earth's government satellites, & defying even the most generous estimates,

Some lovely folks from the Farallon Islands Wildlife Refuge came by to say hello after seeing the streak of orange in the sky. Clearly, they've never seen an alien invasion movie, if those even still exist.

In my dissociated state, I couldn't help but feel bad for them. They signed up to keep track of California's near-absent seabird population, not crash-landed cosmonauts.

It's weirdly ironic that the first human faces I see on my home planet are also curious scientists receiving way more than they asked for.

I felt non-existent as they piled their gifts into my arms.

I can barely remember their faces. I wish I had asked for their names so I could thank them with the same reference that they had thanked me.

I'm a celebrity, now. I guess. I'm their savior, one of them said. Their words slide off of me like the sprinkling of rain against Mary's parched hull. Their niceties don't penetrate my cold exterior.