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"Initiating landing sequence in three minutes."

"... huh?" Grim rubbed his eyes, fighting out of a sound sleep. Alarms were going off. The ship had reverted to emergency power and dimness obscured everything.

"Initiating landing sequence in two minutes."

"Wha... buh... why? We're in deep space, there's nowhere to land!"

Grim unstrapped himself from bed and headed to the cockpit of his junker spaceship.

Through the dusty windshield, Grim could see a planet nearby. It was the only planet around, as far as Grim and the computer could tell, for lightyears in any direction.

"I don't want to land yet, we're going to Earth..."

"Fuel cells are empty. Initiating landing sequence in one minute."

The planet was fast approaching now, becoming bigger by the second. Grim braced himself to either land very bumpily or die in the attempt. There wasn't much else he could do.

"Initiating landing sequence..."

The ship hurtled into the planet's atmosphere. Grim found himself wondering if he'd even survive on the planet- for all he knew he could be hurtling toward a planet comprised entirely of bricks. Or fire. Or something equally nasty.

"now."

This wasn't the first time Grim had crash-landed after running out of fuel. The experience never got any less frightening, though. Grim could feel his heart throbbing in his throat and his stomach tickling his knees. Unimaginable forces shook the ship so violently that Grim almost swallowed his tongue.

And then, it stopped.

It took three full minutes for Grim to recover. He almost threw up. Then he remembered that he'd done this dozens of times before and things didn't seem so bad. Then Grim remembered where he was. Or, wasn't.

Grim unfurled himself from the fetal position, then opened his eyes. Something had broken his fall- an ocean, he had guessed, but the ocean that he stared at through the windshield wasn't water. It was the most clear, perfect color of yellow he had ever seen. Grim stared up through water into the sky.

Thirty-three times now he'd crash-landed into an ocean on thirty-three different planets. The odds were staggering. Shouldn't he have landed on a desert by now? Shouldn't he have been killed in some awful fiery wreck- thirty three crash landings?

But Grim generally beat the odds. He always had. Both of his parents were normal, for one, and Grim was an albino. The crash landings, for another. Grim had survived more accidents than any other person he could think of- not just the crashes, no- he'd been set on fire multiple times, been involved in several outmatched bar fights, even dogfights in his cruddy old ship, and always came out alive.

The escape hatch clicked open and Grim cursed fluidly as the yellow liquid rushed in and filled the ship. It was lukewarm, and reminded Grim rather unpleasantly of human urine. Nevertheless, Grim had to escape. He held his breath and dove, now fixated on getting to the surface (though the surface could very well be filled with poisonous gas).

Grim broke through the water noisily and gasped for air. It smelled, he realized, vaguely like bubblegum. The sky was pale blue above the bright yellow sea. Confused, but alive, Grim started swimming with the current, hoping he'd reach land or get help or something before he got eaten or drowned.