Darkness took over my vision. I could barely open my eyes, as if I were waking from a long coma. Upon opening them, the first thing I saw was the blue sky. A strange feeling... as if my body no longer belonged to me.
Only when the wind rushed past me did I realize: I was falling. I was falling from the sky. Literally. Panic gripped me. My heart raced, my throat tore open in a scream that vanished into the rush of the fall. The ground came closer — no, not the ground... water! An impact.
Like concrete. My entire body screamed in pain as I went under. Cold. Darkness. Disorientation. I kicked wildly, desperately, until I finally broke the surface. I gasped for air, swallowed salt water, cried, coughed, sobbed. In front of me... a beach. I swam. Every stroke was a struggle. The waves tossed me back and forth as if they wanted to drag me back into the depths. But I fought. I fought with everything I had.
Then I felt sand beneath my hands. I dragged myself, panting, to the shore. I was there. But where was here? I crawled forward, gasping, until my hands finally felt solid, grainy ground: sand. Damp, warm, salty. I pulled myself inch by inch onto the shore until my body was fully out of the water.
Then a wave of nausea hit me. I rolled onto my side—and vomited. First just water, then more. It burned in my throat, my nose, my eyes. I spat it out and wiped my mouth with my forearm.
Then I noticed it. The water was red. I stared at what had just come out of my lungs and slowly turned around.
The ocean that had spit me out was blood red. But it was clear, not thick or slimy—it moved like normal seawater. Gentle, red-tinted waves rolled against the shore and receded again.
I hesitated, then crawled slowly back toward the waterline. Every muscle in my body screamed in pain, but my curiosity—or maybe my distrust—was stronger. I bent down low. Smelling. Testing. And then it hit me. A smell—putrid, metallic, bitter. It smelled... like death.
I recoiled and fell onto my back. My strength was gone. I stared up at the sky and breathed shallowly. But even here I couldn’t stay long. The sun was high. Its rays burned mercilessly on my skin, sharper, more direct, more toxic than usual. My body began to cook, as if I were in an oven. I closed my eyes, hoping for shade, sleep, salvation. Time passed. Maybe minutes. Maybe hours. Eventually I opened my eyes again.
And there...it stood in the sky: the moon. But something was wrong. I stared at it, blinked, slowly sat up. It was...not gray. Not familiar. Green. With blue patches. I needed a few seconds to process it. And a few more to realize what that meant. That was not my moon. And then I saw it—a bit farther off, smaller, but almost identical: a second moon. Two foreign moons. I stood up slowly, my legs shaky, my head heavy.
I managed only a whisper.
„Was zum…?“
//What the…?//
I turned around, letting my gaze wander across the beach.
About ten meters away, a small sand dune rose. Instinctively, I headed for it. Every step took effort, but something drove me—curiosity, or maybe the fear of never understanding what was happening to me. I climbed the dune.
At the top, I stopped. Before me stretched a wide, quiet sandy landscape, crisscrossed with large, sweeping dunes. And then, on the horizon—as if from a dream—I saw it: a metropolis. Kilometers away, buildings reached into the sky that I could only describe as utopian. Smooth, shimmering towers lined with light strips. Floating platforms moved between them, and the whole scene looked... not of this Earth. I stared. My heart raced. My mind reeled. And then it clicked.
I whispered, this time clearer, with a firm voice.. "Ich bin definitiv nicht auf der Erde."
//I am definitely not on Earth.//
[Hours later]
The sun sank lower and lower, and its rays now seemed gentler, as if it had lost its rage. At first, the city seemed within reach, as if I could get there in minutes. But the longer I walked, the more I realized: it was farther than it appeared—because of its size. The buildings weren't just large. They were gigantic. With every step, more details came into view: the architecture was a mix of the familiar and the unknown. Some towers looked like modern glass structures from my world—slim, reflective, elegant. Others seemed to flow, as if grown rather than built. Their surfaces shimmered in colors I couldn’t name, with geometric patterns that seemed to shift ever so slightly.
I murmured. "Definitiv nicht meine Erde."
//Definitely not my Earth//
It sounded almost like a conclusion. Or a verdict. I noticed that the path was slowly inclining. The city seemed to lie on a raised plateau—perhaps a hill, perhaps man-made. I followed the gentle ascent, step by step, my eyes repeatedly fixed on the city. Then I saw it. Something blocked the way. A wall. Massive, metallic, smooth. About ten meters high, completely unmarked. No gates, no windows, no banners. Just a flat surface, beyond which the lower buildings of the metropolis rose. But what was truly strange was what lay before the wall. I stepped closer—and then I saw it. Sun loungers. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Seats, benches, small huts that looked like cocktail bars from a tropical vacation catalog. And although I couldn’t see anyone, everything looked... used.
I turned around, looked back at the sea. And only then did I notice it. The water... was gone. Not just vanished, but receded. Far, far back. What I had walked across before—that wasn’t the real beach. This place, full of sun loungers and huts, was the real beach. I stood at the edge of a strange, foreign, silent vacation idyll. And beyond the wall: an alien world. I stepped closer to the loungers. The fabrics were faded, some torn. The padding underneath slightly dented, as if someone had sat there... a long time ago. The small bars also looked abandoned. Their counters were covered in a fine layer of sand that had gathered in cracks and corners. Glasses still stood there—clouded by dust, half-filled with dried, cracked remnants. The floor crunched under my steps. No trash, no decay—just age. The whole scene looked like a frozen moment from another time. As if there had once been life here. Lots of life.
I turned around—and something became clear. The sea that had washed me ashore was not, as expected, directly behind me. No. It was... far away. Kilometers away. A shimmering red band on the horizon. What I had first taken for the edge of the beach was just the dry, abandoned forefield. The actual beach began here. Sun loungers, seating areas, huts—all built on solid ground, far from the water. And yet—everything looked as if the sea had once reached right here. I walked on, silently, attentively. The wind carried fine sand in spirals through the deserted complex. Minutes passed as I wandered through this no-man’s-land of empty vacation dreams.
Then I saw it. A staircase. Wide, elegant, made of a light, metallic-gloss material. It ran directly along the wall upward. A clear, straight path. Leading directly to the city. I stopped. Stared at it. My heartbeat quickened as I slowly approached the first steps. Was this the way in? The staircase seemed endless. The path upward had no railing, no sign, no sound—only silence. Somewhere halfway up, I paused. My legs felt heavy, my head throbbed. I turned to the side, slowly sat on one of the steps, and leaned against the smooth wall behind me. The cold stone felt foreign—just like everything here. I closed my eyes. Took a breath. Gradually, the thoughts came. First softly. Then louder.
I turned my head sidewards, my gaze wandered up. "Wie um alles in der...im Universum bin ich hier gelandet?"
//How...in the universe did I end up here?//
There it still was in the sky—the foreign moon. Green. With blue patches. Vegetative. I stared at it. Tried to understand it. And then...something came back.
[A memory]
A window. I looked through it—and saw the real moon. The one from Earth. Pale, familiar. I sat in a train. The automated voice sounded, neutral and clear:
„Ausstieg in Fahrtrichtung rechts.“
//Exit on the right.//
Direction: Frankfurt.
The train came to a halt. An intermediate stop. People exited, others entered. Voices, footsteps, the sound of closing doors. Then my smartphone vibrated. A notification.
I opened my banking app. „Von Ihrem Bankkonto wird demnächst ein Betrag von 200 Euro eingezogen.“
//200 euros will soon be debited from your bank account.//
Account overdrawn. Not deeply. But enough to annoy me. I sighed and put the phone back into my pocket. My gaze wandered aimlessly through the carriage. Then... shouting. A voice. Loud, angry, panicked. Security guards pushed through the aisle, dragging a man by the arms. He resisted. Raged. Just before being pulled out the door, he turned around. His gaze met mine. Wide-open eyes. A contorted face. A moment. A silent scream.
Then—nothing.
The memory ended. I opened my eyes wide. I was back here. On the staircase. In this strange world. Under a foreign sky. I must have fallen asleep. The foreign moon had disappeared, and when I opened my eyes again, the sun was high above in the sky. Its rays fell directly on my face. I blinked, groped for support, and slowly got up again. A dream. Or was it a memory? I was still sitting on the stairs, leaning against the same wall as before. But the image from the train, the voice, the look of that man—it didn't just feel real. It felt close. Then I had a thought. A strangely simple thought: Maybe I still had my smartphone? My wallet? I reached into my pockets—hesitantly at first, then faster, with growing hope. And indeed. Both were there. My smartphone. And my wallet. Two things I always had with me. Even now. In this... whatever it is. A small wave of relief swept over me. I took the phone in my hand, pressed the power button—the display lit up.
I exhaled through my nose. “Kein Netz.”
//No signal.//
The sentence came out spontaneously, and somehow I had to laugh. „War auch klar...Als ob mein Tarif galaktisch funktioniert.“
//Figures...Like if my carrier works across galaxies.//
A quiet, genuine, unexpected laugh. Dumb. But good. I looked at the battery level: 90%. Not bad. Without much thought, I immediately turned on ultra power-saving mode. You never know. Maybe... maybe I'll need it here. For what? No idea. But it felt right. I carefully put the smartphone back in my pocket and then reached for my wallet. A smart wallet. Minimalist. Black. Not some flashy thing with a hundred cards and blinking flaps like others carry around. Simple. Functional. Mine. I opened it. Just a few cards. And in the middle: my ID pass. I pulled it out. Looked at it for a long time.
"Philipp"
Yes. That’s me. I said it again internally. As confirmation. As an anchor. Because I realized I was starting to doubt myself. Not just because of this strange world, but because my memory… had holes. I had memories. But patchy. The last month? Gone. Simply erased. Something must be connected to my fall, I thought. Then I felt it. Something was in my head. Foreign thoughts. Thoughts that didn’t sound like mine—but still felt right. I didn’t know what they meant. Or where they came from. But something deep inside me told me they were important. Maybe even helpful. This thought alone made me shake my head in disbelief—several times, almost violently. What was happening to me? I raised my hands and lightly slapped my cheeks. A final wake-up. A call to myself.
„Schluss damit.“
//Enough of this.//
I put the wallet back in my pocket. "Ich muss…ich muss herausfinden, wo ich bin. Was das hier ist. Und… vielleicht auch, wie ich wieder nach Hause komme."
//I have to...I have to find out where I am. What this place is. And... maybe also, how I get back home.//
My thoughts were racing, but my body wanted to move again. I slowly got up, brushed the dust off my pants, and looked up to the last section of the stairs. Time to move on. Step by step, I climbed higher. The wind was stronger up here, colder. Somewhere inside me, I hoped to finally hear something. Birds. Animals. Voices. People. Or... aliens. Something. But there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.
The thought roared through my mind, louder than I could have spoken it. „VERDAMMT!“
//DAMN IT!//
It burned in my chest. Then, like a strike to my consciousness: the beach below. The state of the loungers. The sand that had overgrown everything. The kilometer-long dried-out bay, whose water had receded blood-red to the horizon. This was not a place teeming with life. This was a place that had long been abandoned. The realization crawled up inside me—ice cold and silent. I would meet no one here. Maybe...not for a very long time. At the top of the stairs, I stopped. I overlooked the city—and now saw it clearer than ever: Everything was far more desolate than it had first appeared.