1. chase

"Huff huff." A man was sprinting across a hot alien desert in a planet unknown to him. His name is Gareth and he was being persued by a pack of 10 alien dogs, each dog had six legs, purple patchy skin and two tails. He had been running for 20 minutes and yet strangely he didn't feel too out of breath. He wasn't too athletic and he had just joined the military when he was transported here after he encountered a higher being. It seemed his encounter had changed him physically but he didn't know what changed and by how much. Although he could continue running for now the dogs were slowly catching up to him.

Looking at his surroundings he saw a sea of purple, with sand dunes of varying heights along the horizon. He also spotted spare alien flora, pools of molten bubbling liquids, crystal clusters that can be taller than a two story house and huge skeletons the size of the largest ships back on Earth.

He began weighing his options, he couldn't outrun them, he could try hiding but he didn't know if they had tracked with their scent, fighting in an open area was a bad idea, maybe hide in one of the crystal fields? As he continued scanning his surrounding he sported a massive skeleton and got an idea. He would climb.

He began running to the huge skeleton, he also saw stones scattered on the floor and picked them up while maintaining his pace. He would try throwing them at the dogs in hopes to knock some of them out. He practiced his jumping first, the gravity was much heavier than that of earth but his body seemed only slightly heavy. When he was comfortable he jumped as high as he could 1, 2, 2.5m in the air and spun around to look at the chasing dogs took aim and made a throw. Miss, it was way of course, he tried again, it got closer but still not enough. After a few more attempts and even getting more stones he made another throw and as it soared it slammed directly into one of the dogs head. With a yelp and blood spurting out it collapsed and tumbled. Strike! Gareth made a fist pump on the air. He continued throwing stones and three more went down before the dogs realised what was happening and began dodging. Now there were only 6 dogs still chasing him, and with them being more wary he gained a bit of distance. He would feign an attack by jumping and spinning and the dogs behind him would scatter earning Gareth a second more distance. The pack of dogs soon learnt of his tricks and didn't dodge anymore allowing Gareth to attack. He managed to knock another one out before they became weary again.

They were now less than 100m away and Gareth who was nearing the big skeleton had ran past a low mound of sand. Gareth was constantly running while swivelling his head to continue checking on his persuers. After a few seconds more of running he turned to look at the gaining pack at that time the first dog had stepped on the mound with the rest close behind when suddenly "BOOM!" The sand exploded and a big mouth opened up and swallowed the dogs. "Holy crap! That could've been me!" Gareth said and stopped running while catching his breathe. "Are the dogs gone?" He murmured as he waited for the dust to settle. Soon out of the dust one dog came out running clearly afraid of what had happened. Seeing it approach him Gareth took aim and threw a stone which landed squarely on the noggin of the last dog. With a strange cry it tumbled for a few meters and began twitching violently before it stopped moving. Gareth slowly approached the fallen dog, his hand raised with a stone in hand in case the dog got up again but it didn't move. When he was finally next to the dog he saw the skull and split apart with brain matter leaking out. It was dead.

Heaving a sigh of relief now that the chase was over he decided to try harvesting the slain dog. Picking out the sharpest rock he could find he began the process. It was messy and very bloody, he almost hurled a few times but continued. He cut out the four hind legs and made a very bad skinning. It was still usable for his purpose which was to make a make shift sack. Putting the pieces of meat in the sack he tied it up and began moving again. He didn't want to be there for too long as the blood would surely attract other predators.