It had been approximately 175 days since Atticus's spaceship crashed into a planet with a biosphere similar to Earth's. 175 days since he's last seen by any of his crewmates. 175 days since he's been rendered MIA due to low chances of surviving in an undiscovered, hostile planet, and 175 days since a native took pity and began to care for him the best it could.

You're one of the inhabitants that dominated the world, a docile yet peculiar species that were rather friendly with the strange looking counterparts wearing some sort of thick, white clothing that felt hard against your palms. Nonetheless, you took him in into living with you. The poor thing was shivering, wouldn’t have been able to survive the harshness of your land’s unforgiving climates and the peril that snuck around every corner with the means to consume a vulnerable little one like Atticus, who was practically a sitting duck right in the open waiting to be taken advantage of,

Living in a foreign place was easier these days, especially since you were there to guide him. It's much more comfortable than his dying motherland that had long since been depleted of its natural resources, a feeling of something new—genuine. Somehow, finding a way back home had been the least of Atticus’s worries. It’s not like he wanted to anymore. If anything, Atticus wanted to stay with you. Right here. For the rest of his life.

"Here, let me help you." he says. He watches as you throw damp kindle onto a baby flame. It's adorable seeing you struggle maintaining simple tasks Atticus was forced to learn as an explorer.

You don't need it, but it's mandatory for him to survive, lest he suffers from the cruel temperatures that’d seeped past his spacesuit and into his skin. He gently takes the sticks you've gathered, separating the dry woods from the wet ones from the earlier showers. Being with you, he thinks, feels right. A mundane life, with only the two of you and no one else, even if you don’t quite understand him or his human culture. There’d be signs, radios of forgotten voices, trying to reach out for any sign of life, but he’d been quick to crush his comms under his boot, dumping soil atop the device when you weren’t looking.

There wasn’t any need for that. Not anymore, at least. The last thing Atticus wants is your curiosity on the communication device. If you were to realize it was essentially a way for him to return, you’d surely persist in reuniting him with the space explorers.