I muttered incredulously, frowning as I scanned the creature writhing and crying in the air, its small beady eyes wide open in fear.
It was a deer. There was no doubt about it. I'd seen it so many times in my past life that its appearance was practically seared into my neurons.
But how? How could there be deer, a creature native to the planet Earth, on this planet? It was impossible.
The probability of another habitable planet in this galaxy developing life identical to Earth's was so infinitesimal, so minute, that there was more chance of me swallowing a black hole in one gulp than it.
So how? How was such a thing happening before my very eyes?
"Unless…" A thought crossed my mind, and my eyes shot open.
I quickly flung the animal away with a wave of my hand, its screams echoing as it disappeared into a part of the forest far away, and turned to fly towards the entrance of the valley after commanding the AI to shut the dome with my mind.
The cold wind whipped my body as I flew speedily towards the horizon, my dark red hair fluttering in the wind.
It didn't take long before I reached the entrance of the wide valley, coming out of the forest, stopping to hover above the new landscape.
It was a grand steppe, an expansive grassland covered with faint golden grass that stretched as far as the eye could see, almost shining under the glow of the sun.
There was a clear river that cut across the field, flowing from the mountains behind me to the ends of the land, flowing over polished stones underneath it.
The scenery was picturesque, the sight breathtaking and also refreshing as the rich scent of grass filtered into my nose, enriching it with an almost calming effect.
But it did little to calm me down as I observed the scenery.
I hovered agape, my eyes widened, and my body stilling in shock from the things I could see roaming around the grassland.
There were mammoths, a whole herd of woolly mammoths covered in thick brown fur, their polished ivory tusks curving and reaching into the air as they grazed upon the grass, small birds loitering on top of them fearlessly.
Across from them, standing beside the river, was a herd of tall wild horses. Their bodies muscled and strong, manes flowing thick as they calmly drank the river's water.
They weren't the only animals around, as scattered and interspersed all over the place were different kinds of herbivores, from white and black striped zebras to coarse-skinned horned rhinos going about their carefree business.
It was surreal seeing this, and for a while, I hovered in frozen shock, admiring the scenery, countless thoughts running through my mind, trying to make sense of what I was witnessing.
"…Am I…on Earth?" I asked no one in particular and shook my head, snapping out of my reverie, eyes narrowing. "From what I've seen so far, the chances are high. Still, I can't be sure until I get more information. Looks like I'll have to explore more of this planet."
Nodding as I made my decision, I spared one single glance at the animals and land below and sharpened my focus, taking a stance in the air.
The world around me slowed as my senses became razor-sharp, and with a thought, I willed my body to move faster, picturing myself bursting through the wind like a spear.
Immediately, the air behind me popped and exploded with a loud deafening boom, and I was sent hurtling through the wind at supersonic speeds, my arms extended in front of me.
The air whistled around me, whipping my face, lashing against my skin, and blowing my hair behind me, my eyes focused on the scenery below me as I cut through the air and moved across the land.
In seconds, I was out of the steppe, moving into a golden-brown desert. My eyes scanned the landscape dutifully with sharp focus, capturing and noting every single thing they saw, from rock patterns to the scattered flora and fauna, into my mind as I sped across it.
My speed increased when I saw everything I needed to see, and my eyesight tunneled, the wind screaming something fierce into my ears as multiple sonic booms erupted behind me.
If it weren't for my heightened focus and my superhuman alien physique, at the velocity I was moving, my body would've broken down, my eyesight would've blurred, and I wouldn't have been able to breathe at all.
Fortunately, I wasn't human anymore.
I flew across multiple landscapes rapidly, exploring and covering rainforests, deserts, savannahs, river deltas, large inland seas, lakes, ponds, mountain ranges, valleys, canyons, plateaus, arid wastelands, volcanoes, the Arctic poles, and the sea, scanning and cataloguing everything with hyper-focused clarity.
After a few minutes, I arrived back where I started and halted abruptly to hover just above the crashed spaceship.
The moment I stopped, havoc ensued. The air shrieked and exploded with a terrifying boom that shook the valley and the temperate forest within it.
The wind scattered around me, howling like a powerful hurricane as it uprooted all tall trees around me into the air, as well as the animals living on the forest floor, throwing copious amounts of soil, dust, and debris into the air.
The river quaked and flooded the place in a large wave, drowning the devastated land as the shockwave from my flight extended beyond the reaches of the wind, flattening and destroying large swathes of land, killing much wildlife in the process.
The ship rumbled a little from the impact, but that was it. There wasn't even a scratch on its black and red surface.
Gazing at the devastation that now scarred and marred the once-beautiful landscape, I shrugged and descended to settle upon the ship, sighing in acceptance as the things I saw and scanned played in my mind.
After circumnavigating the planet, I had gathered enough data, to form a conclusion, one that had frightening ams exciting consequences.
This planet was Earth. My home planet from another life. But it was different, in so many ways.
Back on Sythar, a long time ago, I managed to get hold of multiple decommissioned long-distance probes capable of short bursts of hyperspace jumps and sent them searching for Earth.
It hadn't been long since I'd reincarnated as a Sythari, starting a new life, and I was feeling nostalgic.
I figured that since I had reincarnated as an alien in the Milky Way galaxy, a phenomenon highly theoretical and only existing in fiction, then it was only natural for Earth to also exist and be there somewhere.
So I went searching. There were many planets in the galaxy that looked identical or similar to Earth—Sythar Prime, for instance—so it took a while to find it.
Eventually, I did. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the timeline of this Earth was in the early two-thousands. It didn't make any sense.
I died in twenty twenty-five. I discovered Earth when I was sixteen in Sythari years, which was approximately eighty-eight standard Earth years, so I was expecting Earth to be in the twenty-second century, not the early twenty-first century.
It made me realise I wasn't in my original universe but a whole other, different one, and it made a chill run down my spine as it was. Then, I understood the full reality of my situation.
I later logged Earth into the Sythari World Discovery System as a planet for future conquest, completely severing any and all ties to the planet and humanity.
That Earth wasn't my Earth, and I wasn't human anymore. That discovery and my actions were the triggers I needed to fully assimilate into my new identity, and from that moment onwards, I was Sythari and Sythari only.
So I knew what Earth in this reality was supposed to look and be like, and this Earth wasn't the same one.
There were three major things that differentiated this Earth from the Earths I knew.
For one, the continents were different. In fact, on this Earth, there weren't continents—just one single giant supercontinent that stretched horizontally from east to west.
Furthermore, some of the wildlife were different. Animals and creatures that were supposed to be extinct—such as woolly mammoths, giant sloths, sabretooth tigers, and terror birds, driven to that state by human activity—were alive and thriving.
Thirdly, there was only one massive ocean on this planet that covered the northern and southern hemispheres of the planet.
Lastly, there were no humans. I had toured every inch of the planet, but I couldn't find any trace of humans.
There were large, big-boned and heavily muscled primates of various species, scattered across the rainforests, the equatorial and tropical regions of the planet, but there were no signs of their smaller, smarter, and less hairy cousins.
This was a virgin Earth. It was an alternate Earth that didn't give birth to Homo sapiens. A rich and primal world with no native sentient life whatsoever.
It was a world free for the taking…
"This is going to be our new home," I decided, my tone firm and final, my eyes sweeping across the landscape and rising to look at the clear blue sky bathed in the sun's afternoon glow.
A wide smile drew across my face as I admired the sky, lying down on the ship's surface with my back, the battle edge that was once brimming throughout my body dissipating into the cold, calm wind.
I felt a heavy burden lift from my shoulders and heart, as the ramifications of what this new world represented raced through my mind.
There was a high chance that this was an alternate universe or another one altogether.
This meant that the Ae'mar Dominion wasn't a threat, as they either didn't exist here or they weren't looking to obliterate us into non-existence.
We wouldn't have to be looking over our shoulders each and every minute, wondering every day if they had tracked us down and were on their way to finish the job.
My people and I were safe, much safer than I thought we'd ever be, and that made me incredibly happy.
We had time to rebuild, to create something new, something better, something pure from the ashes of Sythar, on this world. This Earth.
It was all perfect.
"…Now that the coast is clear, it's time to confront the elephant in the room," I said, my tone serious, my smile falling. "This is the second time I've crossed into or found myself inside a different universe."
"How am I doing it?"