After seeing so many real things for the first time in his life, Obed decided to calm down. The excitement was still buzzing in his chest — the sea, the sand, the forest, the sky — but the smart part of his brain, the part that Greg had trained since he was a baby, told him to think. To be still. To understand. He turned to Greg, who was standing quietly beside him, his metal body reflecting the sunlight. "Greg, show me where we are. Show me our location on Earth." Greg's eyes beeped. A soft peeping sound came from his chest, and then different colors began to flicker in his holographic projector — blue, red, yellow — scanning, searching, mapping. Then the map appeared. It was not like the maps Obed had seen in the ship's archive. This one was alive. In front of him, projected in light, was a world of green. Endless, neverending green. No cities. No lights. No roads. Just forest — dense, ancient, covering everything the sensors could see. And right in the middle of it all was a small blinking dot. Their location. "You mean we are here?" Obed asked, pointing at the dot. Greg beeped and zoomed in. Yes. They were in the middle of the forest, at the very edge where the green met the blue of the sea. The sea water had a narrow passage that linked to a much larger body of water — an ocean — but Greg's projection stopped there, flickering. He couldn't cover that area. "Expansion coverage reached," Greg said in his robotic voice. "I cannot scan beyond this range." That was the moment Obed, being a smart kid, knew something was wrong. Or rather, something was extraordinary. This was not the Earth from his lessons. The Earth in the films had continents, satellites, and billions of people. This Earth was silent. Wild. Untouched. If he wanted to live here, he had to prepare himself in advance. No one was coming to save him. He looked at the broken spaceship behind him. Then he looked at Greg. Then he looked at the towering trees. First of all, he needed to get to work. Inside the spaceship, he had been trained by robots since birth. Combat simulations, engineering lessons, survival protocols, medical knowledge — all poured into his young mind. Now only Greg had survived, but that was enough. It was enough to start something. Obed looked at the spaceship again and smirked. A small, determined smirk that did not belong to an 8-year-old boy. "The spaceship can't be fixed," he said to himself. "But I can make a version of it. A wooden version." He turned to Greg. "Greg, show me the blueprint of the spaceship." Greg's eyes flashed, and instantly the entire blueprint of their ship appeared in the air — a complex 3D model rotating slowly, with every room, every corridor, every system labeled. Obed stared at it. He wasn't just looking; he was memorizing, calculating. He thought of using Greg's intelligence to gain practical experience. This would be his first real project in the real world. He smiled and walked to the nearest tree — a very tall, blossoming tree with a trunk so wide he could not hug it alone. He touched it, feeling its bark, feeling its life. Then he thought, how do I bring it down? "Greg, do you have any idea how to cut this?" For the first time since landing, Greg spoke in a full, clear sentence. "Yes," Greg said. "But I will need to charge up using solar. On the spaceship, I relied on electric power from the main core. Now I can only rely on solar as a substitute." Greg walked to an open spot on the beach where the sunlight was strongest. He opened two panels on his back, revealing solar collectors. He stood still, absorbing light. A low humming sound indicated he was charging. Obed stood guard while Greg charged, but soon he felt something. It was cold. Not temperature — intent. A killing intent, locked directly on him from far away in the forest. He decided to play cool. He didn't panic. He kept looking at the distance from time to time, pretending to be relaxed, while waiting for Greg to complete his charge. His hand, however, slowly moved to his side, ready. Then a sound was made — leaves rustling, twigs snapping — something rushing towards him, fast. "Greg? Are you done yet?" Obed called softly. Greg showed no sign of movement or response. His eyes were dim, still charging. Obed knew he had to do it his own way. He knelt and touched the ground with his palm, feeling its vibration. He closed his eyes and focused. In his training, the robots had taught him how to sense motion, how to read air pressure. But this was different. Suddenly, everything within a 100-meter radius seemed to vanish from his mind. The sound of the waves, the wind — all gone. All he saw in his vision was a single shape, moving fast through the green. A lion. A green lion. Obed was stunned. His eyes snapped open for a second. He had watched hundreds of documentaries and movies on the ship. Lions were golden, brown, yellow. He had never seen or heard of a green lion before. Its fur was like moss, its eyes glowed faintly amber, and its body moved with unnatural grace. To his greatest surprise, the moment their eyes met — even from that distance — the lion stopped. The lion looked terrified. Not because Obed was dangerous, but because it had been seen. It had been hunting silently, as it had always done, and no prey had ever sensed it from so far. Seeing a strange breed — a small creature wearing clothes, standing upright, looking strange and fearless — it panicked and ran away, disappearing back into the dense forest. Obed opened his eyes fully, his heart pounding. He couldn't believe how he had done that. He had always had a sharp sense of alert; he was aware of that. Growing up in a ship where oxygen could leak or a system could fail, he had learned to be sensitive. But being able to detect danger from a distance and see the prey so clearly in his mind was something he had never done before. So he pondered, sitting on the sand. "Looks like it got scared and ran away because I noticed its presence... What a cute green lion," he whispered with a nervous laugh. Just then, Greg's charging finished with a loud _ding_. His eyes lit up bright blue and he walked over. "Obed, I have finished charging. I have also analyzed the tree you touched," Greg said. "What is it?" "It is not just a tree," Greg said. "It is a tree containing energy. High-concentration bio-energy stored in its fibers. This forest is not normal." Boom! Obed was stunned. "An energy tree? I've never heard of such a thing! From all the films I watched on the spaceship, trees were just trees. They didn't contain energy!" Greg projected a scan of the tree. Inside the trunk, veins of glowing green light pulsed like blood. "This world is different," Greg said. "The laws here are different. That green lion was also saturated with the same energy." Obed looked from the glowing tree to the dark forest where the lion had vanished. He finally understood. This was not just an ancient Earth. This was another Earth. And if he wanted to survive in this Neverending Green, he would have to become more than just a boy from the future.

NEVERENDING GREEN