The time was 00:00:00:00 on a brand new year, no longer composed of many day-and-night cycles numbering a calendar. The year was 17. The planet of focus, Positus 4 of the Supra-Iterum planet cluster, lacked planetary rotations that the Sol's Earth had, like most planets commonly did in the rest of the galaxy, too.
Earthlings in the rest of the galaxy, mind you, were ignorant and Earth-centric in their beliefs and habits. It took much time for Earthlings to get beyond their prized belief systems, finding that the galaxy wasn’t only to be explored openly, but was to be cooperated with on galaxian terms no matter how vaguely dismissive of their experiences and input. Nonetheless, Earthlings existed in more than one place around the galaxy, and they rarely found themselves to be the forefront of every adventure after a time.
On Positus 4, time was ticking into the new year, but the past was close behind. In the year 16, much of the terrain in the daylight was covered by clouds and experienced monsoons, converting icy-desert and tundra-ful lands gradually over the course of the entire year, from sudden changes bursting from the planet's nearby star, Gan Versalis. As the planet slowly phased, news broke out to each city that by the year 17, the government would need to improve critical infrastructure to inhibit damages from massive amounts of rain and water, including the ice melting on the lit surface of Positus 4.
There was a species called the Habbalites living on the planet. In one of their cities called Julahe, running behind on project management, structures used for residency were vacated by their inhabitants pre-starlit event. The remaining Habbalite workers shielded the ceilings of their structures with a material that wouldn't be broken down by water, and they worked quickly on renovating the overall structures into being resilient against water and strong winds. The monsoons were claiming much of the hills and mountains, the rainwater running deeper into the tundra valleys where Habbalites dug a network of trenches used for sewage and waste. Water became more of a pest for the Habbalites after it became clear that the weather was going to be persistent.
With a group of Habbalites, there was an Earthling who had converted to their ways. They were the last of their kind in that star system, because their fellow Earthlings had suffered from freezing to death aboard their ship, having failed to find civilization before their ship powered down. The last Earthling who was once known as Phillip K. Angalo had slipped away from the human past after being pressured to conform to the ways of the Habbalites species.
The Habbalites weren't humanoid in their form, with no hands and appendages similar to Earthlings. Instead, they had what looked like fire hose endings made of latticed black fibers that lined their sides, like suction cups that could extend from them. They were creatures that stood tall on one slug-like though dry leg which looked snugly fitted to any elevation of the ground beneath them, supported by drill-like tendons that were extremely sharp. It contained something like bone and vertebrae that allowed them to be as sturdy as Earth's rocky terrains, though considered high intelligence to the standard human being of Roman calendar 2083 A.D.—and perhaps average to the arrogant Earthlings around that time. The Habbalites were also broad up top and slimmed down below at their mid-section, resembling the heads of Cobra snakes without the mouths and eyes. They were most sensitive to light and sounds in their upper-half that stayed rigid and upright most of the time, like radar communication towers.
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Habbalites didn't communicate with language, but with their positions relevant to each other, and with what Earthlings called synaptic connections where energy traveled in the form of thoughts. This left Phillip confused for the first quarter of year 15 when he first discovered the Habbalites, but after some time he was able to communicate with them from a reluctant trial-and-error, negotiating using higher order thinking Earthlings would call imagination. The Habbalites didn't greet Phillip with any concepts of invasion, hostility, nor comfort and discomfort, but like an ocean on Earth that was gentle and undiscriminating, accepting another one of its salt water inhabitants.
Positus 4 remained unvisited by human civilization, and Phillip was simply left there alone. The heart in his chest was shapeshifting while it was changing the way his mind was linked to reality. He was able to live like a wild animal with the Habbalites, without any further judgment, and had to learn how the Habbalites worked. They were constructive and didn't require sustenance, making Phillip worry and panic when he was close to starving, but the Habbalites helped guide him to what they were able to annotate for themselves was primitive needs, and Phillip helped himself to an area of species that grew from the light rain and leftover water sources similar to ponds.
Phillip, in his mind, lost track of Earth and Earthlings, and became permanently one of the inhabitants of Positus 4, unbeknownst to the human civilization until one day, someone had attempted to uncover mission files in sectors where Positus 4 was sorted into. Phillip, becoming much like the Habbalites lost sense of language, no longer using the mouth and the throat, finding the sounds they made to be discomforting and degenerative. Phillip had forgotten his own name, and had also forgotten how to classify the creatures in a way that human beings typically ordered their environments around them. He learned a new way of using his energy that was previously unavailable to human beings, forever changing his anatomy. That anomaly remained undiscovered with him until the human civilization sent an exploration and recovery ship duo.
The Briton-535 Explorer and the Port Reflex XV Rescuer space vessels arrived to Positus 4 on the day-side of the planet at 00:35:82:13, immediately scanning the tall structures that Habbalites had built from the ground up, like forests of Redwood trees seen for the first time. They swooped in low to the ground to scan the surface layers of the terrain, finding the planet to be, so far, scarce in resources that humans were typically interested in finding. The plan was set that a research crew, exploration team, and medical team were to prepare for finding any remains or survivors of the Eckhart Stiles 6, the Scout ship that Phillip K. Angalo was assigned to.
