Stranded

The Mirror should not exist. From one side, it is a transparent anomaly orbiting Mars. From the other, it is a perfect black disc of volcanic glass. It swallows probes, breaks instruments, and refuses to fit any models.Commander Jan Eriksson is sent through to find out what lies beyond.That is where the mission plan ends.What follows is a world Jan has no map for: a place of old ruins, impossible peoples, creatures that keep matching myths he knows from home and a land that fights back when too much is taken from it.  His spacecraft is wrecked. His equipment is failing. The way back is gone. And the people who save him may be as dangerous as the world itself.A standalone story set within the broader Romantically Apocalyptic mythos by Vitaly S. Alexius.What to expect•Sci-fi-to-fantasy portal survival.•A competent but very out-of-context astronaut protagonist.•Found-family adventuring party dynamics.•Weird cosmology from the Romantically Apocalyptic mythos, explained as needed.•Adult romance, nonhuman love interests, and cultures with different assumptions about sex, nudity, and relationships.•Practical adventuring logistics: food, injuries, barter, fieldcraft and travel.•Dry humor, grief, danger, and occasional psychedelics.Cover art by Professor Concord