Lights Beyond the Craft Pulse Through the Room

Each passing star bursts its light through the windows for the one single moment they can do so before the ship’s speed rips them away. At every pulse, hyperspace velocity shoots the research vessel quasiinfinitely far and deep away into starlight’s reach. Sitting inside the craft is somebody overdue for sleep’s comfort, begrudgingly preparing seemingly days worth of bureaucratic work over a long afternoon before his next assignment.

Aboard with him are his team of two biologists: Mio Naganohara and Mai Minakami. They find their work obligations entirely contained within the safe comfort of the team’s research vessel. Not the leader, but instrumental to the mission is him, the team’s archaeologist: Yuuko Aioi. Often alone for the process of excavating and physically retrieving samples, he’s tasked with the fulfillment of the mission on the common occasion on-board censors aren’t able to provide enough information to the team. It was his passion, and maybe the last string keeping him together.

Together, their mission is to explore potentially habitable celestial bodies; to go deep into the frontier of what-could-be’s, of finding a place not guaranteed to exist, of revealing where humanity may not find its new home, and of maybe, if they bear the fortune, even deciding where it may. Member to one of countless such missions, the crew was solitary and not. It was easy for some to forget that, and after so much time away from home, it `was also easy to forget the mission was defined by a bright future for humanity, not a hollowed out past of twelve years’ worth of empty husk-planets.

For Yuuko, it was easy to forget even his self.

Slow blinking, dizzy sight, shrimp posture. Typing speeds in the magnitudes of minutes-per-word made up the last countless stretch of time out of his day. Most if not all of his on-ship workdays followed the same routine: An hours-long process of nudging himself to get out of bed and start living, and then an endless process of constant distractions until an unsatisfactory, drawn out ending of completed paperwork was reached long after the time he should be back in bed by. He didn’t know why every day had to be a battle to be functional.

He had dealt with enough of the routine for today; he wanted to see his friends. They were the reason he could will himself out of bed for. He worried he was a social drain on them, but they never seemed to mind. Maybe they understood how tired he was? He got up; he missed them right now.

The door sliced upwards, letting Yuuko burst out of his office-bedroom, feet dragging. With heavy eyes, he felt warmth in finding Mai and Mio in the crammed common room. He spent a lot longer at work than he thought; he felt a hunger he couldn’t while sat at his desk. The three gathered to share a meal.

—

“I’m telling you— she was real!” Yuuko pleaded out in-between bites of freeze-dryed, “SPICED FRUIT” labeled cereal. She had become a lot more energetic in her short time back together with her friends.
“I didn’t believe you then, I don’t believe you now,” Mai replied, stoically.
“No, no, you gotta believe! I believe him!” replied Mio.
“Oh my God, final-”
“Believe that you’re crazy, dude!” she finished, earning a playful, annoyed push from Yuuko. She laughed it off while Mai smiled at the two.

The three had landed back around on a classic subject of theirs; Yuuko’s repeated hallucinations when the three were in high school. It was a safe topic; he knew everybody always had fun around it.

"Sounds like your dream girl,” Mai said.
"She wasn't my dream girl!! She was…
…okay, she was, but it was different!"

When the three attended Tokisadame High, Yuuko had repeated visions of a classmate; it was never something he brought up with anybody in detail except Mai and Mio. Some girl who was supposed to be his classmate.

“Remember when you were freaking out at the principal’s office?” Mio asked.

There, Yuuko had been told that no record indicated any new students had transferred in that he didn’t already know.

“I can’t believe you’re still obsessed over this,” Mai said.
“Listen, I don’t— Why would my eyes lie to me about one thing and not anything else, ever?!”
“I don’t think hallucinations work logically?” Mai replied, before her eyes widened with the recollection of something important.

“Oh!” she paused, her face returning to her normal, bored-seeming expression before continuing. “Yuuko, about the mission, I forgot to tell you; it’ll involve another spacewalk.” Nothing out of the ordinary, he thought. She continued, “Advance-scanning hasn’t detected any life at our next destination, except... We found a single anomalous region; we can’t get through it with survey equipment, and we also can’t land there due to some unidentifiable obstacle— likely harsh weather. HAL’s having us land at a safe distance, no way around it. You’ll depart and head out to the anomaly itself once we’re on-site. Figure out what’s going on and call in, you know? Same deal as always.” Mai finishes.

Yuuko shrugs. “You got it, boss.” He gets back to his now soggy cereal, and the three continue to banter for a while before heading to their rooms to sleep. For the next few light cycles, days would shape up in a similar way to today: Yuuko drains himself at his office, seeks his friends out to comfort him into being okay enough with sleeping, and then goes to bed. Mai and Mio made the days worth being there for, even if those days typically ended with a sense of regret for some feeling Yuuko had held onto since high school.

Finally, the day of the mission arrived. The three chatted over their bowls of “SUGAR COATED CORN FLAKES” cereal before once more going over the briefing Mai had given over dinner a few days ago. Yuuko steps through the airlock door.

Vents hissing, rubber stretching, airlock doors shutting, and a slow, pulsating breath are what he now hears. A plasteel gate separates him from his next excavation, and another from his two friends. It’s unhealthy, he knows, but he reminds himself how small he is without them. Knowing he’ll be without others, without small-talk, without people to bounce thoughts between and exchange a dialogue with; his only company was now his own self, no longer muted by those around him. Now it was as if every moment in quiet solitude droned forever. The ramp cracks and hisses open. Light, without an atmosphere to filter it, wracks Yuuko’s vision as it spills into the room. He shuts his eyes in panicked frustration, having forgotten to dim his visor until now.

The sounds of the storm outside get shut out by his helmet closing its airways, then get replaced by those of a valve spinning in his suit and the ensuing hissing of air shooting into his helmet. “OXYGEN-TANK FLOW ACTIVE” reads the digital display on his visor. Without pre-existing oxygen on this planet, prospects for its usability as humanity’s next domain have gone down considerably. Thoughts refocus on the mission.

He stomps off the fully lowered ramp, down onto the crunchy, grainy rocks below. With now clear vision he sees the dust-storm that was too bright prior; the obstacle Mai must’ve been talking about. Countless little stones and pebbles bounces unfiltered, focused light straight back at his eyes at countless angles and distances. It’s a cacophony he couldn’t see before. Quickly, under the electronically antiphased sound of the dust storm’s turbulence, pebbles rocking his suit, and the craft’s massive turbines spinning, Yuuko jogs to the portside of the craft, where an electric offroad Shinonome Laboratories motorcycle is waiting in one of three external hangars. With his equipment already stored in the saddle bags there-within, he’ll simply clamber aboard as fast as he can in the storm’s harsh wind, and speed off out of the localized storm as fast as the bike takes him. Ideally, he doesn’t go off-course from the anomalous site.

…but as he travels further and further away, one kilometer turns to six, turns to twelve, and what’s meant to be a localized storm seems more and more to be an incorrectly assessed regional beast with each bumpy, windy moment that Yuuko speeds away in a direction he doesn’t even know anymore. Clattering rocks slam against his suit, and windy tides rock his bike.

“Guys, these things are rated for longer than this— Why’s it out of juice already?” he stumbles the words out, eyes fixated on the dashboard energy indicator blinking “RECHARGE” as the bike slows to a stop. His radio whispers back static, and he doesn’t want to panic. “I can’t hear you if you’re speaking to me, guys” shakily mumbles a voice trying to hide its fear. More static, more pebbles clanging. He’s off his bike and is giving it useless, rapid examinations for what could be the cause of the problem. He doesn’t have the time to stay here and kick tires.

He takes a last look back before turning to trudge into the storm, away from his equipment and transportation. Disconnected from what came before now, he stomps at a crawl’s pace through the pebbles and dust. Stony, grainy, and rough ground meet his boots every step of the way. Harsh, fast, and loud impacts rattle his body and visor. Beyond the cacophony of painful rocks, he makes out the bright shape of the system’s star in the sky.

Every micro-gram reflecting its light helped form a sparkling maze he couldn’t make a safe way out of, until he found shelter. A hole on the side of a steep cliff. Fighting the storm with the last of his strength, Yuuko threw himself into the sill’s opening. He falls on his side and falls to his deep exhaustion, surrounded by something he can’t understand in his short moments experiencing his barely-held-together idea of reality: A room.

Slow, rhythmic breathing lost its tempo: He blinks awake. The natural impulse to stay, to wriggle around and not get up— to lay down for hours before taking on the world was gone. He felt different.

He took a moment to dart his eyes around his dark surroundings. Three walls, a floor, a roof, and a double sliding door. He turned his gaze behind him. More wall, no window. His breathing picks up, and a fear of the uncanny presents itself. There’s no wind or turbulence howling at him, and even the sound of his own breath echoing back is missing; he’s realized now that he no longer has his helmet on. He sits up, letting himself take in the silence of the dead planet.

He takes his first steps.

Heavy stomps dot the soundscape; he’s under more weight than before? He slides the door open, stepping onto dusty, out of shape, creaky floorboards. It felt familiar, this hallway he was in. He knew where he was, he thought. He began at a fast pace— there was something around here, something that could ground him — he felt it.

Why was he here again, though? ‘Again,’ he thought, as if he already knew his theory was right. To the left; down the hall; across the first set of doors — His answers are in there. He rushes up to and slides the door open, knocking a hefty amount of dust around with the slam. A table, a desk, the television in the corner — And the daruma? Where is it? He steps in to search for it before pausing, his foot just above the delicate room’s floor: It’s all too valuable to flip upside down for just one statue, he decides. He already knows what he’s looking at anyways; he knows it’s that room he hasn’t entered in twelve years. It’s all readily apparent, so why does he need to touch the past to confirm what’s in front of him? He gives it one last look. He closes the door. Confusion rings in his head as to why desperate compulsion almost overcame him, he begins his walk back up the hall. The past was infallible, he thought he believed. He had become an archaeologist to find the unchangeable; to memorialize it, not grab it for himself. He felt different.

He steps onto the genkan at the end of the hall and slides the front door open. He closes his eyes to brace for that same unfiltered blast of light from when he was last awake, but no such sensory attack comes at the first crack of the door opening. He steps out, hearing a distinct reverberation to his steps, one of long, uninterrupted distances. A dusty, grainy fog plagues the area and his vision. Likely related to the storm? He begins his walk down the street. Wherever this is, it hasn’t forgotten itself; between and through old homes, crashing out from under roads, and bursting through the pillars elevating a nearby tram line are the remains of the cold, dead planet, still beating: Rock. Dusty, worn rock. They interrupt the neighborhood at every turn, they dot the landscape and act to remind Yuuko that he does not stand at the home he wishes for: This place is, regardless of the familiarity, far away from everything.

That distance included itself. It’s not the planet Yuuko landed on, it’s certainly not the planet he rode his bike through. But did he ever get to see it well enough to say this? The storm was so heavy. The lab grows distant with every passively taken step. Thoughts are rattling. Where was it?

Where was what?

The ship? The window, the storm, the anomaly? The hunger, thirst, the exhaustion? The desire to give in and lay down for days?

He couldn’t care about that now. He was asking something else: Where was Tokisadame? And where was the person that brought him here? He knew that girl had done this. The one he never met. It was her who did this; it would bring reason to all of it. There was an inward desperation coming out, one that wants purpose. It might’ve finally found a reason to come out. He’s headed towards her. He felt different.

—

But the streets are longer than he remembers. It’s not supposed to be this long between the lab and the school, yet…

“I just need to see her,” he lets out an inner thought. “She’s here. There’s no other thing that could possibly be here but her.” His voice echoes through the empty streets. “I can change the past.” He begins to repeat the mantra to himself, “I can change it,” goes his already tired new cycle. “I can see her now. She won’t be hiding.” She won’t be behind distant windows; inside distant heat hazes; inside his own reflections in the water. “There’s nowhere to hide anymore.” The roads wind, the homes he’s seen so many times loop into themselves with every twist, and his unsure memory of where he should be going gets more and more dizzied. In these last moments before his body remembers there’s no oxygen in his lungs, determination wraps itself around him. Tokisadame’s silhouette comes past the veil of the fog and, on borrowed time, he goes on. He can feel a stinging through his body, a heavier weight to his steps; he’s being told his time is near.

—

He washes his hands at a mirrorless sink. He tries to, at least; no water runs here anymore.

He had finished exploring the exterior of the school, seeing sights liminal in nature, before now always full of students meandering between classes. This new type of silence, though, allowed him to hear his footsteps echo in a way he couldn’t before; it was the deeper echo a space allowed when it knew it wouldn’t experience company again. He stepped into his classroom’s building. From the outside, he had noticed the school had lost its exterior windows. Now, he saw, the interior windows were gone, too.

He steps out of the bathroom, beginning his walk down the hall. Passively curious on the decay, he glances into each classroom as he walks by: Ultimately, surely, she won’t be there. It’ll happen in 1-Q, nowhere sooner.

His thoughts wind… to how he knows what he does; to how he knows where he walks; to what tells him that girl’s here. He doesn’t want to admit that he doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t want to admit he’s lost his mind, that he’s pretending to not die on a cold planet’s rock-riddled surface, dreaming a place that doesn’t exist, dreaming a self he isn’t. It wouldn’t make sense. Or, at least, it wouldn’t be fair.

He couldn’t see himself dying without answers. He wanted to see her.

‘You never showed yourself. I thought you didn’t want anything to do with me.’ A reply to his thoughts.
“I was always looking for you.”
‘You looked wrong.’ Directionless, still.
“Where are you?”
‘I didn’t know you wanted to see me.’ Her voice came from somewhere distinctly real.

He turns to face its origin. She’s in his suit, her helmet’s on. Why— She hasn’t aged. He can see her, and she hasn’t changed in the twelve years she spent burrowed in his mind. She was a snapshot. She was meant to change since then, grow with him— Grow to be the answers to the questions she was back in high school. He stumbles a step towards her, confused.

“Is it frozen?” He asks. “Time, I mean. How long has it been..?”
‘You know,’ she says, tears forming. ‘I thought you left me for good back there.’ He wants to embrace her, but he doesn’t know why. She did this to him. This.
“I— I never meant to leave you.”
But he still cares for her.
“…I thought you weren’t real.”
Why, though? And why offer excuses to her?
‘You never let me be real,’ she replies.

It becomes increasingly clear to him. The two talk; he steps closer, and in an embrace, it comes so easily to him. The way their hug ignores the equipment on the suits between them; the way he rests his head on top of hers, disregardant of the helmet between the two.

“How do I get back home?” He asks, time-unknown later.
‘That’s right. That anomaly you were looking for…’ She stops to think.
“And when I leave,” he says, interrupting with more pressing business. “Can I bring you with me?”
‘Oh, you don’t get how this works, do you,’ she asks, stopping her train of thought for the last time.
‘Well, I guess you didn’t back then either. It’s not a choice.’

—

She gasps and claws and sits up and comes back to life for the first time. She throws her palms at her head when a loud THUNK stops her: The helmet that made a concussion out of what was meant to be a fatal impact, it’s back on her head. The visor’s scratched where she must’ve landed on the ground. She looks around: Earthy, stone walls. Settled dust and pebbles. A cave. She looks up: At a distance, the hole in the wall she had jumped through, light dripping in through it. She gets up. Who once were two are now as one. There’s no exhaustion like there was before, so she begins walking deeper into the cave: She felt different.

—

Her mission is to find a habitable celestial body. To go deep into the frontier of what-could-be and to force out from galaxy’s grip the life that we so deserve to live. Of revealing to ourselves that we can wake up, that life’s past isn’t incorrigible; that because life has been missing doesn’t mean it is death. She’s following specks of bouncing light. Member to one of countless such missions, the seemingly boundless space between her crew and all others is minuscule: All mission crews know they’re together in a shared struggle, that they form a pool of shared experiences that only together allows them find humanity’s bright future. For Yuuko, it was time to wake up from a wasted twelve years of ignored opportunities. She steps into light at the end of the cave.

She looks up and finds she’s surrounded by towering stone: The cave had led her to an opening cavity, the bottom of some pit that led up to the surface of the planet. Above is a clear blue sky— atmosphere, clear of dust hiding it. She stepped out to the middle of the pit, admiring the sky she had kept herself from before. The knocking of boots on rock turns to a squelch. She stops to look down: A patch of moss next to a small pond— more a puddle. Still, it was more than enough. She radios back to a simultaneously panicked and relieved crew in geostationary orbit above the formerly impassable ‘anomaly,’ and the three begin a debrief.

“Hey,” an audibly exasperated Mio says over crystal-clear radio. “You sound different.”