1 Lost Memories And Endless Journey

The cold metal floor wakes MCs from his sleep. he opens his eyes swiftly and within no time at all, he is already on his feet. he felt the urgency to do so but as to why, he cannot remember. for him to be in a state of rush, he concluded that he must be in a middle of doing something important and the sleeps that he had taken was not a voluntary action couple that with the headache he is experiencing and inability to recall any of his memories. be it a memory from a few hours ago or an earlier memory from his childhood, he can remember none about himself.

The tall young man examined his surroundings, all there was where the hallway out of metal wall and metal floor, everywhere. Along the hallway wall were small lights brightening the way. any beings with a shred of intelligence and common sense could tell that this is a ship of some sort, a big ship at that. Whether it is a "ship" ship, or a spaceship is hard to determine because of the lack of window anywhere in the vicinity.

MC examined the floor where he slept, the position he was in and also which way he was facing. He determined that if he went forward from where he was facing, he will find an answer as to what he was rushing toward, and so, he marched toward that direction. along the way he looked up and down, left and right for any kind of abnormalities or actually, anything of interest. the ship's hallway was long and boring.

After a sometimes, he may have found a clue. In front of him was the commanding station. As he steps into the room, he saw many control panels filling the room and in the middle of the room was a big screen with two smaller screens on both of its side. MC walks around the room, trying to trigger any kind of memories that he may or may not have with the place. he looked up to the screens and the ceiling, but nothing triggers his memories, he looked down to the floor and still nothing, all that is to see is the metal floor without a speck of dust.

sometimes later after trying everything to make himself remember anything by laying, sitting, standing, in corners, floor and of course the control panels, he laid his eyes on a peculiar button. this button was on the control panel that he first saw as he walked in but then, the button was nothing remarkable. the button felt like it was calling for him to be push. slowly, and slowly he moved his hand to the button and then, he pushed it.

With the button pushed, all the metal wall in front of him suddenly starts showing, presumably the exterior of the ship. There were stars everywhere, galaxies shining their majestic colors as though flaunting to one another. grand vastness was there all along and with it, the many magnificent celestial bodies. the ship that was passive and immobile suddenly humming a futuristic engine sound, moments later the ship started moving.

A glance from the inside the of the ship felt like the speed at which the ship moves was rather slow, but contrary to sight outside, the many galaxies were being passed through at a very fast speed. it was an amazing view seeing the many stars and nebulae being crossed so rapidly. It has been a few minutes, and the ship had not decrease (nor increase for that matter) in speed. the brilliant stars and suns are all still there outside the ship. after some time, even the space in all its endlessness felt stale and unremarkable. Though experience may vary.

The three large monitors in the room were brightly lighting up the room, not prettily as the bright celestials outside but they are not competing against the stars. The monitors were built for function and as such, they did it just fine. The three monitors were showing distinct imagery from one another, the middle and biggest monitor shows a trajectory of the ship moving in spacetime in real time, which is evident with the scribble in English "trajectory in spacetime" at the right down corner of the monitor. The left monitor catalogues the time and place of destination we were at and where are we heading, almost a copy what you would see at an airline. MC studied the monitor for a while hoping to find any kind of information about the place he presumably had been to, even the name of the place would be good enough to perhaps trigger a memory, to his surprise there had been place the ship have gone to but they are all erase...all that are left were blank textboxes in the "from" and "to" column. That is, if not for the last row which written in "to" column the word, "Xuan Empire [ETA: 50 Tik]".

The last monitor shows the map of the ship and legends for it as well, there are lavatories, bedrooms, cargo bay, hallways, cargo and other facilities but who would be interested in the dull ships surrounded by and made out of metal. the walks that he took to get to the commanding station was dull and uninteresting, why would the rest of ship be any different? he thought to himself. Couple that with the excitement he felt going to this mysterious "Xuan Empire" and so he began ticking the time away, watching the eta going down and down.

.... Even so, the 50 tik was too much to handle, one tik would be equal to roughly one minute, perhaps a little bit more. Waiting almost an hour watching the countdown was, "madness" he uttered under his breath as he saw the eta when to 43. Almost at the same as the word "madness" was said, the monitor that shows the map of the ships started beeping. Along with the loud beeps, was a glowing red dot on the monitor. closer inspection shows that the dot was on the storages area where cargos are stored.

The bored young man began his walk to storage, he wanted to be excited hoping for something interesting will happen as soon as he reached the cargo, but he tempered his expectation. The young man is not an optimist, it seems. The way to the cargo is a literally a straight way forward. The commanding station is the front of the ship while the engine is in the back section and the cargo is in the middle of it all, taking almost four fifth of the whole ship hinting to this ship being a cargo ship. Along the way, all he saw was the same old metal wall and floor. No more the majestic scenery of nebulae and spiraling galaxies like the ones in commanding station at least not until he reached the cargo. There it is again, the beautiful outside full of stars and suns. Along the hallway of the cargo area, were windows showing whatever wonders there is outside...and once again, the outside that he once thought was uninteresting and stale was no longer. He seems almost mesmerized by the gorgeous display but then he snapped out of it, remembering that the mission was to reach a certain location in the cargo.

He stepped in to the door to the cargo but not before turning his face one more time to see the endless space outside and smirked a little, as though satisfied with what he saw. Inside the cargo were many life pods as far as the eyes can see, hanging reminiscence of meat on butcher's hooks but instead of hanging dead animal meat, these were living beings. The amazing spectacle however, was cut short by an obvious familiar beep, along with subtler breathing noises. Some are weak and timid while others are strong and almost intimidating, like the breathing of lions or tigers. Though there were many interesting things in the many many blurry life pods, he got no time to investigate the contents of those life pods except for one, the one beeping so repetitively that it almost made one want to scream "shut up!" from the top of one's lungs.

There it was, the culprit that made the beeping noise. He swiped the blurry casket containing a life, and a face of a human being beginning to emerge with every swipe the face became clearer. A human face, right in front him. if not for the glass separating them, he might as well hear that person trying hard to breath. Many emotions were pouring into him at this point among them perhaps joy was the major one but he set those emotions aside for the simple reason of a message that kept fading in and out. On the life pod, the message "no oxygen" was glowing and on the left side of the life pods were two buttons. One button was glowing red while the other one was not. obviously, he clicked the glowing one and the life pod opened. As the life pod opened, a gentle breeze of cold air was released.

And behold, a whole human body in a thin white robe. A moment was let passed and the body still seems unmoving and unbreathing, almost as though it was dead. "Did- did I just kill some-" as he asked that question to himself, a cough was heard from the bed ridden girl. As the girl was coughing, her legs as seems unable to support the weight of the whole body and almost fall down, if not for MC's holding both arm and slowly putting them down to their knees. Gently, MC's put her down on her knees, almost as soon as the both of her knee touches the ground, girl from the pod eyes opened and tilted their head slightly upward to meet the face of the person that saved them from plopping head first down the ground. MC lowered his face to meet her gaze and their eyes locked. Before, there was a blurry glass separating the two of them but not anymore.

Two thoughts came to his head, the first thoughts were something that was always running in the back of his head while the other thoughts came just now as soon as they locked eyes. The other thoughts were "she looks younger than I am, at least by a few years...but then again, how old am I? more importantly, *how* do I look?" he thought to himself, occupied by now surfacing self-dilemma. A few moments later, he was back to the real world with their eyes still locked together, he uttered "how am- no, no wait, I meant *who* am I?"