Chapter 4: Chapter 3 – Human

“Thank you.” said Omega, smiling at Sylen, sitting in the main lounge area of the ship that also housed a fully functional kitchen. He was holding a mug, filled with a steaming, black liquid, warming up his fingers as he was holding it. Miyon was also there, standing next to the table with crossed arms, constantly looking down at him, barely blinking, ready to pounce at him at any given moment.

 

“Pa…” nudged him Sylen, while sitting down at the opposite side of the little, round table but he was unmovable and only grunted as a reply. 

 

Omega was not really bothered by it as he was taking slow, deep breaths, enjoying the rising aroma of the brew in his mug. Closing his eyes, he was savoring it, a faint smile forming on his face before he reopened them. 

 

“Coffee… yes?” asked quietly, raising the mug to his lips.

 

“Yes.” nodded Sylen “Are you familiar with it then?”

 

“I don’t know.” shook his head Omega “Only the smell… it… it triggered some faint but happy feelings inside of me. It is still hazy, I can’t put it in words but… I felt happy for a moment.” 

 

“You really don’t remember who you are?” shifted her sitting posture, leaning forward, waiting for his answer while her tail was wagging behind her like a mechanical fan, completely betraying her about her inner excitement.

 

“Not really.” nodded “There are just… feelings in me. Hazy flashes of tiny, little fragments of memories. I can’t call upon anything specific but when I see something, hear something, it comes to me naturally. If I know about it! Like the fact that I really like this.” smiled again, taking another sip, fully satisfied with its taste.

 

“That must be hard… but…” tried to find the words but there were so many questions in her mind she was unsure where to even begin.

 

“There are some things I do remember though.” continued to speak, between two, small sips of coffee “I feel like I had a long and horrible nightmare. I don’t know if those are true memories or I just dreamt them, they feel… so distant by now! Yet I feel like I have just woken up from its horrors!” explained with a quiet but trembling voice “Thinking about those… I wish I would not even remember them! I can recall those images but they are not something I would want to speak about.”

 

“Hmf, figures, probably a slaver or pirate! Or worse!” snorted Miyon, watching him, showing a stalwart exterior of himself, unafraid of the weird, supernatural being sitting before him. 

 

“No… not really.” shook his head Omega, putting down the cup, running his index finger around its edge, drawing circles. “It was like being trapped in a body that is no longer yours, screaming at a screen, at others, at yourself, but nobody can hear you. Not even yourself. Living as an automaton, trapped in your own mind… Minutes? Days? Years? None of it had any meaning. Everything became a blur, a mess. Slipping in and out, blink or just close your eyes for a moment and who knows how many years have just passed. Or was it only a few minutes? I couldn’t tell anymore.” murmured, speaking as his violet eyes were fixated on the coffee in the mug. As his finger was drawing circle after circle, the black liquid started to follow suit and swirl, just like a vortex, prompting Sylen and Miyon to look at each other. “Then I woke up.” snapped out of it Omega, lifting his finger, blinking and forming a small smile as he looked into Sylen’s eyes. “And now here I am.”

 

“How did you survive in the vacuum of space? Without a spacesuit?” asked Sylen after a minute of silence, taking in his words from before.

 

“I don’t know.” shook his head “I just can. My body simply… adapts. Like previously when your grandfather tried to turn me into one with the molten floor.” looked up at Miyon with a small smile but only received a serious staredown and the furrowings of his bushy eyebrows. 

 

“It wasn’t some ancient tech?!” asked Sylen again, almost standing up, wanting to know more.

 

“No.” raised his hands “I have nothing on me, only this new overal your grandfather gave me!” pulled on his orange jumpsuit that was way too short on his hands and legs, as he was taller than the two of them.

 

“We will get you something more comfortable!” chuckled Sylen but then Omega just shook his head.

 

“No worries. I can deal with it.” flicked his hand and they saw as the fabric stretched out, as if it was growing naturally and soon changed its size into a perfect match for his body. “Much better!” patted himself with satisfaction.

 

“How?” asked Sylen and Miyon at the same time.

 

“I… just can.” answered after a brief thought.

 

“Sure!” scoffed Sylen, looking at him with slanted eyes, sending clear messages that she was not happy with him keeping it a secret.

 

“Truly!” sighed Omega with a gentle smile “I can’t explain it, it would be like you trying to explain to me how you breathe! You don’t even think about it, you just do.”

 

“You are still a dangerous… thing! If you are so all-powerful, why not go back out into space and float away until-”

 

“Pa! Enough! You are way too… harsh!” reprimanded him Sylen, partly because she was really interested in this strange human before them and partly because… “Wait…!” flinched, catching her own thoughts, her pupils enlarging and her eyes almost popping out of her head. “Are you a human?” asked, gulping loudly, making her own grandfather stumble.

 

“Yes. Kinda.” answered immediately, watching their faces go pale, then red, then into a mix of the two colors. “What? Is that a problem?” 

 

“Impossible!” stood up Sylen, slapping the table with two hands, making Omega’s mug fall over and its content splashing everywhere. “Humans went extinct a long ago!” 

 

“Extinct…” repeated the word Omega, flinching, his face grimacing a little, as a sharp pain flashed through his head, forcing him to grab onto it, squinting. “Did… we?” asked, gasping for air more rapidly, surprising them and Miyon already was dragging Sylen further away from the table.

 

“Tsk!” broke free the girl, looking questioningly at her grandfather, touching Omega’s head “Are you okay?”

 

“Y-yeah…” nodded, rubbing his temple “It just… felt painful for a moment there.”

 

“New memories?” asked, pulling her hand back with a bit of a shyness on her face, watching him look up at her. 

 

“No. Just… bad feelings.” shook his head “But I am human. I know that.” 

 

“Let’s test it!” stepped up Miyon “We just need one drop of blood and the computer can analyze it. If your genome is completely human it would be able to confirm your words!”

 

“How, if we really went extinct?” asked, but he was not about to refuse it, just curious. 

 

“There are hundreds of descendant species of humans!” said, hands on his waist, doubtful of the truthfulness of Omega’s words “Taking all the human parts, we long ago reconstructed the complete human genome so if we find one we could tell immediately!”

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“Oh! Okay!” nodded, following them into the medical station. What the two did not see was when they left, the fallen mug on the table stood back up and the spilled coffee simply climbed up on its side, back to where it was originally, leaving no mess behind.

 

…

….

…..

 

“Run it again!” gawked Miyon but no matter how many times Sylen did, the results were the same. The little, bright, red droplet of blood in the analyzer came out to be the same, every time. 

 

“Matching genetic markers. Constructing… analyzing. Match: Human.” read it Sylan “Pa, we run this four times already! It comes back the same every time!” exclaimed with great excitement, almost jumping in place, while Omega just sat on the white bed at the side, looking at them with an amused smile. He couldn’t get his eyes off from Sylen’s wagging tail, finding it way too cute. 

 

“B-but… but…” trembled Miyon, turning his head towards Omega, finding it hard to accept the facts before him.

 

“This is so awesome! You are human! Truly a human! Your DNA is perfect, clean of any mutations, our computer is still modifying our own data banks and calculations, projections as yours is even more perfect than our own scientists initially ended up with! This is huuuuuge!” shouted Sylen, completely fired up, almost running circles in the infirmary, before stopping in front of Omega, looking him up and down “A living, breathing ancestor! What happened?! Where did everyone go?! Are there more of you?!”

 

“Um…” blinked Omega, finding it awkward, seeing how ecstatic she was.

 

“Oh… sorry!” stopped Sylen suddenly, hitting her own forehead “You don’t remember!” then she leaned closer, whispering “You really don’t?”

 

“I really don’t. I swear.” answered, looking into her eyes.

 

“Haaahh… that is too bad! If the humans would come back we could finally be at peace again!”

 

“There is a war?” furrowed his brow Omega.

 

“Not… officially.” replied Miyon in the end, after he thought about it a little “But we are not welcomed in most places. Some territories are openly hostile towards us and no others would step in and save us if we get attacked. Our borders are constantly prayed upon by pirates, slavers and private armies. We are lucky that there are only three Astropaths leading into our domain and we managed to establish choke points there. In the past 500 years no assembled army has gone past our defensive platforms!” 

 

“Sounds serious!” crossed his arms Omega, scratching his chin “Is it really this bad?”

 

“We are banished from the galactic community!” shook her head Sylen “It’s our luck that there are just as many conflicts between the other species as there are human-like hybrids!” smiled with a tinge of sadness. “If they would unify behind one cause and attack us all at once, we would be wiped out completely!” 

 

“Thank the ancestors, that they squabble over territories and tech all the time!” snorted Miyon “It’s not like we bother them or provoke them! We are not a warmonger bunch, we just want to live and be left alone!” 

 

“I’d be happy to visit your territory, to see it for myself!” spoke Omega after listening to them.

 

“That would be great! A human, returning to us! A living ancestor! Many dream of a day like that!” said Sylen, happily wagging her tail, ready to tell everyone their incredible discovery.

 

“I’d prefer if I would not be… thrust into the forefront. Can we do that? Please?” smiled Omega, asking gently and clearly troubled by the notion “I’d like to pass along like one of you, not some kind of special trophy that needs to be paraded all-around!” 

 

“Ah… oh…” flinched Sylen “Sorry, I was just… excited! I didn't mean it like that!” 

 

“Not that it matters!” shrugged Miyon, dropping his shoulders “We fell out from the Astropath, there is no entrypoint here! We can’t get back in!” sat down, feeling lost and defeated, quickly extinguishing his granddaughter’s great mood too. 

 

“Why is that a problem?” asked Omega, not getting why they were so downcast suddenly.

 

“Heh!” chuckled Miyon, hearing his words, coming from blissful ignorance. “The natural entry- and exit points of an Astropath are fixed in space! They are like tunnels through the fabric of reality, flowing only one way! As I mentioned before, we have three Astropaths that lead to our territory. There are seven that lead to the outside!”

 

“And?” furrowed his brow Omega, still finding his explanation fuzzy and highly irrelevant.

 

“You can only enter into an Astropath at its opening and come out from the end of it! If you try to enter from the other way around, your ship is going to be torn to shreds by the wild currents! They are the twistings and turnings of matter itself! Any ship that tried to ride it backwards was obliterated!”

 

“And?” asked again, drawing a playful chuckle from Sylen but Miyon did not find it amusing at all. 

 

“And that means you go into an Astropath at the opening, come out at the ending! You don’t eat food with your butt! Get it?! We are stuck here! There are no openings here!”

 

“...” held back her laughter Sylen as it seemed her humor was still stuck at a younger phase. 

 

“Why would you stick food into your butt?” asked Omega, truly confused now by his analogy “You are not making any sense here! What does this weird food fetish have to do with the Astropaths?”

 

“Grrr!” growled loudly Miyon, flashing his canine teeth, getting really frustrated and the now loud laughter of Sylen did not help at all. “It means we are stuck! In nowhere’s land! We would need to go with our old, already half-empty thrusters, aiming towards the nearest system! And that would take decades, even if we had infinite fuel! Maybe even centuries as this is not a fast ship! Our reserves would only be enough for a year and only if we only eat a little, every few days! We are stranded out here and doomed to DIE!” shouted in the end, gasping for air, desperate and angry, silencing her granddaughter’s laughter, making her lower her head, only looking at the floor.

 

“No we are not.” replied Omega very quickly, blinking, looking at Miyon as if he was forgetting something.

 

“What?” raised Sylen her head and also Miyon fell silent, holding back his breath, waiting for him to continue.

 

“I pulled you out, I can also send you back in.” stood up from the bed, smiling, walking past of Miyon, patting his shoulder, shaking him out from the shock he was feeling. “Come, let us depart!”

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