Getting out of the hospital wasn’t without its challenges. Everyone wanted to talk to Nori, the news had already broken out about Lampro’s death and the response was overwhelming. It seemed like all the mechara on the ship had come to the surface along with a considerable amount of melodians. I’d never seen the streets so full yet so quiet as the news broke that Lampro had died.

  Nori and I had made our way out of the hospital and into a small enclosed car. Everyone was trying to ask her questions but she just held up her hand and continued walking. We both rode in the back as the driverless car pulled away and made us disappear into the crowd of other vehicles traveling along the central ring. Artemis clearly understood the idea that Nori wanted to be left alone.

  To my surprise, instead of going to Nori’s house, the car moved through the traffic and made its way to the inner side of the middle ring and transferred over to the back section of the ship where the massive forest sat.

  When the car stopped we quickly got out and made our way into the forest, following one of the larger paths which was devoid of any mechara or melodians. We were completely alone.

  Through all my time on Lifeboat 8, I’d never traveled to the third section of the ship. I’d only explored the larger front section with the massive windows looking out into space. The part that struck me the most about it was that if I didn’t look up to see the ring of the ship surrounding me from above, I could easily mistake it for a natural forest, like the one I’d grown up in back home.

  I didn’t want to be the first one to break the hours-long silence since leaving the hospital. Nori had a lot on her mind and I wanted to give her as much time as she needed to think about everything. The silence at least let me have time to take in the new surroundings I’d found myself in.

  The plants were extremely different, but the vibe of the whole place felt familiar and comforting. As we went further into the ring, the sound of the city faded away, replaced by a quiet stillness that I hadn’t felt aboard the ship since I’d first arrived. The trees were shaped like giant mushrooms, their leaves splaying out above them and forming a solid continuous layer above the tree. They were taller than I’d suspected from seeing them from afar. Each one standing at least a hundred to a hundred fifty feet high with extremely thick trunks that looked like they were as wide as the pictures of redwood trees I’d seen online. They were beautiful, with different colors along the canopies, but mostly staying in the yellow and green colorations with only a few deviating out into various shades of reds and blues.

  Below them was mostly dirt, with a familiar grassy moss that I’d seen out in the first section of the ship.

  The entire back section of the ship was shaped like a cone, with the inner side being the same diameter as the majority of the ship, but as we made our way toward the back we continued making our way up toward the center of the cylinder.

  It was a long hike, but it was made easier as the gravity continued becoming lesser and lesser as we walked up the hill.

  “Thanks for joining me” Nori said, breaking the long silence we had after leaving the hospital.

  “I didn’t want to leave you by yourself after all that. When I lost my dad I spent a lot of time by myself and I don’t think that was the best thing for me… I think it would have been easier if I’d had someone by my side” I said.

  It felt strange to refer to John as my dad, but I didn’t know what else to call him. My actual father had saved me from Lifeboat 7, but I wasn’t raised by him, I didn’t know who we was aside from the small memory I’d experienced from him.

  Nori had mentioned she felt guilty for not knowing who her father was before the accident and I couldn’t help but feel the same. My biological father sacrificed himself in order to save me and I didn’t even know what his name was.

  “I’m sorry to hear that… When did that happen?” she asked.

  I thought for a moment. I still hadn’t gotten much of a concept on how time worked on the lifeboats. From what I’d gathered, they measured time based on rotations of the ship, which seemed like they took about two minutes each. But how that would translate to the months since John’s death I had no idea.

  “It wasn’t too long ago” I said instead of trying to figure out the math behind everything.

  “I’m sorry to hear that…” she said before falling back to silence.

  She and I continued walking together for a while as the path twisted and turned through the forest. The path became less trodden as we continued upward. The moss originally was only at the border of the path but as we continued into the farther up portion of the forest it began to overtake the pathway until we reached a point where we were walking across it, the pathway becoming one with the forest, the gravity holding us down was getting incredibly weak.

  Just before reaching the upper limit where the forest met the back wall of the ship where a large circular plate seemed to cap off the back of the ship, Nori came to a stop at a bench that faced out toward the ship, overlooking the circular city.

  “Have you ever been up here before?” Nori asked as she took a seat at the bench.

  “I can’t say I have” I said as I joined her at her side.

  It sounded like Nori was a little out of breath from the hike so we sat for a few minutes just taking the sight in. I could see the hospital we’d come from in the distance. It was to our right, about a 90 degree angle from where we’d sat down. The streets were filled with people surrounding the hospital, presumably wanting more information about Lampro and what had happened to him.

  From the vantage point we had, the sun was nearly in the very center of the windows, giving a beautiful symmetrical view of the ship along with the sun outside of it. The view was spectacular to see and I’d felt myself regretting not visiting the forest earlier.

  “I wanted to say thank you again for joining me. I’ll be honest I don’t think I have anyone else to talk to” she said.

  “How so?” I asked, a bit confused about what she meant.

  She sighed before answering “Everyone always treats me like I’m this… Important person. I guess to them I am. But I didn’t ask for any of that. I feel like I didn’t really earn the amount of respect they have for me. This whole ‘surviving three’ thing isn’t something we came up with. They all put us on this pedestal and treated us like we were so important and I never felt like I deserved it. I was just a kid, what did I do to deserve all this?” she shook her head before turning to look at me “I feel like I never get treated as any other person. To them I’m…” she reached her hands up, shaking them in the air “Nori, the survivor of Lifeboat 7.”

  She shook her head, turning back toward the ship leaning forward and resting her beak on her hands.

  “I guess… You don’t really know what it’s like to disappear into a crowd huh?” I asked, trying to understand how she was feeling.

  “Right! Exactly. Sometimes I wish I could just be in a crowd and not stand out, not have everyone trying to ask me questions. This latest thing has only made that worse” she said, slumping into her hands a little more.

  “You mean with Lampro?” I asked.

  She shook her head “No I mean, this whole thing with… Them” she said as she reached a hand forward, pointing toward the windows as we saw the earth coming into view, spinning inward from the outer part of the windows.

  “Oh, right… Yeah…” I said. I still wasn’t entirely sure about what was going on with her, I wanted to ask but I felt like I’d give myself away too easily.

  “I’m sorry to ask again but… You’re sure you didn’t know him?” she asked, turning to me once more.

  “I… Don’t know…” I said. I genuinely had no idea what to tell her.

  “Right but, he recognized you, right? Did you used to work with him before you joined the gravity games?” she asked.

  “I… What?” I asked, confused about what she was talking about.

  “Oh come on I could tell from the moment you first started talking. You’re one of the nameless ones right? How long have you been doing it?” she asked, leaning back on the bench a bit.

  I felt myself panicking a bit. I had no idea what she was talking about and I knew any answer I could try to give her wouldn’t make any sense.

  She rolled her eyes “Fine, keep your secrets for now but I’m on to you ‘Tess’” she said with a smile.

  I was genuinely confused by what she was saying but she said it so confidently, it didn’t sound like she had any doubt in her mind about what she was talking about.

  “I have to say though” she continued “I’m happy you decided to join us. I’d never seen my dad light up like that.”

  I felt like I finally had something to add to the conversation.

  “Right, I meant to tell you something about that. When you were talking to the doctors, he said something to me…” I said.

  “He said something to you? What do you mean?” she asked, a look of surprise on her face as she looked to me again.

  “I don’t think you or anyone else heard it but he said ‘I never lost hope’, I don’t know what he was talking about though…” I said.

  She looked at me for a few moments longer before turning back to look at the city.

  “He’s never said anything to me… I didn’t know he could even do that…” she said with a sadness in her voice.

  “It all happened really fast, I was about to say something but then he started coughing and… Yeah…” I said, trailing off, not wanting to continue the sentence.

  “Yeah…” she said as we both sat in silence for a while longer.

  The sound of the gentle breeze in the trees was nice. Instead of the sound of rustling leaves like I was used to, it sounded like all the parts of the mushroom trees were made out of hollow wood as they gently bumped against each other. It was a pleasant sound and one I’d never heard before.

  “Thanks for talking to me like this” she said softly.

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Like I was anyone else. Nobody talks to me like I’m a person. They always treat me differently. You don’t treat me like that though. You’re not hanging on every word I say like it’s some crazy important thing. You just talk to me like anyone else and I appreciate that. The only other person that talks to me like that is Rosa but…”

  “But?” I asked.

  Nori shook her head “She’s just… So intense all the time. She still sees me as the little kid she first knew me as and as I’ve grown up she’s seen me getting all these new responsibilities and new respect from the other mechara and I think she’s frustrated about that. Also I don’t think she knows how to talk to people without sounding angry.”

  “Do you ever talk to her about this stuff? It sounds like you have pretty similar experiences and I mean, it’s nice to talk to someone who can relate to you” I said.

  Nori shook her head.

  “Rosa’s different. She’s a melodian, if she wants to disappear into a crowd all she has to do is not say anything. One of the perks of your species being face blind I guess” she said.

  I frowned, thinking about what she meant by saying that. I remembered Emily saying something about that a long time ago but I was distracted at the time and didn’t ask anything further about it but she’d said something about how I didn’t recognize people sometimes.

  “No, Rosa’s experience is different from mine. She wants the leadership position that I’m in but I mean… She’s not a mechara so they don’t look to her for answers. I think she’s always been jealous of me for that but I… I don’t know. I never wanted this role. I wish I could make them respect her the way they respect me but it just doesn’t work that way I guess” she said as she held her hands together, looking forward at the windows as the earth started covering the sun.

  “How do I describe it…” she asked out loud to herself “It’s like… Every part of my life is under a magnifying glass. It’s always been that way. I can’t talk to anyone about what I’m doing or thinking because they’ll already know it. I mean, I feel like I barely know you Tess, but you know everything about me. You know how I grew up, you know what my interests are, you know about myself and my father and how he saved me from Seven. I mean, I don’t know anything about you, yet every part of my life is something you’ve grown up with. So how do I talk to you about it?”

  I felt like a lot of what Nori was saying was filling in a lot of perspective I’d been missing. As I watched her slump into the seat a bit more, I saw someone different than the person I’d seen before. I saw someone surrounded by people for her entire life yet was the loneliest person on the lifeboat.

  The mechara were a lot more in charge of everything than the melodians. I’d spent most of my time on the surface and whenever the melodians were out they sounded… dumb. Or at least they never spoke about anything terribly interesting. It seemed like they were just living in order to get by and otherwise spent all their time with their eyes glowing. The mechara on the other hand were interesting. They spoke about what was going on with the planet down below, they talked about each other, about plans and ideas they had, they had friends, family, they seemed to enjoy life on the ship in a way the melodians didn’t.

  “I guess… They’re not giving her that respect because they’re not used to a melodian being so… present…” I said.

  The way I’d been treated on the ship suddenly started to make a lot more sense. Nobody ever paid attention to me because they didn’t expect anything from a melodian. The only people that noticed I existed were Nori and that kid I’d seen down on the lower decks.

  “Yeah… I wish there were more melodians like you actually” she said.

  “Me too…” I said as I started getting lost in thought.

  From the moment I’d gotten onto the ship I felt like I was barely noticed by anyone, but in the same way that Nori felt I treated her differently than she was used to, I felt like she was the same way toward me. She was the first one on the ship to acknowledge I was there. At least, aside from the people that got angry at me for being in the way.

  Artemis was something else though. Artemis had been helping me from the beginning. He was the one that saved me from the extreme gravity of the lower floors, he started giving me food for free, he was the one that brought Nori and Lampro to me in the first place, he gave me clothing and he made sure Nori and I connected again. Whomever he was, he seemed to have a lot of interest in me and he wanted Nori and I to be together for some reason.

  My thoughts wandered back to what Nori had said earlier about not being able to talk to anyone about her life and a devious idea came to my mind.

  “Hey Nori?” I asked softly, pulling her from her thoughts.

  “Mmm” she mumbled as a response as she was looking down at her hands.

  “Just an idea but what if you went ahead and told me about yourself as if I didn’t know anything about you?” I asked, trying my best to sound like I wasn’t trying anything.

  She laughed a little, a smile coming to the back side of her beak but she continued looking down at her hands.

  “That sounds silly Tess, why would I do that?” she asked.

  “I uh… I was just thinking it might help you get your mind off this stuff for a bit, you might feel better if you get it all out there, you know?” I said.

  “Hmmm… It’s worth a shot I guess…” she said as she sat back in thought for a few minutes before continuing.

  “I was really young when the whole… Event, happened. I don’t remember much from it. But I do remember waking up here on Lifeboat 8. I remember being told what had happened. My dad was in the hospital for a really long time but I guess I woke up from the pod just fine. When I first saw him again I could barely recognize him. He couldn’t walk anymore, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do much of anything, but he was revered by the mechara. They saw him as a hero who saved his daughter from Lifeboat 7. That’s the context through which I grew up. The survivor. The one who came out the other side. Back on Lifeboat 7 I was just another kid but when I woke up on Lifeboat 8 I was someone else.

  “I was invited to gatherings, was asked to wish people well when they were sick, I was put in the front row of every major event, they asked me to make speeches for people, stand in front of a crowd whenever there was any kind of announcement. It never felt normal to me. It always felt like they had the wrong person, but they always loved me and kept asking me to come back and well… You know where I am now…”

  I shook my head “No like, pretend I don’t know anything about you. Tell me about where you are now.”

  “Tess…” she groaned.

  “Pretend I JUST got here and had no idea who you were until we saw each other at the windows” I said.

  She smiled, shaking her head, clearly feeling weird about it but she eventually continued.

  “Well, they ended up voting me into this position where I was in charge of relaying information to everyone. Going on these broadcasts to give people news, going to the ceremonies, talking to the people in charge of the various districts and relaying that to the people in charge. They made me the face of Lifeboat 8 and the mechara seem to like me being here. But I didn’t feel right not sharing the spotlight, I feel like Rosa should have the same attention, so I insisted she’d be included. They gave me pushback at first but after a while I think they got used to a melodian being in the public space like that.

  “Despite all that, I have my hobbies, just like any other mechara. A lot of them like to make watches of course, I have one too as you saw earlier. But the thing I like the most are the big moving sculptures. I like to make their designs as intricate as I can while making their movements last as long as possible without any outside intervention. My favorite is one that I keep in my desk. I’ll need to show it to you next time we’re at my house. I’m really proud of it and it only works at the level my house is at.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked.

  “I’ll show you later” she said, smiling down at me before she continued.

  “Anyway, ever since we heard that message from Earth, Rosa hasn’t been the same.”

  My ears perked up as she said that since she had to be talking about the message I’d sent.

  Nori continued “She’s always been intense when she talks to others but lately she’s gotten a lot more short tempered. She seems to spend most of her time alone now and doesn’t want to talk to me all that much. I’ve asked her if she’s okay and she says she’s fine but… I dunno… I feel like she’s always had a lot going on in her head and she just doesn’t have a way of getting that out.”

  She shook her head, looking up at the city above us.

  “And now I’m here, being put in charge of making contact with the humans. It’s been tough. Their language is so hard to make any sense of. They have all these rules about how they talk but the rules get broken as often as they’re followed so it just means I have to memorize all these weird words and seemingly random exceptions. It’s so hard to understand but… Here I am, getting put in charge of learning their language while teaching them ours. I think Rosa would be better at it and I advocated for her to be in charge of it but they didn’t trust a melodian to make contact with them.”

  She sighed, leaning forward again with her head in her hands.

  “Thanks for telling me all that” I said reassuringly.

  “Mmmm… It’s not like it’s anything you didn’t know already…” she said quietly “but thank you for listening. I don’t know how I’ll navigate this whole thing with my dad.”

  “I think you just have to take it one step at a time” I said as I reached my hand out to hold hers.

  Nori didn’t say anything at first but she sounded like she laughed a little.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Sorry uh, it’s just funny that you said that. ‘One step at a time’, the only other place I’ve heard that phrase from was from the humans” she said.

  Oops I thought as I realized I’d accidentally translated a phrase from English to whatever their language was called. I held my breath hoping she wouldn’t ask any followup questions.

  “You haven’t told me much about yourself by the way” Nori said.

  My eyes went wide for a moment as I felt like I was put in the spotlight.

  “I uh… I don’t… Have a whole lot to talk about” I lied as I pulled my hand away from hers.

  “Oh come on I’m sure you’ve got a story to tell” she said as she leaned back, holding her knee up with her hands as she turned to me.

  “I really don’t have much to say…” I said as I looked down at the ground.

  I wanted to tell her everything. Where I came from, how I got to Lifeboat 8, how she had a fellow survivor of 7. I wanted to tell her about life on earth and about how I was responsible for contacting the lifeboats in the first place. But I didn’t feel safe doing it. As nice as Nori was, I didn’t know if I could trust her or not turn me over to whomever was in charge. The thing I wanted most from finding my people was to finally belong somewhere but it sounded like Nori was a bigger outcast from her society than I already felt. Like Nori, I didn’t want the attention, I didn’t want the spotlight. I just wanted to belong. As long as I kept my secret, I wouldn’t be the center of anyone’s attention and I liked it that way.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “... if you want” Nori said, completing a sentence I didn’t hear the beginning of.

  “Huh? What?” I asked, sitting up as my attention was brought back to the present.

  She giggled and repeated herself “I said, you’ve heard a lot of stuff you already know, how about I tell you a little about the ‘humans’.”

  “Oh… Sure” I said.

  I of course couldn’t tell her that I likely knew a lot more than she did about the subject but I couldn’t tell her that-. I didn't want to be in the same situation as Nori. At the end of the day, I just wanted to blend in without getting all the attention. I felt like at some point I’d have to tell her but I didn’t feel the time was right.

  “Well, they’re really diverse. In a way that I never could have imagined. They have all these different languages, different societies. I mean, we have the mechara and the melodians but these people are something entirely different. You’d think they’re all mostly the same since they’re all the same species but the way their lives change based on where they live is astounding. They have so many different beliefs and ideas about how the universe works. Most of them are wrong, but that’s okay they’re still learning. They’re actually getting really close to the end of their own glass revolution.”

  “Glass revolution?” I asked.

  “Yeah, they’re getting close to the end of it. It’s such an amazing time for us to meet up with them. It’s such a big turning point for their evolution. It’s just… Too bad we can’t really join them…” she said, sounding a little sad.

  “Why… Why can’t we join them?” I asked, tilting my head a bit.

  She sighed “Gravity. There’s too much gravity. We couldn’t live there so…” she paused for a moment before leaning in toward me “This isn’t public yet but we’ll mostly just be staying here to get the resources together to fix up 7, refuel, and then we’ll be continuing on our way. But hey it’s really amazing that we’re getting to meet another sentient species, right?”

  I frowned “Couldn’t the melodians live there?” I asked, already knowing the answer to the question.

  Nori looked confused for a moment before she answered “We have no idea if you guys would be able to live there for any period of time. We of course sent Trona down there soon after we got here but he died pretty soon after he landed. It’s too hard to say and I don’t think the melodians would be able to survive on their own at this point.”

  Her answer confused me since she had to know about Sloan and even if they didn’t see anything after Sloan had shot the top of the ship, they had to know she was responsible for what happened.

  “How did Trona die though?” I asked.

  Nori suddenly looked extremely uncomfortable after I asked about him. I knew how he died, Sloan killed him. It was the last thing that had happened before I left earth and I had a feeling Nori knew as well.

  I was about to ask about Sloan but I had a feeling I wasn’t supposed to know she was down there. Since arriving on the ship I hadn’t heard any mention of her. As I thought about it, I couldn’t help but notice they still called Nori, Lampro and Rosa the ‘surviving three’ as if there wasn’t anyone else.

  “Look there’s… A lot we don’t know. We’re still learning things” she said.

  I didn’t want to press much further but I didn’t like how much information she was holding back. I knew it likely wasn’t her decision but I didn’t like that they were keeping Sloan’s presence a secret.

  “But hey” she said, changing the subject, “there’s one thing that makes them really similar to you guys” she said, changing the subject.

  I didn’t want to pursue it if she didn’t want to talk about it so I simply asked “What’s that?”

  “Their brains are structured a lot like yours, which is surprising” she said “They have two hemispheres that talk to each other but work kind of independently from one another which manifests in really interesting ways.”

  To my surprise she was telling me something about them that I didn’t know.

  “What does that mean exactly?” I asked.

  I saw her relax a bit more as she felt she’d successfully changed the subject. I still wanted to know about Sloan and why she was lying about her, but I’d bring it up at a more opportune time.

  “So you guys, the melodians, you have two sides of the brain that communicate to each other, right?” she asked.

  “I… Have no idea what you’re talking about actually…” I said.

  “Oh… Hmm, well I guess you haven’t experienced it yourself… But your kind always used to describe it like having two people in your head. It doesn’t happen anymore though. For the humans it’s different, instead it’s almost like a mechanical thing. Did you know they’re born with one hand being ‘smarter’ than the other?”

  I blinked, trying to interpret what she was saying but feeling like I could barely understand what she was talking about.

  “Doesn’t happen… Anymore?” I asked, putting emphasis on the last word.

  “Uh, yeah ever since the assembler started putting that side of your brains asleep and all that. Anyway, yeah so it’s this built in thing, they can’t control it, most of them have a ‘smarter’ right hand and some…” she continued but I started losing track of what she was saying.

  I looked out over the city, trying to comprehend the magnitude of what she’d just told me. The melodians had been so vapid, so self centered and completely without…

  Music I thought to myself.

  The other side of myself that I’d met, he manifested in the form of music by speaking through my hands. He was the other side of me and he was the part that all the other melodians were missing from themselves. They didn’t play music because that part of their brain had been entirely shut off, leaving them without their ability to play or potentially understand music.

  Despite the difficulties of living on the lifeboat, I at least kept my music player with me that I could listen to while I was wandering the ship. I tried to imagine my life without music, without the ability to play it, listen to it, or even understand it and I couldn’t fathom what it would be like. It was such an alien concept to me that it was impossible to visualize.

  My life without music wouldn’t be much of a life at all.

  “... some really cool stuff on the ‘care package’ they sent us and we’ll be setting it up…” Nori was saying.

  “Why do the melodians let that happen to them?” I asked, cutting her off.

  Nori tilted her head, a little confused about why I kept asking about it.

  “I… I don’t know, I’d think you’d have a better idea about that than me. I mean, it seems neat to be able to relive your past memories like that. I'd sure love to do it here and there but doing that all the time… I don’t know, it seems like they give their lives up in order to live in the past but they all… Well, most of them” she said, nudging me “seem to prefer it that way. Anyway, I was talking about this camera thing. They wanted me to show them something ‘significant’ so I mean, I can’t think of anything more significant than the gravity games so I’ll be in charge of…”

  I’d completely lost track of what she was talking about as I simply tried to breathe, my chest feeling like I’d been hit by a ton of bricks as I realized what she’d told me.

  “I’m sorry” I interrupted her, cutting her off mid-sentence “I… I think I have to go… I’m sorry…” I said as I got up from the bench.

  I felt cold, my hearts racing as it felt like the skin along my arms was crawling.

  “Oh uh… Okay um… Thank you Tess” Nori quickly said through the ringing I started to hear through my ears “Oh! Wait! One thing!” she said, grabbing my attention for a moment as I turned around to look to look at her.

  “The gravity games start soon, would you want to join me? I was going to cancel but given the situation I think I need to go. Oh and I have central seating. I’d love to see you there, I uh… I’d appreciate your company” she said with a smile.

  “Maybe… Maybe another time…” I said as I walked away from her, my mind clouded in thoughts as I tried to get away from the situation.

  The glowing eyes I thought as I walked away from Nori, making my way down toward the city Did I look like that when I had the flashlight on me?

  They experienced their past memories, like I’d done with the shard. I hadn’t seen them, but I wondered if they all had their own shard where they recorded their memories.

  There weren’t any flashlights though, they all had the light built in somehow. Artemis had told the mechara in the hospital that my assembler was broken. I couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth, that I had whatever the others had but it wasn’t working, or if he was simply lying and I was missing something that all the others had.

  When I came out from using the makeshift assembler we’d built on earth I was always a bit dazed, like I’d come out of a deep sleep. I didn’t have a problem recovering from it afterward, but it affected me. I could only imagine what that would do to someone if they were using it all the time, if that state of mind became their default way of living.

  I thought back to the machine we’d built, realizing we’d created our own assembler. I thought about my friends, the adventure we had, the music I played, the laughs, the discoveries, all with the goal of getting me back to my people. Instead I found myself in a more alien place than I’d left. Half the population didn’t notice I existed. The other half may as well not exist at all.

  I was shaking, my legs barely carrying me forward as my entire body shook from the realization that I’d left all my friends behind and traded them for something so much worse. It was something I slowly started to realize after I’d first arrived, but I kept up hope, feeling like there was something I was missing, something I didn’t understand that would make it all make sense.

  What was I fighting for? Why did I come here? I asked myself, feeling like everything I’d done was for nothing. I left my friends, my family, my home, all in order to be in a place that treated me like a second class citizen, surrounded by hollow people who’d given their lives away in order to live in their past.

  My head was swimming with confusion as I asked myself why the melodians would let that happen to them. Living in their past memories and not bothering to create new ones for themselves.

  The only other melodian I’d met who didn’t seem to behave like the others was Flint. He was young, it was possible he hadn’t been strongly affected by it. Or it was possible he didn’t use it.

  Nori had mentioned when we’d first met that she could tell I didn’t use the assembler. She’d said something about Rosa not using it either and how it ‘clouded her thoughts,’ it was all starting to make sense.

  For whatever reason, Rosa didn’t use the assembler and Nori picked up that I behaved a lot like her.

  I had to find Rosa. I had to talk to her. She had to know something about it.

  Do they choose to be in it? I asked myself, a new thought interrupting the circles I was going in.

  They seemed to be able to stop it whenever they wanted and if Artemis ever tried to reach out to me they seemed to be brought out of the trance, as if they were at least partially aware of what was happening when Artemis was controlling their movements.

  Artemis I heard in my head.

  Whomever he was, he tried to stop me from getting to the lifeboat. He monitored my movements, gave me whatever I needed, covered for me when I’d get in trouble. From what I’d gathered, he was the ship’s computer, but for some reason he knew who I was and was looking out for me.

  At some point I’d reached the entrance of the forest, my legs carrying me through the central ring. My thoughts felt scrambled as I tried to juggle all the different ideas I had in my head, trying to make sense of it all.

  The automated cars running along the central ring slowed down to avoid me as I made my way through. Everyone was looking at me.

  I felt a hand grab my shoulder but I reached up and pushed whomever was next to me.

  The mechara who’d grabbed me fell backward, falling into a crowd of other mechara who were all looking at me.

  Everyone was looking at me.

  I turned around to find more mechara, one was yelling, another was shaking their head, the others all stared at me.

  I turned to see several cars had come to a stop in order to let me pass. Their passengers were angry.

  They were all looking at me.

  “S-sorry…” I said in a quiet whisper, too quiet for any of them to hear.

  The air was thick, I felt like I could barely breathe. I turned to walk away from them.

  A melodian was standing on the other side of the street, looking in my direction. His eyes were white, his gaze locked onto me.

  I left the mechara, who were increasingly getting angry with me. I could hear it in their voices but I couldn’t understand what they were saying, it was all noise. I made my way over to the melodian, my eyes never leaving his, his eyes never leaving mine.

  “Who… Who would you have been?” I asked out loud as I approached.

  He didn’t answer, but the noises around me got louder. The sound of the city, the cars, the people standing around me, they all blurred into a single overwhelming noise.

  The melodian frowned, his eyes blinking off, revealing a pair of blue eyes that looked at me for a moment before he started backing away.

  The crowd of mechara were behind me, I could hear them. They were talking, whispering.

  As the melodian turned to run away I started following him.

  “Wait!” I yelled as I started running.

  The crowd was still behind me as I chased the melodian into a crowded intersection filled with a mixture of melodians and mechara, the melodians all had their eyes glowing, all of them turning toward me as I’d entered the space, the mechara slowly turning toward me as well as they heard the crowd entering the area behind me.

  They kept their distance as I made my way toward the center of the square. I wasn’t paying attention to the mechara, I was only looking at the melodians. Their eyes all focused on me, their faces showing no emotion.

  “Why?” I asked to nobody in particular, my eyes darting from one melodian to another “Why are you doing this to them?” I asked, addressing Artemis directly.

  The mechara in the town square all started to move away from me, the melodians all staying in place as the mechara all backed away into the entrances.

  “Why?!” I yelled, looking from one melodian to another.

  I looked to each one, trying to imagine who they would have been, their hopes, their dreams, their ambitions in life, all taken away by the assembler. Taken by Artemis.

  “What have they done to you?! What… What happened to us?” I yelled out to them.

  Their eyes started to turn off, one by one as I brought them out of their trance, pulling them away from the assembler. They looked afraid, each one starting to back away from me as I tried to address them without Artemis controlling them.

  “Why did you let them take your life from you? Why did you let them take everything from you?” I asked, pleading for an answer “Who would you have been?!”

  I was looking from one to another, hoping someone would give me an answer but they all cowered in fear, all of them backing away from me, leaving me alone in the town square as the crowds all looked on from afar.

  Several of them looked up and away from me, getting distracted by something. I turned around to see two mechara in black suits approaching me. They were crouched down a bit, looking nervous as they approached me.

  I was about to say something when I looked down to see a familiar flashlight in one of their hands.

  My eyes went wide as I turned to run away to find another guard had entered from the other side. He was also holding a flashlight and before I could close my eyes, he turned it on, the bright white light filling my field of vision.

  I blinked, no longer in the town square. I was in a void, a white infinite void that surrounded me on all sides.

  There was a calming feeling rushing over me, the louder thoughts dampening, allowing me to take a deep breath, my hearts were pounding, but the thoughts I had were subsiding as I looked around at the infinite void.

  I took another deep breath, closing my eyes as I tried to focus through the cloudy thoughts that overcame me.

  I was afraid, angry, confused, the emotions were clear, but as I stood there the reasons for the emotions became vague, I couldn’t focus on what had caused them, I only knew that I’d felt them.

  I opened my eyes and jumped back a bit. A melodian stood directly in front of me. His intense glare eating into me as it felt like he starred directly into my soul. He was me, the me I’d met in the assembler back on earth. My other half.

  “You again…” I whispered.

  His scowl became more pronounced as I addressed him.

  “You have to fight it Tess” he said in a firm unwavering tone.

  “What… What is this place…” I asked, my voice getting quieter.

  “The longer you’re here the harder it is to get out. You need to fight this Tess. If you ever want to see them again, you need to fight this” he said with authority.

  As he spoke I saw images coming through the void. I saw my living room with Emily in it, Oliver, Gav, in the corner sat a guitar.

  I was standing in the living room, the guitar looked like it was aging in front of my eyes.

  When I reached out to it, it crumbled, falling into a pile of dust on the floor.

  I turned around to see my other half looking at me, he was crying, shaking.

  “Tess…” he said slowly, his hand reaching up to grab my shoulder, his entire body shaking “Tess… You need to wake up.”

  Everything crumpled around me, disappearing into the white void, leaving me with my other self. He grabbed me by both my shoulders, pressing his face to mine as he yelled “Wake up!”

  I shook my head as the thought of my friends came back to me. I remembered my home. My music. Everything I loved. I wouldn’t let them take it from me. It wasn’t theirs to have.

  I closed my eyes, focusing on everything that made me, me, pushing everything else aside, pushing away my fears, my insecurities, my failures. I remembered what was important to me and promised myself I’d never forget. I’d never let them have it.

  I opened my eyes to find myself in the town square once more. My vision was covered in white, the surroundings of every building, every melodian, every mechara was white, as if every surface had a halo around it.

  In front of me I saw a mechara holding the flashlight, shining it into my eyes. It took every bit of effort I had to not sink into its influence once more.

  To my side another mechara was holding a device. He was holding my hand, pressing my palm to the reader, but nothing was happening. He sounded confused, like it was supposed to be doing something as he continuously pulled my hand away and pressed it to the surface, only for nothing to happen.

  I took a deep breath, focusing on the flashlight once more as I started to lean forward, my entire consciousness focused on it as I reached out as quickly as I could, slapping it from his hand and sending it flying away from him.

  The white aura went away immediately as I felt myself getting brought back to reality. The crash of the flashlight landing on the ground in the distance startled the mechara next to me as he let go of my arm.

  I shook my head, closing my eyes for a moment longer as I tried to collect myself.

  As I looked up I saw panic in the mechara as they all scrambled away from me. One reached down, pulling out another flashlight he had on his belt but I didn’t give him the chance to shine it onto me.

  I turned and ran away on all fours, bounding away from them as quickly as I could. With a few stumbles as my thoughts were still coming back to me, I quickly collected myself as I ran toward the crowd of onlookers.

  They parted, not wanting to get in my way as I ran as quickly as I could.

  I heard commotion behind me as the guards began to chase me, but I was too fast for them.

  I ran out through the street, between buildings, through crowds and hoping nobody was following, but at every new intersection I’d see another mechara coming out from a building. They were different ones every time, but they knew where I was, they were watching me, each one had a flashlight in their hand.

  I kept running, hoping to get away from them but with every turn I’d only start seeing more as the mechara began swarming the areas I was running into.

  Some turned their flashlights on but they were too far away to have any effect on me, but with each turn I’d find myself surrounded by more.

  I found myself running through the canals, the large bridges overhead with all the shops lining the sides of it.

  I could hear a siren, all the other mechara had gone inside, leaving only the guards.

  As I ran along the canal I saw a swarm of them come out from a building in front of me. I turned to find more coming from the side street. I turned around to find several of them chasing me from where I’d come.

  I ran out onto the bridge but there was already a group on the other side waiting for me.

  I panicked, realizing I was surrounded on all sides, nowhere to escape.

  My lungs felt like they were on fire, my legs shaking from the running, from the fear, from everything.

  There was the possibility of just closing my eyes and charging through them, but I had no idea if it would work, but as they made their way toward me from both sides of the bridge I didn’t see much of an option.

  Just as I was about to charge I heard a scream from overhead. I recognized the voice, it was Flint.

  The boy landed on the bridge next to me, coming from one of the nearby rooftops and landing with a loud thud.

  “Flint!” I yelled, happy to see a familiar face.

  He didn’t say anything, but he simply reached up in the air, holding what looked like an airhorn.

  He clicked the button but nothing seemed to happen.

  “Flint what are you doing?” I asked.

  “Getting you out of here” he said as he motioned toward himself “come on!”

  He yelled as he clipped the airhorn to his his chest.

  At that moment I realized there was a screaming sound. I looked up to see all the mechara were on the ground, holding their hands to their ears, their eyes closed as they tried to escape whatever sound they were hearing.

  I didn’t have time to ask about it or figure out what was going on, instead I followed Flint, jumping over the crowd of mechara who were all on the ground, screaming in pain from the sound of the silent airhorn.

  Flint turned to make sure I was following as he led me down a series of streets. Every mechara we encountered was already holding their hands to the side of their heads as they were trying to block off the sound, most of them retreating into nearby buildings.

  We ran for a while, running between various streets, around buildings, through familiar town squares.

  “Flint… What… What are you doing to…” I began to ask after we’d ran for a few minutes, but he stopped, too quickly for me to stop with him as I nearly ran into him. He was ready, reaching his hands out, grabbing me by the shoulders and throwing me into an alleyway between two buildings.

  I stumbled, not able to catch myself in time as I tumbled, rolling on the ground and eventually landing in the dark alleyway.

  I looked up to see Flint was gone, but I could hear the cries of the mechara receding away from me as he continued running.

  A large crowd of guards were quickly running up from behind, their hands all up to the side of their heads as they gave chase.

  They didn’t seem to notice me as I moved behind a large garbage can, shrinking down as small as I could get so I wouldn’t be seen.

  It took a long time to catch my breath, my hands still shook from everything that was going on, but after a while the city streets began to fill up again with the mechara. They all seemed confused, likely from whatever had made the noise.

  Flint seemed to have distracted them well enough at least. The guards were gone. I hoped he was able to get away from them.

  I watched the streets some more, not wanting to get up until I was sure I was safe.

  My thoughts went back to what had caused everything in the first place. The melodians, the assembler, Artemis. I looked out from the alleyway to see the glass windows at the front of the ship. Earth wasn’t visible quite yet, but I could see the sun and the emptiness of space.

  A familiar sound rang through the ship as the mechara all started to empty the streets, signaling the ‘shift change’ once again.

  It took a few more minutes until the melodians took over the streets, this time without the glowing eyes.

  I took a deep breath and decided to make my way out once again.

  As I entered the city street I half expected to be seen by one of the guards, but they were all gone. I wasn’t sure if they’d even recognize me in the crowd.

  I looked from one melodian to another. They had nearly expressionless faces as they walked through the streets, buying various things, some holding bags over their shoulders as they got their daily shopping done.

  It all went back to normal, as if the entire ordeal had never happened. It was likely they didn’t even know anything about it.

  As I walked through the crowd I noticed a few of the younger ones. Their fur was a deep black, which made them easy to spot amongst the regular browns and whites that made up the majority of the crowds.

  Just like my first encounters with them, the younger ones appeared to be more full of life, like they hadn’t experienced the long term effects of the assembler quite yet. They weren’t as present as Flint, but they at least talked to each other from time to time.

  As I looked from melodian to melodian, I felt an overwhelming wave of sadness come over me. Each one could have been someone special. With hopes, dreams, ambitions in life. They could have created something beautiful. Invented an instrument nobody had ever thought of before. They could have made friends, had a family, found things in their life that made them special. Instead I only saw emptiness.

  I shouldn’t have come here I said to myself This isn’t my home.

  The adrenaline from before had completely subsided, leaving me with a profound sense of emptiness. I hated their culture. I hated their society. I hated what the melodians had become. I hated what happened to them. More than anything, I just wanted to go home. I missed my friends, I missed my house, I missed feeling like a normal person. I missed making music.

  I reached into my backpack, pulling out the only MP3 player that still had life in it. It had a piece of tape on the back labeled “country music.”

  I put my headphones on and tried to get my mind off of everything as I made my way toward the windows, the only place on the ship I enjoyed being.

  “Warning: Low battery” I heard a voice speak over the music.

  It was a Johnny Cash song, something about a prison. I was hardly paying attention to it as the thoughts of home kept slipping into my consciousness.

  As I walked toward the windows I kept expecting someone to see me, someone to raise some sort of alarm. I didn’t care. I ran before, but I couldn’t imagine how my situation could get any worse by being caught.

  The worst that could happen is they could install an assembler in me and make me relive my past. It didn’t sound like such a terrible thought anymore. It would mean escaping the hell I found myself in.

  As I approached the windows I found the bleachers were gone. With nothing in their place, the windows felt larger, more present than they were before. I went up to them, looking out at the sun, I could see the moon seeming to spin around it.

  As the song ended I heard the voice come through again, warning me of the low battery.

  I wasn’t ready for whatever implication it had. Over the past few weeks of being on the ship I’d gone through every MP3 player I had. With no way of recharging them, I felt like every genre I went through died when it ended. The hope I’d felt of finding a place to be in the lifeboat kept me going at the time, but I felt like that hope was gone. There wasn’t anywhere for me on the ship. I left my home, my family, my friends, I left everything that made me who I was behind and replaced it with nothing.

  A fitting song came on. “Country roads” by John Denver. His voice spoke to me through the darkness of my thoughts. His warm, friendly, loving voice speaking to me in a way I’d only felt from John. I felt like he was singing directly to me. Singing of being lost, being away from where he belonged and yearning for being back home.

  As earth came into view I felt like I might never be back, I might never see my home again. The song crushed me with the hope of a road I could take that would bring me to the place I belonged. There were no roads I could take, I was trapped, stuck in the prison of lifeboat 8. Like Nori said, they were planning on leaving soon, giving me no hope of ever returning home.

  I collapsed onto the ground, barely able to breath as I cried, holding my head in my hands, lying on my side so I could see the earth through my tears. I wanted to go home.

  The song was nearing its end as the voice abruptly interrupted “Low battery: Shutting down.”