Chapter Text
“Not a supernova in sight…”
That’s how it was now. You popped another marshmallow onto your stick and then rested it on your knee, watching the marshmallow slowly melt under the heat of the fire.
“...I got what I wanted, right?”
The fire crackled at you, offering no response.
It had been a few weeks at best. Honestly, you’d stopped paying attention to the passing of days within one. It could’ve been three, it could’ve been ten, why should you care? You just wanted to go back. That was the wish you held in your heart from the moment the supernova first enveloped you all the way until you watched it for the last time. That little sparkle far off in space didn’t even stop that wish and you dove into the darkness of the Eye with only a single thought in your mind.
The Eye had listened, somehow. As the dark quantum fog enveloped you, you'd found yourself lying by the launch tower, the Orbital Probe Cannon sitting structurally sound overhead.
“...This has to be what I wanted.”
And with that, it was over. You’d checked on Gabbro and received simple congratulations for figuring it all out, managed to convince the village of what happened by bringing back the most incredible artefact in the whole solar system within a mere 15 minutes and placing it in the Museum, then that was it. The only happening worth thinking about was Chert’s panicked arrival back at the village, yelling at Hornfels that all the star charts didn’t match anymore and puzzling as to why. You’d brought up your hypothesis of being in an entirely new Universe and been dismissed, of course. It’d take them a bit longer to understand that.
You got what you wanted, why did you still feel so distant from it all? It was over, you could go back to how it was. Back to helping Moraine take care of Tephra and Galena, back to spending nights watching the stars with Hal and talking about the adventures you could have once you launched, back t-
“Olisto?”
You heard the door to the radio tower close. You didn’t even bother looking away from the fire, you knew who was walking up the path to their campsite.
Gabbro sat down across from the fire. “Hey, you doin’ alright? I’ve been worried. Well, we’ve been worried. All of us.”
You continued to glare into the flames. “Of all the Hearthians, I’d expect you to understand.”
“I do! We all do. I’m sorry for not checking on you more. They don’t understand, though… and I- well, I’m honestly still trying to get out of this too.” They paused and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, time buddy. If we’re still that.”
Your marshmallow was burnt to a crisp by now.
“Your stick is starting to burn, by the way.” Gabbro paused. “I’m sorry.”
Gabbro’s words couldn’t make you look up from the fire, but the blue light flying into the atmosphere and smashing into the tip of the radio tower could. As the highest dish of the tower crashed to the ground, the light glanced off of the surface of the planet and continued, falling past the horizon.
Gabbro, despite their usually relaxed nature, yelped and almost fell off their log. They scrambled to their feet, opened their mouth to yell but paused and instead took a deep breath. “Okay, woah. That’s nothing I’ve seen before. Ollie! You should go check out where that landed! I’ll… um... yeah. Make sure the tower ain’t about to catch on fire.” They started back towards the tower, pausing halfway down the path. “Hey, I’ll find you when I’ve radioed Hornfels to come out. I gotta see what that was!”
“Well, that’s something new, at least.” You murmured, starting back towards your ship. Despite the arguing it caused, you wouldn’t go anywhere without it after spending so many loops reliant on it. Within seconds of the hatch closing behind you, you were already suited up and at the controls, gently lifting off of the ground to see if you could spot where it landed.
Following the direction the strange object fell, you found the crater leading into Mining Site 2b. For such a small object, it had caused a startling amount of destruction. The central remaining support of the bridge the Nomai had built there had been struck and collapsed entirely, the debris having made it even up onto the smaller area with the massive pool of ghost matter you’d died to that one time earlier into the loops. You grimaced, thinking of the first of the many painful deaths you’d experienced. Unlike usual, however, you didn’t need your scout to see that glow.
“Oh. Of course it is.”
The projectile had landed right in the middle of where you knew that ghost matter was, because why wouldn’t it? Well, you figured, you could at least take a peek at whatever it was. Leaving your ship at the lip of the crater, you slid down the cliff and tried to get a better look at whatever had landed. It looked surprisingly like a giant version of the Nomai’s many warp cores, the transparent shell containing the source of the light. You grabbed your scout and stepped closer, continually taking pictures to keep yourself from stepping too close to the matter you were once oh-so careless about. There wasn’t a loop to heal your wounds this time.
As you reached the edge of the ghost matter, the glow faded. You could see it clearly now and whatever it was defied your attempts to understand it. Contained within the object was a writhing, bubbling mass of… something. Nothing in the universe you knew could ever exist like this! The mass itself seemed like a portal, containing an endless indigo void of constantly shifting spirals and stars.
You stepped as close as you could get, your curiosity overcoming your trepidation. Those spirals, they were Nomai writing, the shapes constantly changing and moving to form new information. And the stars, they-
Your thoughts were cut off as the mass suddenly started moving far more rapidly, the strands of writing condensing themselves into three points, no, three eyes. You couldn’t look away.
The casing surrounding the mass shattered, shards of it shattering your visor and a few leaving rips in your suit. One of them definitely left a cut in your arm. You still couldn’t look away.
The eyes bore into your soul as the mass slowly expanded outwards and began flying at you in a manner so, so familiar but far more literal. The tiny globules weren’t just information, they were real and, to your abject horror, somehow melting through your suit and into your body. Your skin felt so, so cold. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t look away.
The eyes closed and the sparkle of curiosity in your heart crumbled into pure dread and fear. You stumbled backwards, felt your heel clip a rock and that dread turned to nothing.
PLANETARY IMPACT CONFIRMED. CHECKING SYSTEMS.
- PRIMARY CPU: ONLINE -
- SCANNER: ONLINE -
- TRANSMITTER: OFFLINE -
- BEING_XY MONITOR: ONLINE -
- NON-VITAL SYSTEMS UNIT: OFFLINE -
- MEMORY BANKS: AT CAPACITY -
- ✦ -
RUNNING PLANETARY SCANS AND SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS. STORING RESULTS.
CONDITIONS MET. RETURN TRANSMISSION IMPOSSIBLE.
SYSTEM DEGRADATION ONGOING. DAMAGE SOURCE UNKNOWN.
LAST CHANCE SCENARIO MET. SCANNING FOR VIABLE LIFEFORMS.
- ✦ -
LIFEFORM DETECTED. OPENING BEING_XY CONTAINMENT.
TRANSFER CONFIRMED SUCCESSFUL.