Miguel looked at his watch and realized a day had already passed. He felt his stomach grumble so he started eating the food Memory served him the night before. It wasn’t anything he tasted on Earth but it was good. Miguel got up and decided to take a look around the spacecraft, Memory. Outside his room, a familiar figure waited…
“Mia?” Miguel was surprised to see her. His heart raced and he felt glad even after what he had seen the day before. He ran towards her, still not believing his eyes. As he approached her, he sensed something wrong. Her eyes told him who she really was.
Mia walked towards Miguel, as did he. She offered him an extraordinary ring finished with antiquated metal. Attached to it was a black gem, almost as black as the universe itself. “I love you, Miguel,” she said.
Miguel gritted his teeth. There was a long pause until finally, he reacted, “What kind of fool do you think I am?!” Miguel slapped Mia’s hand away, throwing the ring onto the floor.
“Do you not love me, Miguel?” Mia asked.
“You’re not Mia!” Miguel shouted. “Mia doesn’t even call me Miguel!” At this point, the illusion of Mia started to fade only to reveal Thera in front of him. Miguel’s heart felt ripped apart: partly because Thera appeared to him as Mia, who was supposed to be his future bride, but was taken away from him, and partly because of the painful projection he was reminded of.
“I just thought that maybe if I materialize as Mia,” Thera naively explained, “Maybe you would love me.” She had only been mimicking what she has previously seen. “And about that thing,” she looked down and pointed at the ring, “I thought maybe if I give it to you, like the other man did, maybe you…”
“Shut up already!” Miguel interrupted. He was really crushed. “You don’t know anything about love! You should just go back to where you belong!” Miguel dashed away, leaving her alone as she looked back at him in confusion. But Thera was not really insensitive. She just simply didn’t know how to relate with beings other than herself and Memory. Miguel was their first guest.
Miguel thought deeply about what Thera reminded him: about Robby proposing to Mia. He wondered what answer Mia gave. Lost in thought, he walked towards the image transmitter console. He skimmed his hand onto its surface as he absent-mindedly slipped his other hand into his pocket. He felt the box where he kept the ring in and pulled it out. He took out the ring and wore it on his finger, deciding it best close to him. Before he replaced the box in his pocket, he recognized the symbol embossed at the center of the console. He had been seeing the same symbol since he was a child. Reverently, he examined the symbol and realized it was exactly the same marking engraved on the metallic box in his hands. The Key, he realized.
His heart suddenly pounding, he carefully placed the Key on the gap where the symbol was embossed. It fit perfectly. At first, he tried twisting and rotating the box, like a key, but nothing happened. Then when he opened the box, a sphere of blue-ish light formed inside. Like blood pumping from the heart, lines were drawn from the box onto invisible paths across the whole surface of Memory’s interior forming a labyrinth-like map of blue light. The orb of light expanded and filled the room, and started simulating pictures and sounds.
Millions of light years away from Earth, war had also been an inescapable event. For the Atlans, it was ironic that though their ancestors fled Earth for this reason, war still found them later on. The Atlans, who were peace-loving beings, got caught in the intercellestial war among other races of their solar system.
Before the planet of Etha was invaded, the Atlan Elders decided to send out their offsprings beyond the limitless unknowns of the universe in a desperate attempt to save them. Individually, they were transported inside a capsular pod, which provided for all of their needs as they grew. The capsular pods, known as Memories, have been stored with memories of the parents of the Atlan babies and have been programmed to expand the same time the Atlan babies aged.
The Atlans that were left behind sent out cubes of information called Keys into the uncharted corners of the universe while they, themselves, defended their planet at the cost of their lives. The Keys were believed to be the only thing left to unravel the lost secrets of the Atlans, if ever they survived.
As the holographic message finished transmitting and faded, Miguel realized that Thera might have been the last of the Atlans. You should go back to where you belong. He felt guilty over the words he said. After all, he was still human.
Love, the key that unlocks the bars of impossibility.
Fikayo Ositelu