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Space.
Always cold and empty, was occupied by one lonely soul right now. He had been floating for a while now, stripped of his consciousness. His eyes slowly fluttered open, blinking away all the sleepiness.
“Wha-” Minkyun flinched, hard.
He started turning back and forth like a mad man. His breathing got shallow and rapid, not enough oxygen getting through to his lungs. He didn’t know how he got there and figuring that out was the last thing on his mind at that moment.
Minkyun’s eyes watered, teardrops lifting into the air with the lack of gravity. Being completely alone overwhelmed him extremely quickly. Usually in the company of his friends or the monitors that gave him a glimpse into what was happening in the base, now he was stripped of that in a blink of an eye. They gave him control and that was too, taken away.
The silence of the vast void beneath him hurt his ears, stars blinking at him, as if making fun of his agony. He was completely and utterly alone.
Calming down a little, he thought of his options. Try and contact the base or stay, hoping the others will find him themselves. The latter wasn’t an option, Minkyun wasn’t the type to sit in place and do nothing in the state of crisis, that’s how he ended up in this place anyway. Every single one of them was equipped with a flare, for emergency situations, like if they got loose from the ropes tying them to the ship. No one had used them, ever, there just wasn’t any point in doing that. They always had each other’s backs and kept an eye on everyone to make sure they were safe.
Minkyun patted down his space suit. With every harder part of his uniform he got excited, thinking it was the flare, with no luck. It must’ve fallen out during his drift out in the open. Now he started really getting worried.
Suddenly he felt something in one of the lesser used pockets. It was a small radio they used to communicate while doing some chores outside of the base. They didn’t have a big radius in which they worked, but he hoped there was a small chance it reached, even barely.
It was hard to operate the small object with the suit’s gloves, but he managed to hold the biggest button. A beeping sound filled the void, or at least Minkyun thought it did, just because he was used to it. It produced no sound at all. He shook it a few times and it blinked red. Maybe it wasn’t working. Maybe it just got stuck from not being used for a while. Still, no sound came from it, not even a ghostly whisper, only the red light shining at him playfully.
He put it back, not wanting to, by accident, let it go and not be able to let it back. This time he searched more thoroughly. Pulling on zippers, being careful not to pull open something that held his uniform together. In no time he encountered another lump. Flipping the small pouch open, something fell out. Minkyun almost let it slip out of his sight. In the heavy darkness of the void, a small black recorder could slip anyone’s eye.
He recognized it, he knew it too well. It was a very important object to him, it’s origin dating back to when all of them were safe, on Earth. Back to when they were happy.
There was only one video recorded on it, a short one. There were subtitles edited onto it, with subtle music in the background. He thought that Wyatt must’ve put it in, he was a really sentimental guy. The subtitles were there only because some of the words became intelligible, due to the distortion in the video that they all noticed over time.
Minkyun, as hard as it was, pressed play. The small screen flashed static at the beginning, but soon the fateful video showed up. It started out with some fumbling of a camera until it stopped, pointing directly at Changyoon’s face. He looked younger, as it was a few years back. His black hair uncomfortably styled, showed his lack of skill and determination to make it look good.
“Log number… one?” he said to the camera, looking a little confused and nervous. “Well, it's happening. Finally happening. He left his room last night and now we’re all waiting for his signal. He said it’ll be something big, so we’re all excited. We’ll finally be leaving this hellish place, hopefully for a better one.” he smiled. “It’s gonna be a big day tomorrow.”
It was still not audible, but Minkyun remembered that day so well, he could hear Changyoon’s worried, high pitched voice in his mind. “He”, whom the older one was referring to, was their old friend.
A young boy named Laun, was their friend for a long time, in the academy and when they left. He disappeared one day, the rest spending countless hours looking for him, but it never worked out. Changyoon swears he saw him, but none of them really believed him at that point, it had been so long after all.
The day that log was recorded, Laun left his room to mess up the facility’s power source. It helped them escape, but he got injured, nothing serious thought, so they paid no mind to it at that time.
The video switched to another shot, this time of Jaeyoung, or Wyatt as they grew to call him.
“Log number sixteen.” there was a sad expression in his eyes. “We haven't done those in a while and I wanted to reminisce about the past as much as I can.” there was a pause. “I’ve started to lose a part of me. I don’t know how far this will go, but I feel different. Seungjun said it’s probably because of the surgery and that I shouldn’t’ve driven in that state, but what could I do? What would he do in my place?”
It was so much different from what Minkyun had remembered. The video that is. The logs saved on this one were different to say the least. Not the ones he had remembered. He stopped the recording, not wanting to miss any of it and turned the recorder backwards. His had a white mark, this one did not. Instead there were numbers carved into the side.
365-24
They weren’t ones that Minkyun had seen before. They all had numbers assigned to them and although he couldn’t remember most of them, he was sure he never saw those. Or maybe he did? The crushing loneliness of space must’ve just messed with his mind more than he thought it did.
He turned the recorder back to the front and cursed under his breath. The video was still playing, it hadn't stopped where he wanted it to and proceeded to play. Minkyun only saw a glimpse of Seungjun’s colorful shirt and light brown hair, before it cut to a different scene.
If there was any audio, he was sure he wouldn’t have heard it either way. In the middle of the screen there was Hyojin. This clip was also an older one. His hair was bright red, almost orange and he was sitting in a train, something he hasn’t done since they left Vietnam.
“I won’t bother with numbering this log, just treat it as a sort of confession.” his serious expression didn’t suit him at all, like he had done something really bad. “I wanted to come clean before everything ends, for good. Soon I’ll be passing a station in Chanyoon’s district. I know he is going to be there, no doubt about that. Changyoon’s report is going to state that he saw him , but we won’t believe it. The searches ended a long time ago and we shouldn’t even be here.”
Minkyun never saw this clip before. He didn’t even know that Hyojin was there at that time, all of them thought he was buried in his papers and focusing on something that would help them go back. Instead, he was here, in a train, driving towards Laun.
“I won’t back Chanyoon’s story. I don’t want to. I just want to see him for the last time. I know it’s all my fault, but I didn’t have any choice, this was the only way we would all be happy. He only wanted to incite us to leave the safety of the facility. We were stupid for listening.” a grin showed up on his face. “ I’ll make sure it will never happen again. Even if someone finds a way to travel through time.” he snickered at his own comment. “I will stop him. Whatever it takes.”
He was distraught, confused. Why would Hyojin do this? He loved Laun, they all did. So why?
Minkyun’s train of thought was cut short by another clip. Something extremely blue showed up on screen. It was Laun’s cabin. Soon the person in question showed up, sitting down on a white chair in the middle.
“Log number zero.” he started. “I will leave soon with all of the guys with me, no going back, we’re in way too deep anyway.” Laun laughed and pointed to the mirror in the corner. “I’m leaving the carers a small reminder of who we were, of who I was. I’m sure they’ll look for us, but we’re too good for them, I believe we will get out. We have to get out.”
There was a long pause. Minkyun even thought that the video had crashed, but soon the young boy started speaking again.
“I saw Hyojin today. He looked… confused and maybe even angry. I don’t know who it's directed at, but it can’t be anything good, he’s always so cheerful.” he straightened his sweater. “It was Minkyun’s idea to run away. I think he found a poster or something? His idea was wild, but not entirely unimaginable. I got a plan to break the facility’s power source so we can escape through the main gate. It’s the easiest way out as far as I’m concerned. I’ll give the camera to Changyoon next time I see him. Making logs like that is a good way to remember things, I learned it the hard way.” he got up and came towards the screen. “Sorry for jumping around the topics like that, but I wanted to contain as much as I could. And when it comes to you Minkyun,” Laun looked past the screen, as if straight at him “don’t wander off too far, you’ll get lost without a way back one day.”
There was a stop and the screen went black, Minkyun’s vision went out too. He wasn’t sure if he still was in the void or just blacked out from the shock. He shouldn’t be so weak after all that has happened, but a reveal like that was definitely something.
He felt a tap on his shoulder. A faint one, as if from outside an extremely thick blanket. His sight was still gone, vision black as a night without any stars. He turned rapidly, but it did nothing. Then he felt the tap again, this time a lot stronger.
His eyes fluttered open, like they were never closed, like he was just in a daze. Light hit his eyes, blinding after all the darkness.
The first thing Minkyun saw was a familiar face. White hair in his direct line of sight.
“Hey, I’ve been trying to wake you for a while now. What got you so deep in your sleep?” Yuto asked with a cheerful expression. “I thought you died.” he laughed at his own joke.
“Nothing like that.” Minkyun shrugged. “I had a weird dream.”
“What was it about?”
He hesitated for a second. Now it seemed like a stupid memory. Everything he saw in the dream was as if he was in a haze. He could barely make out anything significant.
“Nothing much. I dreamt of me in a parallel universe.” he finally said. “I was floating in space, I assume I got separated during a mission.”
“Oh you wouldn’t make a mistake like that.”
“Now I don’t know if I wouldn’t.” Minkyun said.
Yuto looked mildly concerned.
“Why?”
Laun’s words from his dream echoed in his mind.
And when it comes to you Minkyun, don’t wander off too far, you’ll get lost without a way back one day.
“I think I was happy though. I did what I could.”
“Then it must’ve been a good dream.” Yuto concluded.
“I suppose it was.”