Ah, the sun felt so nice!

Sana adjusted herself, digging herself deeper into the sand, as the heat from the sun enveloped more of her body. The scales of her lower body and the soft flesh of her upper one… sunbathing was just a wonderful way to pass the time!

A sigh above her. Sana opened an eye, to find one of her fellow lamia, Mellow, staring down at her with an exasperated look, while carrying a large ceramic jug underneath her left arm. “Sana…” she said. “You were supposed to be gathering water at the oasis today.”

Sana stretched, popping her neck and back. “I’m supposed to,” she agreed, with a sly smile. “But today’s such a nice day! I can’t spend it lugging water back and forth between the caves and oasis.”

“So you’re going to spend today… sleeping?” Mellow pointed out.

“Yes.”

Mellow let out another sigh. She opened her mouth but Sana quickly cut her off with a wave of her hand. “I know, I know,” she complained. “I don’t need another lecture from you or the elders. I’ll do better next time. I promise.”

Mellow rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t going to say anything of the sort,” she scowled. “Just know that if you come to me dying of goddamn thirst, I expect some sort of apology or payback.”

“The heart fruits right?” Sana closed her eyes again. “Don’t worry, we’ll raid one of those human caravans next week.”

Mellow let out a huff and, instead of answering, slithered away in the direction of the oasis, her arms crossed. Sana chose at that very moment to succumb to her laziness and take a small nap. With the heat of the sun and the warmness of the sand, it was hard not to.

She didn’t know how long she was asleep, but she awoke when she heard a small thud from a spot just next to her. Sana chose to ignore it at first, but eventually, her curiosity got the best of her, and she wretched her eyes opened. She turned her head to the left, a small grey box sitting in the sand next to her head.

Sana blinked, her interest piqued. She rolled herself over so that she was lying on her belly, before picking up the small box and looking it over. It was completely sealed, but the small red circle atop it looked like it could be pressed.

Sana looked around at her surroundings, but, as she suspected, no other lamias had returned from the oasis nor had any come out of their dens. The only tail tracks leading to her were her own and from Mellow. So no one could’ve come by and dropped it.

She looked to the sky. Had it fallen from the sky? She had heard some old legends about human heroes falling from the sky. But an object was a new one.

Without really thinking about the consequences, Sana pressed the small red circle, feeling it give way to the weight of her finger. It let out a small click and at the same time, Sana’s stomach did a backflip.

Gone was the summer heat she had grown accustomed to. Instead of hot sand, she was now lying atop a very cold surface that was hard and smooth. It wasn’t like any rock she had felt before. The sun had also vanished, replaced by a dull white light that would occasionally flicker.

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A little unsteadily, Sana pulled herself to a standing height. She was no longer in the desert. Rather she found herself confined inside a small room. Smooth metal surrounded her on all sides and on the ceiling was the source of the faint light – a pair of planks with light emitting out of them.

“How-?” Sana started to ask, only to wince as her voice echoed all around her. Her heart beating rapidly, she glanced down at her hand but found that the box had mysteriously disappeared.

Sana wrapped her arms around herself. It was far too cold for her to think properly. Right now… right now she had to get somewhere warmer. She slithered forward, hoping to find some spot that was warmer, but the moment she did the wall in front of her slid open, revealing a corridor on the other side.

She froze, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. The wall, or door as Sana quickly realized, remained open. She passed through it, making sure her entire body was through the door. Once it was, the door closed behind her, but she found she could open it again if she simply waved her hand in front of it.

“H-Hello?” she called out tentatively. “Is anyone there?”

No answer.

Swallowing her fear and picking a direction, she started to move through the corridor. As she did, Sana only found more empty rooms and hallways. She kept moving forward, however, recalling the most important lesson her mother taught her about dungeons, “Always make sure you know how to return home!”

Sure the room she started in wasn’t exactly the entrance, but it was her starting point.

After a while of nothing but silence and darkness, Sana finally reached… well she reached something. It was a dead-end room, but it didn’t feel like one. The moment she entered the room, the lights inside turned on, revealing a sort of… living room. At least that’s how she would describe it. Several silver chairs raised from the ground, each facing a panel filled to the brim with sparkling lights and levers.

But what drew her eyes was what lay beyond the room. Large windows encompassed the room allowing her to see the outside. She slithered closer to the windows, her eyes wide.

In front of her was the endless expanse of the night sky. A multitude of stars glittered upon the black landscape. It resembled what she would see during the desert night, yet the stars were all in the wrong places. Not only that, but in every direction, she looked the sky stretched on. She saw no ground to stand upon nor any horizon to look past.

“W-Where am I?” she asked aloud, pressing her hands against the glass. “Where…?”

Sana’s eyes went wide, as a specific memory from her childhood bubbled to the surface of her mind.

“You really helped me.” The hero knelt down and tousled her hair. “Without you, we wouldn’t have made it.”

Sana’s face turned a beet red. “It was nothing,” she mumbled, abashedly. The two of them were outside the village, far away from the dungeon. As thanks, the hero and his party had offered her some good food for once. After she had eaten the hero had taken her outside to personally thank her.

The hero shook his head. “It wasn’t.” He looked up to the night sky and smiled.

Sana followed his gaze in confusion. “Sorry,” she said, tilting her head to the side. “What are you looking at?”

“The stars.”

“The stars?” Sana repeated. “You mean the silver in the sky?”

“Silver?” The hero frowned. “Is that what you think they are?” He snorted and shook his head. “Actually those lights are a lot larger than you think they are. They are actually giants balls of fire and gas thousands and millions more massive than this planet. The only reason they appear so small is because they are extremely far away. You’ll probably never see a star up close in your lifetime.” As if suddenly realizing what he was saying, he placed a hand to his mouth and chuckled. “Sorry,” he apologized. “Before all of this, I wanted to be an astronaut and go to space.”

“Space?” Sana asked,

“Yeah. Space. The final frontier.”

The room she was inside was turning, shifting ever so slightly to the left. As she continued to stare out of the window, something came into view. A large orange-red ball of fire glowing brightly in the distance. Its sheer size and magnitude nearly made Sana collapse then and there.

“I see," she said aloud. "So this is space.”