[https://i.imgur.com/Q6fMDdJ.jpg]

"What do you think those stars really are?", Daphne pointed her finger into the cold night sky with thousand and thousand of stars surrounding the moon. The moon light softly touches her face as she speaks slowly. The two of them sit down on a grassy hills while looking down the town that shines as bright as the stars in the sky themselves. The cold breeze of night air greets them gently as they were having a casual conversation.

"Hmm? Stars? Teacher said they're ball of gas, explosions, chemical reaction..", Aiden touches his chin while looking down thinking of what was taught in the school.

"Geez, you're no fun.", she pouts before she gaze back to the sky, "And totally not romantic."

"What? This is what a star really is.", Aiden is confused, he just can't understand what's wrong.

"Whatever, these stars are fake anyway. Just computer simulations.", she sighs disappointedly before she lays down on the polygons of grass.

She got a point, Aiden thought. Everything Aiden and Daphne see and experience: They are not real. It is just a simulation generated by the 'Hebe System'. Something that keep their species alive for thousand of years.

Aiden and Daphne are what they call themselves 'Homo Novus' - The New Man. Although they'd like to refer themselves as Akazian more than Homo Novus. Akazian is something that to be reminded by their home planet - a tree that grows in the middle of nowhere just like their kin, who have been on an Odyssee since forever. They tend to have silver hair and pale white skin due to the lack of melatonin in their skin that causes vitiligo and albinism. Their ears have developed into an pointy shape over several centuries. The simulation they live in forbid the change in appearance for security issue. This combined sequences of binary basically became the second reality for their reality.

With troubled face Daphne made, Aiden asks one question that would impact both of their futures.

"Do you want to get out of here?"

Daphne is puzzled, she looks around herself, "But we're already outside?"

"No I mean.. getting out of 'here'.", Aiden looks up the sky himself. Daphne looks surprised. She always thought of Aiden someone who just takes whatever is handed infront of him. Aiden seems like someone who just doesn't have any dream to work toward to, since he always looks sad on the outside and most of the time, keeps to himself.

The Hebe System keeps a person's conciousness into a simulated World, almost as real as the real one. Their body is being kept in a life capsule - a tube enough to fit a grown man in it. People grow up inside a tube, become old and die in the tube. What became of their body is unknown.

"Why would you want to do that?", Daphne asked again, with her eyes fixed on the moon.

"Is this really what life is about?", Aiden, who was sitting early on the grass, stood up and tries to express his feeling. It's not everyday he acts like this toward Daphne, it's as if something has been bothering him.

"Do you want to be here forever? Without seeing what's really out there?", Aiden has this troubled look on his face. Something definitely has been bothing him, Daphne thought.

Daphne couldn't help herself but burst out laughing, "What's wrong with you?", she keeps laughing.

His face started to get red and Aiden turns around and made a grumpy sound. Daphne gets up and takes his hand, "So you want to be an Astronaut?"

"Wait I never told you-", Daphne's finger lands on his lip softly.

"Shhhh... I know you for years, I know what you're thinking.", Daphne smiles at him, it wasn't a hard guess especially since she often found him in the public library looking through anything related to the old world and space, "Good that you're finally decide for a career. I was worried when you couldn't hand in the career of choice file to Mr. Rosenberg."

Aiden looks away shyly, "Well.. alright. Yes I want to become an astronaut, but I didn't plan to tell anyone - especially you since you might try to hold me back.", Right after what he said, Daphne strums a finger on his forehead. The Hebe System can simulate pain so naturally Aiden reponded with an soft grunt.

"What's that for??", he asks.

"Dummy, you were the one who found me and that's why I'm going to follow you through the end of the universe!", These aren't just empty words, but it is something coming out of her heart. Daphne was an Orphan and Aiden family took her in. Daphne kind of stuck around with him, even right now before they graduate from middle school, "It upsets me you thought that I would hold you back!"

"Didn't you say you want to be a mechanic or whatever technician thing was?", Aiden is puzzled, since he knows best how crazy she is with mechanics and engineering.

"That's right, who's going to repair your Space Ship when you crash?", She smiles brighter than the moon. "There are more than just a job as an astronaut!"

Both of them laughed as Aiden sits down. Daphne gives him a gentle headpat on his head. He means the world to her, without him she wouldn't know where she would be or what she would be doing right now.

[Severeal Years Later]

[Smayan Wilderness 18:30]

Aiden opens his eyes and looks around and found himself on a warm mattress covered in bandages. Where am I? He thought to himself. "Daphne..", He mumbles to himself before he panicked but found her sleeping right next to him half naked, but covered in bandages as well.

He sighs in relieve knowing that she is alive and well so he decided to walk out of the mattress. A glass of water is what he'd love to have right now. If only he knows where to find the toilet.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

After a short moment of realization, he remembers everything. The crash, the missiles, the engine failure. He thought this place might not really welcome them and so he approches the door to this room carefully.

As he gets closer to the room, he got surprised to hear people talking. Although he doesn't understand any of the words they were saying.

Every astronauts who finished the training will be gifted with a super computer planted deep inside their brains, this is completely unlinked by the Hebe System and works like a personalized assistent: VAPA.

"VAPA, analize the language.", Aiden put his hear on the door so he can hear the conversation better.

"Analization initiated. Proceed to break down the language. Analization complete. Would you like to install this language modul in your neural system?," VAPA completes the analization of this world's language in just few seconds.

"Yes, do it", Aiden affirms. Suddenly a huge headache strucks onto his head, as if his brain was getting electrocuted mildly. It normally is not this painful, but it could be a side effect of the plane crash incident. He has to cling on the door knob for a bit due to the headache, but the conversation is now clearer to understand.

"...can't..inside the house! You... do.. to you!", said the manly voice on the other side of the door. The language modul seems to glitch a bit, this could mean that Aiden's head must have hit very hard against the surface when they crash.

"What am I supposed to... then? Leave... to die?" a woman voice disagreed. The voice starts to become clearer to understand as the time goes by.

"Naomi, you can't just bring injured people back home.. What if they are wanted people?" the man behind the door replied.

"Well why don't you go ahead and call the Edmond Military Police then?" the female sounds fierce and upset.

"You really have bring old issue back huh?" the male voice gets louder and Aiden hears a thud behind the door. He might hit the table or something.

"And if they're wanted people, there is no way I'd cooperate with those assholes form the west. You know what they did to my home land? You know what they did to YOUR homeland.", the female voice do not want any of the man said.

The arguments starts to get more intense and until Aiden accidentally slip the door knob open and stumble out of the room. He was greeted by surprised and startled look on both hosts.

"H-Hello.", Aiden isn't used to the new language yet, but he'll be fine, it's the not the first time he uses it.

"By the elder gods! Don't just stand there and help him up, Makoto!", said the tall blonde women with funny looking ears who seems to be referring to the tanned man with dark hair across the table. Both of them rushed to Aiden to help him up. Then the woman brings a glass of water and put warm blanket on Aiden. The sound of the rain outside the house is really calming to Aiden plus the fact that this isn't just a simulated reality made him surprise and somewhat hopeful since this would mean that the climate on this planet is almost as compatible with their old planet, or just as how the simulation simulated it.

Aiden takes a sip on the real water and this is when it hits him.

'A carbon based lifeform exist on this planet and this is no doubt the real water: H2O! We just hit a jackpot here!' That's what he thought. He realized that he even breathes actual air without any issue.

Aiden just froze there for a solid half minute trying to grasp on everything. Is this real? Is this just a dream? Was it just another dream inside the simulation again?

"My name is Naomi", said the blonde woman, "Are you okay?", Naomi asked him with concerns. Naomi is a rather well developed woman with long blond hair. What really stood out was her Elven ears, since she's a member of High Elf species, which would explain her funny looking ears to Aiden.

Makoto is said to be a native who has a dark skin and black hair. He has a mask that cover the lower half of his face for personal reason. He is a rather muscular man and looks like he works on the field everyday.

Aiden clears his throat, "Y-yes, I am well."

"We found you and your friend inside a crashing air plane. We happened to be nearby so we took in you guys to take care of your wounds.", she added to the explaination, "Would you mind telling us what happened?"

"We come from the space. We look for someone. We were attacked.", Aiden tried his best to explain despite having a language modul freshly installed into his brain.

"Space? What's a space? You mean the sky? But there are no elves in the sky.", Naomi questions a lot. After a closer inspection to Aiden's ear, she noticed something different.

"Wait something isn't right. Your ears are somewhat different. Are you a half elf?"

"Elf? I do not understand that. I am not an elf.", Aiden wonders if the language modul is working properly.

Makoto wants to reaffirm something, "You said you're from the sky. Are you a sky folk?"

"What are you saying, Makoto, Sky folk don't exist.", She face palms herself and wait for Aiden to reply.

"I do not understand. I am an Akazian. I come from the Hebe Space Station.", Aiden explains slowly while hoping everyone in the room can understand what he was talking about.

"Space.. space..", Makoto seems to remember something. He remembers reading something about it in a local newspaper that the Western Human colonists introduced to the town's people.

"Wait! you're telling me you come from above the cloud??", Makoto is shocked. Since he remembers clearly that no life is possible in the space.

"Yes space is above the cloud, that is what I've been telling.", Aiden feels like his language modul is working properly now. The headache seems to pull itself back.

"So you're an alien?", Makoto asked hesistently.

Aiden looks up to him puzzled, "No you're the alien here."

"But you come from the sky, this is our world!", Makoto argues back.

"Yes but we found you as well, you're the alien here." They stare at each other for a short moment.

They started to argue but before the debate gets too intense, Daphne steps out of the room having the blank in her hand to cover her frontside.

"Aiden..", Daphne speaks exhaustingly, she really didn't recover herself. Aiden rushes to catch her when she crumbles down.

"Hey hey, Daphne hang in there, I got this.", he reassures that everything is alright.

"Aiden.. I'm so...", she speaks faintly. Aiden got a really bad feeling. Her bleeding has stopped, her wound has been treated. So why is she acting like this? he asked himself.

"Aiden.. I'm so... hungry..", Just like that her belly start growls loudly.

The knight on a white horse, Aiden, just stands there with blank expression. Naomi and Makoto starts laughing loud. Aiden is sure they didn't understand her, but Naomi said she's going to make dinner.

"Wait Naomi, I think someone's outsi-", before Makoto could finish his sentence, the door exploded and several flashbangs are thrown inside the room.

"POLICE, DROP YOUR WEAPON AND LAY ON THE FLOOR!", Major Titus Thanatos yelled as he rushed on site following by Corporal Daniel Wolf and Private First Class Specialist Adam Zimmer.

"D-Drop your weapon! You're under arrest!", Adam tries his best to sound intimidating.

"What weapon, can't you see we're unarmed?!", Makoto bawled at the men in uniform while he was half blinded by the flashbangs. Naomi who luckily had her back turned toward the flash bang, wasn't blinded.

Titus has his rifle pointed toward Makoto who is holding his hands into the air, as normal person would do. Daniel his Sub Machine Gun to Naomi he was half way into the kitchen.

"Easy there champ, you wouldn't want to mess with us.", Titus intimidated Makoto as Makoto slowly kneel down and put his hands behind his head without being instructed.

"Don't even think about getting a knife from kitchen, hot stuff.", said Daniel directed at Naomi. "So Laura is right about an Elf huh? She looks cute." Daniel can see a clear disgusted expression on Naomi's face.

Aiden holds Daphne close while having the VAPA analyze their language as Adam closes in to them with rifle pointing at them.

"J-Just stay still..", Adam commands Aiden and Daphne with a nervous look on his face. Aiden nods willingly.

"What do you human wants?! Don't you take enough from us away?!", Naomi yelled at them.

Titus looked over Naomi and he noticed something familiar about Naomi. Her face, her voice. It reminds him of one of the Elf he didn't kill. A sudden certain feeling struck to his heart. Titus knows exactly who she is.

"I'll never forgive humans like you! I'll destroy everything you have built! Mark my words!"

This is exactly what Naomi said to Titus 10 years ago. Titus has a shocked look on the face as he ordered a arrest. Several thuds could be heard as everyone beside the police were knocked out by the gun stocks.

[https://i.imgur.com/MmZixu3.png]