Lia transferred her ruby coloured eyes from the patch of veridian grass to Nicholas’ sapphire like eyes, questioning him and his words. Was he… someone she could trust? Someone she could rely on? Or was he like the others? To leave her to be forsaken, alone. To only be drowned and choked by the lies and deceit that acted as this cunning spider’s web... It was all a mystery to her. Her mind, now a labyrinth of questions concealing the answers hidden within. Answers that were either right or wrong, or wrong or right. Which ones they were… she didn’t know. But what she did know was that she was scared. Scared of the unknown. Scared of betrayal, of deceit.

To be alone.

She reminisced over those long dead. Back to the beginning… back to him… and then she looked to Nicholas. Into his visor and the eyes that were concealed behind them. A deep fluorescent blue shone through his visor, as if they were to be a pair of two small flaming stars. His visor, acting as the night like skies that contrasted their beautiful glow, their beauty. It reminded her of those long past, those long gone. The great memories that were subconsciously preserved deep within her soul, within her very being. All left to be forgotten by her insatiable greed… her greed for revenge. She looked to her hands, smothered with the blackened blood that adorned them, the blood of the dead, the aftermath of her sins. She was alone and empty, left with noone by her side… but then she heard it… him.

“Lia, my light, you will grow to be a good girl, won’t you...?”, the masculine like voice, gradually subsiding as images simultaneously flashed forth in her head and out into the boundless abyss. In the spur of the moment, images of a man with great hazel coloured hair and deep sea like eyes occupied her attention. They walked hand in hand around the small outcrop of a village as they laughed and smiled in pure bliss and joy. It was nostalgic as she viewed her memories pass, entranced as if she were caught up in a spell. But shortly after, memories of death and suffering all too well familiar, dominated her mind. Houses, burnt to the ground by the raging flames that spread far and wide... corpses, skewed along the floor in abundance as expressions of despair and agony were plastered on their faces, displaying their never ending torment…

And there he was as well, the man with hazel coloured hair, the one who held deep sea like eyes that contrasted the raging crimson flames that indulged on the houses and people. He was there, obstructed by a wall of flames that lingered in between the two. She cried out for him, he cried out for her. His hand, reaching out but meeting nothing but the scorching heat that permeated from the wall of flames. The last sight of his very figure being those two small deep sea like eyes, comforting her as she entered an abysmal like state.

Then there she was, unprecedently tugged forth into reality as fast as she had left. Her eyes now left to face Nicholas’ as they indulged in their emanance, a great deep sea blue. Glimmering in what seemed to her as a boundless abyss. It reminded her of the figure, of the hazel haired man. His eyes, similar to that of Nicholas, filled with resolve and dedication.

With trust.

She glanced away from Nicholas’ eyes for but a moment before fixing them once more. She sighed before finally replying to Nicholas’ statement.

“I understand… let’s work together from now on…”, the now resolved and feminine voice echoed as it escaped from her tight pursed lips, bathed in the shadows that surrounded her. But not so shortly after those words left her mouth, they were caught by the wind as the words faded with it. But what they faded into was not nothing, but the beginning. The beginning of something unparallelled, something unfathomable to the people of this world.

There was finally going to be a tide of change. But if that change was going to be good or bad, no one knew.

*Nicholas*

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Nicholas exhaled a breath of air in what seemed to be relief as he continued to bask in the young woman's words. He was internally surprised and confused with his familiar Lia. She was... perplexing, to say the least. She seemed to be emotionally unstable if not at all. One second she’s angry, the other she’s terrified, the next she’s drowning in a lake of sorrow. The reasons as to why she were so was unknown to him. But in conclusion, he had decided that it would perhaps mend in time. If it were to not however, well, he would find a way to deal with it, with her he believed.

He then glanced away from her figure to take in the view of Novac. It’s great infrastructure and active streets just discernible and audible through the foliage that hindered Nicholas’ view. Positioned behind it was the sun as it added to the mood and atmosphere, leaving a deep orange imprint on the once light blue sky as it darkened in time. The sun in turn disappeared without a trace as it submerged into the horizon. In its place, stars came into view as they began to appear scattered along the great charcoal like night sky. It was mesmerizing as Nicholas began to reminisce over memories old. Memories of his childhood as him and his friends stared up into the night sky. Their bodies strewn along the veridian grass as they took in such a sight. A sight similar to this.

*17 years ago*

The starry sky beamed with a great silver luminescence as stars of all kinds, big and small, were pinned to the skies charcoal like surface glowing in great abundance. Beneath it were a viridian coloured field, bathed in that very radiance as it danced to the sound of children playing. The wind whipping at the patches of grass in great succession as it did so. In the epicenter of this field were a group of children conversing with one another as they excitedly played in the presence of the wind. But a sole two individuals stood out as they lay along the grass, eyes pinned to the sky with great curiosity and interest, their heads rested upon their arms as they themselves began to speak, breaking the silence that lay between the two.

“Hey, what do you think is up there?”, said the child, his hand gesturing to the encroaching night.

“In the sky?”, the other replies, “Well, I think there are others just like us. I bet, somewhere really far away, there is someone doing the same thing as us. Looking up into the stars and wondering if there are others. Others like us.”

“I guess.”, he responded as he glanced to the child with grass coloured eyes, “I wonder if we’ll get to meet them. That’d be cool, wouldn’t it?”

“Yea, but if we’re going to meet them together. We’ll meet them as brothers, it’d be fun. Won't it Nick?”, his face curved into a grin as he returned that very same look. A look of genuine and pure friendship.

“Yea, as brothers…”, he left his gaze as it returned to the night sky, entranced by its beauty as they were engulfed by the silence that once welcomed them. Minutes passed as their minds soon became active and lively, running rampant with numerous of thoughts that came in from one side and out the other. Thoughts of how it would be meeting other sentient life, of how they would coexist with them, how they'd speak to one another. It excited them as much as it interested them. It was the work of the youthful and inexperienced mind, not like those who had aged and experienced the countless years birthed from life. It was completely and irrefutably different. If the youthful were to be interested and curious about the unknown, the aged would be scared and confused by it instead. They had learnt and been influenced by the people around them to not welcome such thoughts with open arms unlike the children had. But instead learnt to close and barricade the doors that invited such things.

It was similar to how some children were discarded and left to be neglected at orphanages. Their parents were scared of the unknown, unwilling to change their lives that would come with the responsibility of tending to their every need. Scared of the change that would come with it. The sole concept terrified them. But unlike them, the children embraced the unknown and the change that came with it. Maybe it was because they hadn't learnt to be scared of the unknown yet. Maybe it was because they had yet to be tainted by humanities influence that spread across the universe. But this instead left them to be curious. Curious to learn and experience more things about the unexplained and unexplored. Things like meeting other races scattered throughout the cosmos, human or not. But with those thoughts came expectations. Expectations produced from hopeless ideals.

And expectations were just assumptions of what could take place, were they not? Not wrong or right, not based on probability or evidence. But on hope and ideals. If they expected there to be sentient life out their scattered among the stars, would that in fact be true? Possibly… there was always a possibility, and in this case, the pair of children were right. There was sentient life among the stars, living amongst them in this infinite universe filled with countless possibilities. But that begged for another question to be answered. Had they came to establish peace? Or came to create conflict? They hadn’t known, but in the year 2525 they got their answer. Fleets consisting of multiple violet ships assaulted the outer colonies of humanity. Killing millions upon millions of people whilst spreading their influence along the stars. And with it, humanities fear for the unknown grew stronger, bit by bit, piece by piece. It was the beginning of an era full of death and suffering for many. It was the era which Nicholas was born. The era which had taken Nicholas’ dreams, hopes, emotions, and friends from him. The era that made him the person he is to this very day.