The Eternal Guardian

-

He sees her smiling at him. Oh such a sweet and loving smile. A smile to soothe the heart and calm the soul. And for a moment he feels that everything is right again. And then he notices her dress. Or rather, the wedding dress she's wearing. White and pure, as their love once was.

She held her hand out towards him, beckoning him to go to her. Gladdened, he takes a step forward, to take his place beside her, only for a shadow to go through him and take her hand instead. It is another man. And he sees that the smile she was giving him just now, it was meant for this man. He is just a shadow here. His existence is unnoticed. He can only watch as they walk towards the cleric together.

He wants to run.

He wants to escape.

He wants to die.

But all is denied to him.

He is forced to watch.

By who?

God?

The World?

Fate?

Himself?

He doesn't know.

He only knows that his feet are chained to where he is and he can only watch.

Watch while his heart bleeds slowly.

He watches as they exchange their vows.

He watches as the cleric hears the vows and affirms it in the eyes of the Law and the eyes of God.

He watches as they smile lovingly towards each other and grasp their hands tighter as their vows are affirmed in the eyes of the World.

He watches on.

He clenches his teeth so hard that his gum bled a bit from the pressure. He feels numb.

He watches on as they step down from the altar.

He watches on as they slowly mingle with the crowd.

He watches on as the crowd gives their blessings and benedictions.

He watches on as the parents of the happy couple greet each other and laugh joyfully at the happy union.

He feels confused.

He feels hatred.

He feels bitter.

He feels betrayed.

He looks around him.

He looks at the sky expecting to see the moon falling, the sun exploding.

He looks at the sky, expecting to see demons appearing out of hellish portals.

He looks at his surroundings, expecting an earthquake to destroy everything soon.

But.

There is only the Sun shining brightly, giving hope and life to humans.

He sees bird flocks flying joyfully in the Sky.

He sees the surrounding Gardens so green and full of life.

He hears the lively chirps of bird, the cheerful squeaks of squirrels.

Everywhere he turns, there is only the joyful sound of Life thriving.

And he knows he is alone in his pain.

The world celebrates life and joy.

And his pain is neither.

He runs away from this spectacle. He cannot accept it.

The cheerful voices of the attending crowd chase him as he runs, as if mocking his helplessness.

He stumbles and falls into a deep chasm which appears out of nowhere.

There is no fear. He welcomes the fall.

"Maybe this will end it. Maybe this will stop the pain."

Blackness engulfs him...

-

- Alfrun Station Quarters, Zuman's Room, Sol Calendar 2687-07-10, 0315 Hours -

"!!!!!!!!"

Zuman sits upright in his bed, waking up from the nightmare. The nightmare that has plagued him for the past few months.

He realizes that his body is sweating despite the deliberately low temp air conditioning. His breathing is laboured, as if he has just finished a 5km run sprinting all the way. There is a faint pain in his chest, as though his heart wants to jump out of it. And his head is throbbing.

But none of these will be there by morning. When morning comes, it all disappears as if they were never there. As if they were ghosts exorcised by the furious rays of the sun. He knows this is just an illusion. After all, in space as they are, there is no 'sunrise' so to speak. It is probably his biological clock recognizing that once morning comes, any pain, be they physical or mental needs to be shunt to one side so that he can work properly.

He realizes that this is just him escaping from reality and it is probably a hint of something deeper in his psyche. But he refuses to consult the medical team. He knows they can help give him counselling, give him a figurative 'shoulder to cry on'. But he doesn't want to do so. He feels that it is right and proper to go through this pain. That getting help is him robbing himself of a valuable experience.

But the question now is which will persist longer?

The pain that is slowly eating him up?

Or his battered will and resolve?

After around 30 minutes of listless staring at his hands in the dark, he looks at his room.

"AI, lights please."

He gently requests the Station AI to activate the lights.

"Affirmative sir, standby."

The AI replies at the same time that the lights comes on.

"Thank you AI."

Although the Station AI has been particularly vetted to insure there is no personality or emotion, his habit of being polite nevertheless makes him naturally treat it as a person, as if it is a maid that is at his beck and call.

"AI, what's the current time?"

"Sol Calendar 2687-07-10, 0400 Hours sir. Your activities for today are: 1) Post-Mortem Meeting for Experiment Dated Sol Calendar 2687-07-07, to be held at 1500 hours. There is another approximately 11 hours before your next activity. End."

"Duly noted AI, thank you again."

Sitting at the edge of the bed, he gets up and walks off to the bath. Washing his face, he looks into the mirror.

A person in his 20s looks back at him. A youth in his prime. Though he isn't muscularly big, that is by choice. He has always preferred a lean build. His sports recreation has always focused on stamina building and as such, the only muscles visible on him are on his legs and his torso. Looking from afar, it can be forgiven if you think of him as a scrawny man. His 6ft height doesn't help much, as this height furthers the illusion of him being scrawny. His face damp from the washing, there is a haunted quality to his eyes. His cheeks seems sunken [a recent addition, previously his cheeks are plump and full of life]. Opening his mouth, he checks his teeth. He is not surprised to discover a bite wound on the inside of his cheeks. It is bleeding slightly even now. He applies a cream to it so that it doesn't fester.

(Might as well take a bath huh)

He thinks to himself.

-

After taking the bath, wiping his head with his towel, he looks at his surroundings. Sitting down at his study, he takes out his notebook and starts making notes of his observations and ideas for the meeting later.

And like this, the time passes.

-

- Alfrun Station Research Section, Meeting Room 001, Sol Calendar 2687-07-10, 1500 Hours -

"So, let's start the meeting. Please be advised from hereon we are on the record."

"Affirmative, professor."

"Alright then. Any anomaly you want to bring to my attention?"

"Just one sir."

To his surprise, it is the archive team that answered. After all, what can be so surprising in the records since the vehicle is relatively intact.

"What is it?"

"The camera sir. As you are aware, we have always used a camera with a recording time of 6 months in case the vehicle is lost in space and any data recorded during the loss is valuable data, regardless if it's for our team or other research projects."

"Yes, I'm aware of this of course. So what is the anomaly then?"

"It's this sir. The camera retrieved had a record of the wormhole view for 2 months."

There was a silence once the Archive team person said this.

"Please correct me in case I'm remembering this wrong. We all saw the time it took for the vehicle to enter and exit the portal was just around 300 seconds. And during this 300 seconds, there was only a period of around 180 seconds in which we lost sight off and lost contact with the test vehicle."

"That is correct sir."

"So you're telling me that in that period of 180 seconds which we lost the vehicle, the camera recorded 2 months' worth of footage?"

"Again sir, that is correct."

Silence all around the table.

"*chuckles*, well, I guess we just accidentally found a time dilation method huh. That's good news for all those university students studying last minute before their finals right? *sneers*"

At that joke, the mood around the table slowly recovered.

"We'll put this aside first. Our primary objective was safe travel between the 2 points in space. Time dilation is a side effect. Whether it's benign or malignant, that depends on your view I guess. However, I want to hear regarding our primary objective first. Anything else?"

Zuman decisively puts any considerations towards this unexpected side effect aside.

"No sir. Vehicle 3156 structural integrity checks out sir. Even at the molecular level. The only thing weird before this is that we detected signs of aging which was not coherent with the time we lost contact, but after hearing the Archive team report, it tallies with their report sir."

"Thank you Engineering team. Observation team?"

"Sir. Readings throughout the whole experiment was surprisingly stable. We have checked with previous experiments, and the only thing glaring at us is that for this time, due to our settings and rotation of the inner ring, there is constant destructive interference of all the light oscillation waves. There is no constructive interference at all sir."

"Only that?"

"Yes sir, only that."

"I want further study of it, and please prepare a conjecture for me in another 7 days. Also, in the meantime, please study the camera records and Vehicle 3156 structural integrity. Make a note of any anomaly from camera footage, particularly any wave readings previously unknown, and please prepare a template from Vehicle 3156's design. Since the Vehicle survived, we can safely say that this particular design works, so let's keep it."

"Acknowledged sir."

"Anything else you guys might want to add?"

"No sir."

"None sir."

"One thing sir. Will we be moving on to live testing?"

At this question, everyone looked at Zuman.

"Hmmm. Good question. I would love to do that. But let's confirm we can repeat this experiment successfully. After we have 10 successful ones in a row, we can start with live testing. Understood?"

"Very good sir."

"Alright then. Meeting Adjourned. And thank you everyone."