What You Eat Today, Defines Tomorrow

Orion was holding Caelus on the Pulseboard as a robotic voice warned:

“Battery at critical level.”

“He’s hurt, and I don’t know what to do.”

Boreas dropped everything he was doing.

“Everyone’s out. Let’s get him to the medical area!” he responded urgently. “Help me carry him.”

The two carried the boy to another house with several beds. A frail old woman lay on one of them, coughing softly. Boreas pointed to an empty bed.

“There. Carefully.”

They laid Caelus down. He groaned softly, sweating and trembling from the pain.

“Take off his shirt,” Boreas ordered.

Orion struggled with the jacket, trying to be gentle since Caelus was drenched in sweat and clearly in pain. Boreas placed a hand on Caelus’ forehead.

“He has lost a lot of blood, and it feels like he has a fever,” he muttered, frowning.

The old man hurried to a shelf, grabbing a small case marked with a red cross. He pulled out a device that looked like a mix of a scanner and a flashlight. Pointing it at the wound, a blue light flashed.

“The cut’s bad, but it didn’t hit any vital organs.”

Orion watched as Boreas took a vial of green liquid from the case.

“This is going to sting, but it’ll help,” the old man assured Caelus.

When Boreas cleaned the wound, Caelus screamed, his body arching in pain. Boreas grabbed a curved needle and thin metallic thread, but his hands trembled slightly. Taking a deep breath, he turned to Orion.

“Hold him down, Orion. He can’t move.”

Orion hesitated for a moment but then firmly held Caelus’ shoulders. The strength of Orion’s metal arm made it hard for Caelus to resist. Boreas donned a pair of cracked goggles hanging from his neck and, with his tongue sticking out in concentration, quickly stitched the wound despite his trembling hands. Finally, he wiped the sweat from his brow.

“This will hold for now. But he needs rest, and the fever… Well, if it doesn’t go down by tomorrow, we’ll have a problem.”

Orion nodded, though his expression was tense. He glanced at Caelus, who was breathing heavily, his eyes half-open.

“Caelus, try to sleep… We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Caelus was already feeling better after the ordeal, but he still struggled to sleep. The elderly woman in the other bed whispered weakly:

“So, you’re the boy who fell from the sky.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Sometimes I even forget that,” Caelus chuckled softly.

She smiled, gazing at the dark green ceiling as memories of her life slowly surfaced.

“My parents... pauses to breathe …always said there was a floating city in the sky. Since I was a child… light cough …I believed it. It’s incredible… dry cough …that I lived to see it.”

“Are you okay?”

She coughed a bit more before answering.

“Well, not really... pauses to breathe …but for now, I’m better.”

“What do you have?” Caelus asked, concerned.

“Pulmonary hypertension.”

“Oh, yeah. My mom has that too,” he shrugged. “But in Zephyra, it’s no big deal. There’s medicine that fixes it quickly.”

“What do you mean?” the elderly woman asked, confused.

“In Zephyra, there’s medicine you can take for it. Do you have it here?”

She was surprised to hear this and smiled.

“Yes, of course… pauses to breathe …Can you tell me more about Zephyra?”

Caelus thought about his past.

“Up there, the sky is so blue it sometimes looks like an ocean. From the top of the city, you can see all the tiny buildings below, and the tops of the clouds look like soft carpets. The only problem is that everything’s so perfect, it sometimes feels lifeless. There’s no danger. No action like in the movies I watch. Here seems way cooler.”

The woman seemed to have fallen asleep, and Caelus realized sleep was finally catching up to him. He murmured a farewell and closed his eyes.

The next morning, Caelus woke up to find his Pulseboard and backpack beside his bed. He wrinkled his nose at the cloth wrapped around his stomach. It didn’t look dirty but wasn’t as clean as he’d like. Grabbing his belongings, he searched the camp for Orion and Boreas.

Caelus burst through the door, startling Boreas at the stove and Orion sitting at an old wooden table.

“Thanks for taking care of me! But who wrapped this dirty cloth around me?”

“Looks like you’re feeling better,” Orion replied with a smile.

“I think so.”

“Hungry?” Boreas asked.

“A little.”

The old man smiled, lifting a pot filled with a shiny, warm liquid.

“I made plasma soup. We can eat.”

“I’ve never seen that. Is it good?” Caelus asked, marveling at the soup’s color as Boreas served bowls for him and Orion.

Orion avoided answering and tried to hide. Caelus sat at the table beside Orion and took a spoonful.

“This tastes like oil. Gross!”

“You’ve eaten oil before?” Orion asked, surprised.

“No, but if I had, it’d taste like this.” Caelus pushed the bowl aside. “Good thing I have this.”

He rummaged through his bag, pulling out a rainbow-colored vegetable and preparing to eat it. Orion’s eyes widened in shock.

“WAIT! Don’t eat that!” Orion shouted, leaping to grab Caelus’ arm.

“What? It’s Aurora Flakes. It’s not dangerous.”

“You have no idea how precious that is!”

“That’s why I’m going to eat it,” Caelus replied, trying to take a bite but was stopped by Orion. He stood and tried to flee.

“Stop! Boreas, help me hold him!”

The old man ran to restrain Caelus, creating chaos.

“Stop, stop!” Caelus pleaded. They paused, and he smiled, using the moment to attempt eating the vegetable. They quickly restrained him again, restarting the commotion.

“Okay, okay. I was joking. I’ll stop if you explain why.”

“Then sit down and put the vegetable on the plate,” Orion demanded.

“We’ll explain,” Boreas promised.

Once calm, Orion began.

“Caelus, nothing grows in this soil.”

“What do you mean?” Caelus asked, curious.

“Years ago, a phenomenon made it impossible for plants to grow here,” Boreas explained.

“Every few months, crates appear out of nowhere from the sky. You’ve probably seen them. They contain supplies, including food. But the plants that come from the sky are different,” Orion added.

“Yes, this Aurora Flakes you’re holding is a super-vegetable. It can remove toxins from the soil and restore its properties. I’ve built a greenhouse where we could cultivate it, but we’d need the whole vegetable,” Boreas explained.

“I’ve been searching for seeds for years. You have no idea,” Orion lamented.

Something puzzled Caelus.

“Why don’t you go and grab a supply crate for yourselves?”

“It’s impossible,” Orion replied immediately. “You’ve seen the two armies at the crater’s edge?”

“Yeah, but I managed to grab my Pulseboard and survived.”

Orion started to argue, but Caelus interrupted with an important thought.

“Speaking of which, I need to charge it. Is there a good spot?”

“For now, leave it in the yard,” Boreas suggested, pointing outside.

Caelus set the metallic board in the sunlight to recharge.

“Anyway, those two armies are at war. We call them opposing factions. Personally, I think the ones in blue are more reasonable. But don’t be fooled; they’re just like the red ones. And there are rules to keep their conflict in check.”

“What kind of rules?”

“There are many, but one is that fighting can only happen in the crater. Outside it, no one interferes,” Orion explained.

“Sounds easy, then. We could use speed to grab what we need and leave.”

“You’re so stubborn!”

“Hey!”

“I don’t have a fancy Pulse-whatever like you. The crates usually fall near the center of the crater. I’d get killed before reaching one. And even if I did, I couldn’t carry it out alone—they’re heavy. I’d get killed on the way back, too.”

Caelus crossed his arms, pouting.

“Fine. Makes sense. Slowpoke.”

Orion stood and tried to punch Caelus, who dodged. Orion kept trying, but Caelus was too agile, even with his injury. Caelus teased him, calling him slow.

“Stop it! Boys! The soup will get cold,” Boreas scolded.

They calmed down and sat.

“Caelus, here’s the deal. You can eat the vegetable today…” Orion looked indignant, but Boreas signaled for him to wait. “…and eat plasma soup every day. Or eat plasma soup today and have Aurora Flakes every day after. The choice is yours.”

Caelus looked at the shiny liquid in the bowl and the colorful vegetable on his plate. He grabbed the bowl and took another spoonful.

“Bleh! This is awful.”

Orion and Boreas sighed in relief.

“Do what you need with the vegetable, then. You owe me later.!”