Journey to Soleeh

The sun is shining brightly in the sky and the wind gently rustles the leaves. The air is a touch sticky, the way it always is in early summer.

Asa sits next to the old oak tree, brows furrowed in concentration as his small hands shakily weave dandelion and clover into a daisy chain. A boulder juts from the ground, its flat top makes a perfect seat for a child his size.

“You got it.” Says Luna “Almost there…”

He loops a few more flowers into the chain. After a short while, it’s about the proper length to fit around his head.

“...and that should be good.” There’s a tone of approval in her voice. It makes him feel warm.

He stares at the chain, hesitant to continue. He offers it to Luna. “Can you do it?”

“You know how. All you have to do is loop the end around the beginning.”

He makes a face of dissatisfaction, then does the final loop with ease.

“You did it!” She takes the crown from his hands and places it on his head of brilliant red hair. “Now you don’t need me to make them for you anymore.”

“I feel sad.”

She looks concerned. “Why?”

“I want you to make them.”

“But isn't it better if you can make them anytime you want?”

“It’s better when you make them.”

“Yours is just as good as mine.”

“That’s not what I mean.” He pauses, struggling to find the words he wants. “I want you to make them, because it’s special when you do it.”

Luna smiles, cheeks dusted with pink. She pulls him into her chest and strokes his hair. They’ve done this so many times that they fit into each other's grip like puzzle pieces. “You’re so sweet, you know that? You’ve made me really happy.”

“You’re going to leave, aren’t you?” An uncomfortable silence sets in.

“What makes you say that?”

“You’ve been so nice to me lately. You’re always nice, but it’s all the time now and you don’t even complain or fight anymore. It’s like you’re saying goodbye…” His eyes drift to the ground.

Luna looks deeply sad.

“You can’t leave! We did everything together, like playing and eating together everyday, so that means you’re my sister. A sister can’t leave her little brother!”

Her expression softens. “I won’t leave.”

“You won’t?”

She slowly shakes her head. The tension leaves Asa’s body and he wraps his arms around her neck. “Don’t go anywhere…”

Luna places a hand on his arm and nuzzles his cheek. She stays silent.

☼

They play until the sun sets, then go their separate ways. Asa goes to his home and Luna goes… somewhere. He doesn’t know where she goes. He never thought to ask.

The next day, when he visits the oak tree, no one is there.

His eyes are drawn to the boulder he likes to use as a seat. There’s something on it. It’s her amulet, the thick, green, triangular pendant glinting in the sun. He leans down and takes the amulet into his hand.

Luna never comes back.

☼

Sand stretches on as far as the eye can see.

A solitary man drives a beat up hoverbike, cutting a path through the undisturbed desert. Boots worn from years of travel are planted steadily at each footpeg. Specialized headgear with a large pair of goggles embedded in it protects his face from the dry air that flies by, tiny grains inside cutting like glass at these speeds. His tattered cloak flaps in the breeze. A tuft of bright, red hair has escaped from under his helmet and is dancing in front of his covered brow.

The dusty fabric parts at the front and reveals something just beneath it. An amulet, one with a triangular, green glass pendant, dangles in front of his chest, whipped back and forth by the wind. Light runs through the microchip-like paths just beneath its translucent surface.

“Mimo?” he calls to someone with an uncertain voice.

A childlike, robotic voice responds. It’s coming from a tablet strapped to his hip with a belt. It bobs, slapping against his side with each bump the bike hits. The screen lights up with blue and a pair of round, cartoony eyes appear on it. Their pupils are beady and solid black. The design is charming in its simplicity, clearly intended to feel friendly and disarming.

The eyes look up at him, despite probably not being able to see much at this angle. “Yes, sir?”

“You got a signal?”

“No, not yet...” Mimo answers with an apologetic tone that’s both resigned and exasperated. He lets out a sigh. At least, his closest digital approximation of a sigh. It sounds a bit like when a horse snorts and makes their lip flap.

Enough of the man’s face peeks out from under his headgear to show his small frown, along with the soft curve of his cheek. “Thought so.”

“Why do you ask?”

His frown quirks into a nervous smile. “I think we’re lost.”

Mimo’s eyes widen. “Huh?”

“I was hoping we’d be able to see our destination in the distance by now, but I haven’t seen anything for miles.”

Mimo’s eyes close in his imitation of a nervous smile. A simple tear-shaped vector moves down his face like a drop of sweat. “Well, the desert is very large, Sir. Maybe we just aren’t close enough to see it yet.” The ‘yet’ drags on a little too long, and, in its lower register, his voice is starting to sound like one that belongs to a shrill adult man, rather than a child.

“That’s what I thought at first, too, but… Uh… I kept driving and it just… never appeared. We were supposed to arrive 8 hours ago.” He says the last sentence very quickly, as if to underplay his potential mistake.

“Is that so? Ah…” He says softly. “Ah… ha ha… ha. Haaaaahhhhhhhh…” The end of the laugh transformed into a long suffering sigh. Mimo then sits silently.

He stays silent, bobbing with each bump of the bike.

“You’re taking this pretty well, Mimo.” His nervous smile turns into more of a cautiously optimistic one as he peers down at the tablet on his side.

He still stays silent, bobbing lifelessly.

“Mimo?”

“...”

“Mi-”

“WHERE ARE WEEEEEE?!” He shrieks, breaking the silence.

“It’s not that bad, Mimo! I’m sure we can-”

The front of the bike’s frame suddenly hits a large rock, sending them flying into a sand pile with a grainy thud.

The man’s legs and rear are all that’s visible of him, sticking out of the sand in an absurd manner. The bike’s front is nearly bent in half in a mess of crushed metal with the crystal it uses as a power source shattered on the ground. Mimo is lying face up with spinning spirals for eyes. The belt that was holding him in place snapped during the crash and he’s hanging precariously from his holder. He’s sideways in it, about 40 degrees off from where he’s supposed to be, hanging awkwardly off the man’s back.

“Ohhhhohhhh…” He moans hazily, his head (screen?) spinning. He blinks a few times, eyes wide with alertness. “Sir? Sir?! Are you alive?!”

For a brief moment, the man’s lower half is unmoving. Then, his butt twitches. ”Sir?”

He then sits right up, head bursting from the pile with a dramatic scattering of beige. He gasps for air. Mimo teeters at the edge of his harness. “Sir! Sir! Please stop moving! Sir!”

“The bike!” He shoots up to his feet, eyes flying open. Mimo is violently thrust out of the holder. He hits the ground, parting the sand with a dull “pff” and becoming embedded in it. Half of his body is submerged. His one visible eye blinks, bewildered.

The man stumbles towards the vehicle, slipping on the granules beneath his soles. He collapses onto his knees and gathers the remains of the crystal, holding them the way a soldier holds a dying comrade.

“So, uh… How is it?” Mimo asks, as delicate as he can be at this moment.

He doesn’t respond. His eyes remain fixed on the ruined crystal. Mimo swears he can see a faint trembling in his shoulders. “Sir?”

The man mutters something so quiet that he can’t make it out. “What was that?”

“We’re going to die.” he says, only a touch louder. Mimo isn’t sure he heard him right. His eye blinks twice. “Come again?”

“We’re going to die!” He yells, while getting on the ground and crawling towards Mimo to be at eye level with him. He does this frighteningly fast. The motion makes Mimo shift with the movement of the sand, making it look like he’s jumped in response to the face suddenly in his.

“It can’t be that bad, right?” Mimo squeaks. “Just because we’re lost, it doesn't mean we’re going to die.”

“Ohh, but you see… We aren’t lost just anywhere. We’re lost in the Sand Belt, which is really, really, freaking… GIANT, even when crossing its thinnest section. Can you guess where we aren’t?”

Mimo pauses. “...”

“Its thinnest pa – ?”

“ITS THINNEST PART. We’re in the big, huge, giant, empty, sandy, big part, because I didn’t check the compass and we got lost and have NO IDEA where we even are in it. Do you know what happens to people who get lost in that part?!”

“...”

“They – “

“They dehydrate to death!”

“But, I can’t dehydrate to death. I don’t need water.”

“That’s the thing. If I dehydrate to death, there'll be no one to carry you.” Asa starts to point at Mimo’s screen with each syllable, like he’s jabbing his finger at someone’s chest. “You’ll be stuck in that sand, helplessly staring at the hot sun until your battery runs out. There’ll be nobody to recharge you. Even if someone does find you, your parts will be too melted. It’ll be too much of a hassle to fix you and they’ll throw you in the TRASH!”

Mimo’s mouth wiggles in an upset, squiggly line as he imagines the scenario. “Nn. Mm. AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

The scream echoes into the sky. “AHHHHH. Ahhhhh. ahhhhh.”

☼

The sun is now much lower in the sky and the man is walking on foot with his headgear removed and an optimistic smile on his face. One that’s weary and a bit wild eyed, but still optimistic. “So, you see? We aren’t that far off course. If we keep going in this direction, we should be there in five hours.”

Mimo’s eyes are narrowed. “Why didn’t you check the compass earlier?”

The man clenches his fists and furrows his brows. “I had already checked if I was going in the right direction at the beginning of the trip. I didn’t want to just stop everything and get it out of my bag.”

“Aren’t I an advanced piece of military technology? Why don’t I have a built-in compass I could’ve checked myself?”

He scratches his cheek. “Well, you did… in your vanilla form. I may’ve forgotten to add the function when I was making a custom OS. You do have a gyroscope.”

“Wow, so this is your fault on multiple levels. Aren’t you supposed to be a genius?”

“No, I’m not a genius. I’m just a guy who’s interested in engineering. There’s a BIG difference.”

“I can see that…” He mutters, more defeated than anything.

After a moment of silence, a worried look comes to Asa’s face. “Speaking of advanced military technology, you know those ancient facilities?”

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

“You know, the ones with the giant energy crystals inside. The media surrounding them is really vaguely worded, so it’s hard to know what to call them, and I think it’s on purpose.”

“On purpose? Why?”

“Well…There’s quite a few of them and cities have formed around them, so why don’t we know anything about them? Every time I look them up online or in the military database, there’s hardly anything there. Wouldn’t we know more about buildings we’ve lived next to for centuries? It’s weird!”

“Hm. I guess you’re right.”

“The secrecy has to be intentional. I feel like those facilities have something dangerous inside. Higher ups are really high strung about them and I got the same feeling about the object we’re looking for.” Asa frowns.

“So, what?” Asks Mimo, concern creeping into his exhausted voice.

“Huh?”

“So, what should we do?”

“Continue with the mission, I guess. I really hope I’m just worrying too much.”