✧ Chapter 6 ✧

"I will choose to go back to Perenorbius," she replied with regret.

Nebules typed calmly on the screen. After carefully selecting his words, he turned off the device.

"Well, I respect your decision Styra. I do hope one day if we meet again, we can discuss this further. Just give it some thought. I have a meeting to attend in ten minutes, so it was a joy to clear out the issues here."

Mr. Nebules began to walk to the elevator, as Styra and Flight followed him. He began to press the "up" button while contemplating a farewell.

"Have a good day, both of you. Flight, I expect to hear from you tomorrow at eight in the morning. As for you Styra, I hope you will come to consider staying with us eventually. You'll come to find we have changed in a drastically great way over the years."

Styra appreciated his empathy but remained resilient in correspondence to switching her choice. Immediately after the doors closed behind them, Flight pressed the button to send them to the 104th floor. During the ride up, there were a few questions Styra had.

"Flight, what is The Great Invasion?" she asked.

The space pilot stood still, staring into the chilling emptiness of the question itself. He breathed in slow increments, as his heart rate hit a hard spot upon remembering it.

"The Great Invasion was a war between two planets. StarSpace and Mechatopolis. The machines ruled that world and others, conquering many planets in their prime. They reached ours and caused the casualties of many soldiers and people," he replied with grief.

Styra thought about it and then came to her own sudden realization when she looked at the paintings on the 105th floor.

"I don't know if I am exactly a person or not to be honest. I looked at all of the mayors on the wall and none of those descendants felt like someone I knew or could have known."

Just as she was about to talk further, the elevator doors opened revealing what she said as a tad bit true. They went over to the paintings to further continue the conversation while whispering to not catch any unnecessary attention.

"See. I don't see the symbol I'm wearing on any of their outfits or in the background. It doesn't add up. In Perenorbius, I began to understand what the Tripedyra were saying because of being on that planet for so many years. Then I started to have dreams after the asteroid hit. It was as if I was experiencing different versions of myself, like I had many past lives or something. It doesn't make any sense to me," said Styra as she pointed out the distinction.

Flight could see what she was talking about, although he wasn't too sure how dreaming would provide any substantial proof. None of the previously elected officials looked as if they were in any way connected to Styra's past. If so, it could have meant that the people in StarSpace went through a devolution period.

He couldn't figure anything except that she was quite exceptionally powerful. When she cried on the ship, her tears came out in the form of a mysterious shining white liquid. Her eyes glowed purple. Traveling near light speed caused her to have a few visions. Then there was the asteroid that killed everything on Perenorbius except her. Okay. It was already clear this was not any normal person, even though she somewhat had the physical attributes of one to him. In deep search of consulting his mind for an answer, he thought up an idea. "Hey, while we have about an hour to spare, why don't we go to the museum?"

When they walked back to the ship, he used his watch to open the back door of the STS-0 automatically. Upon entering inside it, Flight stopped abruptly. Styra was confused as to why he stopped walking until she peeked past him and noticed the pile of masks that had fallen to the ground. Whoops. The chie had knocked down the astromasks again after they left. Great. Now he was probably going to get really mad at her. Flight picked up the astromasks while Styra closed her eyes in preparation of being ridiculed. To her surprise, there wasn't a single word at all reacting to what had just happened. She looked again only to see that nothing was there. This chie had hidden somewhere else in the STS-0. Although she wanted to look for it, this wasn't a good idea since Mr. Nebules was still acting pretty shady. All she could do was sit down and wait to return to Perenorbius when the time was right. By then she suspected everything would return back to normal. It was still strange to her why this particular chie behaved that way.

Eighteen minutes later, they ended up flying in the STS-0 above a massive parking facility next to the museum. It was made up of three categorized levels labeling slots for their respective transportation types. Type A were hover vehicles known as Sphirvos, that exited from the lowest level. Type B were smaller aircraft that were limited to slots at mid-levels. Lastly, Type C were small spaceships with relatively high floor levels and larger slots. The STS-0 was a Type C model. Not many of these model types visited or flew on the planet that often, meaning all slots were available. Upon exiting the parking facility down another elevator, they entered the museum which was next to it. It was called the Zuropa Museum. This specific museum was the same one where the mysterious invader had stolen the Ring Of Infernum. Besides that, it was a spectacle for the eyes to see. Even though people inside the museum began to take notice of her.

Zuropa Museum was one of the most notorious tourist destinations in StarSpace City. Inside the uniquely shaped dome, it was filled with the environment of a bright cyber-prep aesthetic that pervaded the exhibit rooms themselves. It was this high level of energy within the museum that made it such a popular attraction in comparison to the dim reality of how things functioned outside. Upon entering past the museum through the neon-lit automatic doors, Flight began to explain the reason behind why he had brung Styra here.

"So, this is the Zuropa Museum. Places like these can help you find out more about your past. I don't visit this place often, but it is possible that we can find something that may give us some insight into what you're looking for. As soon as we got on the elevator back up in the tower, it was 6:06 PM. It's now 6:34 PM so that means we only have roughly thirty-two minutes left."

Styra couldn't believe how much she was missing out on discovering more about who she was. They only had so little time to find out what she needed to know. With that in mind, figuring out which exhibit room could be the right one to start with was the challenge.

They started off by deciding to make a list of two exhibits to visit by looking at the navigation screen guides. The first exhibit room was about the history of species existent in StarSpace, filled with many different kinds of information about life that predated even before their species were alive. When entering the room, a model of one creature caught her attention. It looked like an insect, quite larger than herself with a monstrous huckleberry head and body that connected to six sharp legs that extended outside itself. The most interesting part seemed to be that it was adorned with two glowing green antennae. This caused Styra to ask Flight what exactly made this creature so outstandingly different. He proceeded to show her the information presented on a plaque describing the model.

"That is a Dhuramis. They have bioluminescent antennas which is a natural light they give off. Much like how your eyes glowed, except they can control it at will. Prehistoric for their time but they were also extremely dangerous. While we're at it, maybe we should look at the human species room?"

Styra agreed and walked with Flight to the next area while looking back at the Dhuramis appalled. Upon entering the next room, another model captivated them by showing the evolution of humans in StarSpace. There was nothing in it that secured Styra's reason to believe that she was a descendant, as the symbol on her suit still wasn't visible anywhere. Was it sad? Yes, but at least she wouldn't become a permanent citizen here. There would have been many problems to address if it did happen. Most notably of course to Perenorbius. As Flight was staring at the evolution model, he came to a realization that changed his perspective on Styra's understanding of speech.

"Okay so here's what you need to know. I'm not entirely sure if I'm correct but when you were around the tripedyras, recognizing their facial cues and how that relates to the way the creatures on Perenorbius communicated with you should've taken at least a year to get used to. People like ourselves pick up on these similar things to learn how to understand each other from birth, as well as other animals. Now your DNA is undiscovered, so in a way, whatever happened before is probably a result of you being a previous ancestor of something far before we recorded our own existence," said Flight.

This fascinated Styra, considering that she remembered being able to understand the tripedyras just by simply observing what they wanted her to know for a long time.

It also flustered her memories. The thought of seeing him gently caress the plants in the garden she grew. There was a sense of calmness and care that touched them as she softly blushed in a shy manner. Seeing all of her effort being shown love at that time. Perhaps she still did have at least an ounce of purpose to give hope, regardless of how much that guilt apprehended her. Unless she really did have another life before coming out of the light in her vision. For right now, her chaotic origins were downright time-consuming to put together at the moment. She had to remind Flight that they still had one more exhibit to check out.

"Hey, so I do think you're right about that... I was wondering though. What time is it right now?" she said in ruminating anxiety.

Flight took a peek at his watch.

"Yeah, you're right. It's already 6:42PM. We better get going."

As they started to head towards the next room, a male voice announcer suddenly started to speak over them.

"Attention to all citizens of StarSpace, an unidentified creature has been reported for causing havoc in the Space Exhibit Rooms. It is highly advised to leave the museum at this time. We will notify you online when the problem has been resolved."

An unidentified creature? Styra knew there was only one thing that could have triggered the announcement. While she was thinking of a way to solve this situation, Flight put his hand on her left shoulder while looking around with concern.

"We may as well end it here. It sucks that this is happening all of the sudden but we may as well go now."

Deep down, the guilt began to resurface and flood Styra's head.

"Flight, I have to be honest. That unidentified creature is a chie from Perenorbius. It snuck onboard somehow. All I know is, I have to get it back there before it causes more trouble than it should," she replied insistently.

Even though Flight was surprised to learn that she wasn't the only survivor of the extinction, he understood what she meant.

"Alright. Just get to the ship before 7:10 PM, so you have a little more time to figure this out. Otherwise, Nebules will probably call our end of the deal off. You know what he wants."

Immediately after this, he left to get the ship ready for the trip back to Perenorbius while Styra began to pursue on finding the missing chie. She rushed through the crowds of people going in the opposite direction. This proved to be incredibly difficult as expected. Eventually, she found the vacant space exhibit rooms after recalling its location from the navigation screen guides earlier.

Unfortunately, the time was now 6:52 PM. After searching most of the area, it seemed as if all hope was lost, until something caught her eye amidst all of that. There was a small room with red and white caution tape blocking the entrance to prevent anyone from stepping on the broken tempered glass. On top of the slightly cut countertop display case, the chie was looking at Styra. As she moved past the caution tape to approach the small creature more closely, it communicated by moving a few steps from its previous position and nudging a large sheet of white fabric covering the wall. Styra felt even more suspicious about what was behind the sheet. She pulled it down only to reveal liquid starch plastered all over a deep cut in the wall. The cut had dark burning stains that had torn the wall apart. Suddenly, an unfamiliar booming sound could be heard in the museum, alerting Styra to head back to the ship. Attempting to grab the chie, she found herself unable to move. The chie just watched her. It was as if time had stood still. At that moment, an overwhelmingly huge shadow covered the vicinity of the room.

"You don't deserve the power you hold," said the dark anonymous figure.