✧ Prologue ✧

Two pairs of fast tapping noises echoed across the dim and dark hallway. Underground metal chambers filled with terrifying screams and the droning sounds of the VCDs could be heard from above the ceiling. Star and Vanilla were quick enough to traverse past many abandoned and broken down lab rooms before entering into another vent system. It had been fifteen days. Fifteen days and no sign of an exit. All of this started because of Dr. Decker’s death. Ever since then, Vanilla had to get Star and herself out of Pearl Planetarium to find shelter someplace else.

Dragging on for what seemed like hours through the compact tunnel space, Vanilla stopped to sit down and catch a breath. When Star paused in front of her, she decided to speak at a low enough volume that only the both of them could hear to apologize about their current situation.

“Hey um, listen… I’m sorry that you had to go through all of this. I don’t know why my family sent me here either. I mean, that’s how I remember it anyway. From what they told me, this was a special place for me to get piano lessons since I loved playing on them back where I was living. It’s all so confusing now. They haven’t come back for me since. Do you know who your family is?”

A resounding sadness tore Star’s thoughts apart. She had memory issues from birth. Too little to remember anything. The only part that she had left of her past was being an experiment. What was she? It never occurred to her that there was much more to know. Not from what The Caretakers told her. She had seen Dr. Decker act the same about it too... Staying quiet about the whole issue, Vanilla got curious of her reserved behavior.

“Is there a reason why you stay quiet?” she asked in acknowledgment of when they first met.

“They… Trained me to be this way. To not say much,” replied Star in a soft voice.

From what Vanilla could gather, they were treating her like a disposable tool for their own hidden goals. It was a scary thing to consider. She needed to hear her story in order to understand what she could do to help if she wanted her to.

“I know that everything isn’t really that great. Some people wish for things to be better and others just accept it. I feel a lot of both. You shouldn’t have to hate yourself about not being able to feel loved. I think if everyone stopped trying to control others around them, we could learn a lot more about ourselves and everything around us. Feels like a fever dream for me to be even saying that. One that will never ever happen.”

Star looked at Vanilla who had her eyes closed tight. They showed tiny drops of tears stroking down her cold cheeks. They silently hit the frozen metallic floor. Suddenly, without warning, a gentle hand patted Vanilla’s shoulder. She looked up to see Star whose face showed a compassionate understanding of her feelings.

“Then what’s stopping us from doing that first?” asked Star with this sudden burst of hopeful charisma. Vanilla smiled in earnest approach of their lively relationship. Something about how they felt being here didn’t really matter at that point. Sure, it was dark. The cold air was suffocating. No sight of help to be found. Being boxed up in a claustrophobic environment along with an unhinged fear of what would come out to kill them were possible candidates to keep frightening thoughts in their heads, but nothing could shake this one intricate bond.

“Let’s keep going I guess. Maybe we will find an exit,” mentioned Vanilla. Star followed behind her with constant determination to keep every step of the way moving forward. During these unmitigated cycles of tedious movement, their enlightening conversations filled the overhauled experience. When the duo finally crawled out the other end, they were met with a quiet room full of huge cryostasis tanks. Many different alien organisms had been asleep inside of each one that was passed by.

Questions arose as they turned a corner and ventured past more strange cells with numbers imprinted on the front of each gate. S-42. S-43. S-44. Wait a second. What was this? S-45. It appeared to be a terrarium chamber, which made it stand out from the others. Inside, a mysterious shadowy figure about their size was sitting down cornered on the left side. When he caught two pairs of eyes glancing at him, there was only one serious incentive in all of this. To break out and escape.

“Hey, what are you looking at me for? I’m not in the mood to be messed around with again. If you don’t know how to free me, leave me alone.”

This anonymous being clearly had a no-nonsense type attitude. It wasn’t in the most welcoming way either. The problem behind opening the door was they needed to have an ID and the right combination of a four-digit passcode. Everything about trying to break inside posed difficult options. Looking around did nothing much at all for them. The strange entity began to get irritated quite easily, especially after what it said before.

“The both of you clearly don’t know what you’re doing. Why did I even ask? Just go somewhere else.”

Vanilla began to get a bit angry at how much this creature was pushing them away; feeding on the inevitability of being imprisoned forever.

“No! We can find a way. Maybe… Oh! You probably know the passcode after watching them do it. That would help us put in the numbers to open it.”

“What are you talking about? Were you even listening? If I knew that, I would have told you earlier. They’ve never opened this chamber once. Even during their daily cell checks. I have no clue where they keep the password stored at all. Plus you would still need an ID.”

“Oh...”

“At this point, leaving is your best option. Those drones will catch you standing there if you keep doing that.”

“We have outsmarted them though. I may be six years old but I don’t give up that easily.“

“You both don’t understand how serious this is. How would I expect you to know more than a few things about my current situation? It’s bad enough that those damn scientists confined me here for 391 years. It’s going to be another six months before my assigned death date.”

“Don’t worry Mister Circleface! We won’t let you die like that. We promise to get you out. Right Star?”

“Circleface? What kind of low have I gotten myself into?”

After observing the banter between Vanilla and whoever this could be, Star felt unsure. On a minor note, she was surprised to learn that her new friend was actually one year younger than she previously thought. The context of the entire conflict on the other hand revealed a feeling of distrust for the alien they recently met. There had to be an underlying reason for why it was locked up. She decided to do a light interrogation in exchange for the resolution of these emotional issues.

“I need to know a few things first. What name do you go by?”

“I don’t have a name. I am just an experiment owned by these moronic researchers,” answered the mysterious organism.

“So was I. Ever since Vanilla recently gave me this name, I realized now that you were as broken as I. Did you have a family? For me, I don’t remember seeing them at all.”

The beast was doused in confusion. She must have known what it was like because he never got to know his true origins either. Day one: he woke up in the lab room as a child, laying in an electric patient bed with electrodes holding tiny pointy needles that pierced into his skin. They stung, even when remaining still. He experienced that for around a decade before being hauled into the chamber where he would stay supervised under their strict control.

“Star, I will say this. The reason why all of us were put here is because of what we are. Outcasts of the worlds we were found in. Beings with cursed powers that simply don’t belong. They are afraid and I don’t honestly blame them. The problem is, I’ve been overhearing these UVOCA agents talk about something dangerous being built. That something is unknown to me but sounds plausible enough to be a result of us existing. Do you know which world we are on right now?”

“No. I don’t know.”

“Dammit. Guess we’ll never know.”

In spite of this dreaded uncertainty, Vanilla added a new concern to what was mentioned earlier regarding them having troublesome powers.

“Umm, hope I’m not stepping on anything Circleface but… What exactly are yours?”

“I will tell you, if you stop calling me Circleface. Seriously, I don’t understand why you insist on making up that name just because of what I look like.”

“Sorry. It’s just that I have to address you by something. My parents taught me how to memorize names cause I used to forget them so easily without thinking.”

As she looked at him closely, she noticed something in the middle of his chest that glowed a light cyan hue. This gave her another ideal name to replace the last one she made.

“That ‘V’ shape… Maybe I can call you… V? That is a pretty harmless name.”

“I wouldn’t get too comfortable with it, especially considering where we are now. Either way, you did point out exactly where the source of my power lies. The UVOCA agency put me in this chamber which I’ve felt radiate a strong emission of blinding light whenever they start their little experimental exercises. I start to hear a voice which commands me to do… Unspeakable activities… I have not been able to sleep since those experiences where my body would go out of control. I felt violated and displaced. Like I am just their mindless slave doing all of their biddings.”

Unspeakable activities? Star and Vanilla became uncomfortable because it sounded like V’s voice had shifted into this terrifying reaction to that memory. His face started to change in an unexpected turn of events. A spine-chilling smirk stretched up to the center of his pupils which seemed to reflect the sinister side of himself. He filled up the chamber with his creepy expression, transforming into a ghastly terror.

“Now look at what you’ve done.”

Both girls were frightened at the sight of someone who was once a friend to them banging hard against the shockproof glass. V gave an uncanny smile like a carved out jack o’ lantern on Halloween night; his emotions flaring from within. Vanilla led Star through the cluttered maze of cryostasis tanks blocking their view to a perceivable exit. Although V could not escape, the erratic noises he made would alert the VCDs to his location. Standing there to calm him down had no merit to it by that logic. Besides, understanding what kind of place this was uncovered the possibilities to solving the origins of their lives and discovering the cursed powers that were chained to who they were.

At the last second, they reached this dead end hallway that held a viewable aquarium on the right and laboratory testing rooms on the left. While searching for a place to lie low, most of the doors wouldn’t budge. All except for one that was already opened. This room labeled TR-5750 invited an opening to a strange dark space where they could barely see past what was in there. Vanilla was about to have them rush inside, but Star immediately stopped her from making what looked to be a risky decision.

“Wait. We can’t just go in there. It doesn’t look safe. Dr. Decker told me not venture off into those kind of rooms. She never told me why, but I’m sure that it is not good. Let’s find another way out,” she whispered insistently.

Vanilla was disillusioned by the thought of it at first as Star tugged on her shirt out of desperation. In hindsight however, she didn’t want to abandon her over an ideal hideout spot. It just felt kind of off to enter that room anyway, even if it was for their survival. In an attempt to turn back, the group of VCDs chasing them had caught up and arrived right from behind them. They stood in a criss-cross pattern that prevented any sort of way for the girls to evade capture. Now only one of two options remained:

Surrender or save themselves.

Cornered near the end of the hallway next to the open door, the two girls stared at each other. Vanilla put one hand firmly on Star’s right shoulder. It started to hurt knowing she was the only true friend she ever had. It scared her to do this, but it was the only way to keep her safe.

“Star… Space is like that open door. It can be a scary place. Don’t be afraid of it no matter what happens, okay?”

Swallowing her regrets, Star faced the dark room as she held her breath. When she ran past it, a splash of blinding pitch black space engulfed her sight upon entering. She looked around to see what had happened to her friend. Rather than witness a barrage of machines coming to get the both of them, Vanilla just stood there quietly amongst a backdrop of white light. She now had a shadow-like essence and yellow eyeballs that seemed to almost have a tinge of orange. This was clearly a doppelgänger of Vanilla. Albeit not one she could recognize according to its condescending glances at her. Star tried to run towards the doorway, but it began to fly far away as she chased behind it. In the process, her feet were suddenly forced to slow down. Time was clearly being manipulated by an outside force here. The last question she had about who it was, paused in her mind.

Like a windup spiral, everything at that point began to unfold.