Nano Bytes - A Collection of Short SciFi Stories

Dreaming Eternity, By keepthywits

For an uncountable amount of time, only the sound of beeping machinery pierced the silence. Then, in the distance, a thought echoed across the abyss.

"I once had a dream-"

Beep

"-of a wave in a place beyond time."

Beep.

"We were there, you know?"

...

The first sensation the girl registered was the cold burrowing into her skin. She moved, or at least, she thought she did. What she tried to move, she did not know. Maybe it was a limb or maybe, it was just a thought.

What she did know was that when she moved the second time, she blinked. She repeated that movement again and again, slowly understanding what she saw. At first, her comprehension resulted in a mere tickle in the back of her mind. Then, a word floated from the depths of memory - colour. Then, another word followed - shape. And all of a sudden, the girl could understand the enormity of her surroundings. There was something vast above her; a sky covered in thick, grey clouds. In front of her, far far away, was a round, luminescent object - the moon.

Equally vast, were swathes of water in strange, upright positions with one gargantuan wave seemingly curled around the moon. The waves were lifeless, frozen in time.

The girl frowned as a thought occurred to her. How did she know all of this? How could she label what she saw? How were her thoughts so coherent?

"I once had a dream-"

"Lunor, are you there? Why did you stop? You were doing so well."

The girl, Lunor, turned around. Beside her was a small child covered in a baggy brown hoodie. They looked young, barely at the age of walking, and yet there was something about them that seemed-

Her thoughts tumbled away as the cold sensation came to the forefront of her mind. Her fingers were chilled to the bone, to the point that they burned.

Lunor pulled her hand back from the sea, watching as droplets suspended themselves in midair. Pangs of pain dotted all over her hand. With slow, mechanical movements, the girl curled her fingers into a fist, hoping for the cold to slowly lessen with time.

"-you alright?"

Lunor jumped and turned back to the child. There was a second of silence as she grasped at words swirling in her head.

"Wh-what?"

The girl blinked as she felt something release in her mind. Phrases now trickled to her mouth, flowing like rivulets of condensation racing down shower glass.

Lunor stopped. There it was again, thoughts that were simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar.

"What's going on, and who are you?"

The questions echoed out into the silent landscape.

Lunor frowned, turning around to see an endless beach stretching as far as the eye could see. Moonlight glinted off obsidian pieces littered about the sand.

"Where am I?"

For a second, Lunor expected the child to ignore that question like all other ones before. She stared at the waves, turning to the side as she heard a small sigh.

The child sat on the sand, fiddling with the obsidian splinters.

Lunor didn't bother to question how she knew what obsidian was. It was the same as every other bit of weirdly familiar knowledge. This place though, was very foreign. Nothing about the frozen landscape resonated with her mind. Yet, something pulled at her heart. It was like that bittersweet feeling of nostalgia after coming back to one's home planet.