Chapter 5: Knowledge Through the Senses

I’m running through drab, olive hallways narrow enough to touch my shoulders. Not a single door or window decorates the walls around me and the dull bulbs above hardly provide the light I need. I bump into walls and corners I never knew about, but still make it in time to the familiar class I’ve never seen before.

The teacher’s writing on a whiteboard, yammering about mathematicians with Italian names I swore he made up. There’s not a lot of space inside: it’s wide enough for two columns of desks and the space between them. Pink barrels are stacked tall in the corners, some of which are in the way of the board. I sneak into a back chair and give a sigh of relief as I flip my notebook open.

He talks about David Hilbert, a mathematician who championed the modern era of math that set theory brought about. He’s well summed up by his famous mantra – “We must know – we will,” believing that everything true can be proven, the world is free of contradictions, and that it can be decided if a problem can be solved. He worked effortlessly on these fronts, confronting contemporaries who believed what was taught for millennia is the only true way forward.

This idyllic declaration is one of tragedy, however. Not much later after he claimed “we will know”, one of his own pupils proved that there are true statements that can not be proven they are true, and we still have yet to prove or disprove math – and therefore the world – being free of contradictions. Math has also been proven undecidable.

Still, he etched “we must know – we will know” onto his grave. To this day, scientists work to discover and explain the mysteries still remaining.

I write all of this down, capturing every detail. Once I look back up, I realize everyone has left, including the teacher. I leave the classroom trying to find them, but it leads me to a grand journey across an ocean, a volcano, and a desert, where I encounter friends old and new. It ends with a calm night sleeping in a dark cave, next to a statue of some Pokemon with a hanging, broken jaw.

I blink awake. Where’s the cave entrance? Wait, no, shouldn’t I be in space? I think back through my memories.

“We must know – we will know.” I wasn’t taught that in school. How do I know that?

My consciousness returns and I’m more aware of my surroundings. I remember now, I’m sleeping within Kommo-o’s arms. To stop us both from drifting away, we’re both strapped to a wall in a room miraculously large enough for the both of us.

I carefully roll over and snake up through the straps so I can face his head. He’s so gentle sleeping and lightly snoring. I rub the side of his face with a smile. All I want is to be here and watch him till he wakes up, but we still have to survive the end.

I wiggle out of the straps and tighten them so they fit him with me gone. It’s awkward with how cramped our room is – only two feet between me and our opposing wall, where our tablet rests on velcro felt. Blinking bars in one corner of the screen show that it’s still broadcasting and fat zero in the other corner shows nothing was received. I grimace and leave a kiss on his jaw before I pull myself into the hallway.

Machines and wires are embedded in every wall, floor, and ceiling – they’d be wasting precious space otherwise. It’s a claustrophobic maze to move around, although a very small one. Eventually I find the space equivalent of a washroom. I dampen a towel and scrub myself down. It’s the only way to clean yourself up here.

Fur wet and matted down the best I can without a “down”, I wander around until I find rows of bins with sealed food bags inside. My paw hovers over all the options before pulling out Oran puree and rehydrating it. I float over to a tiny window on the floor with my meal in hand. It’s the only window I believe this station has. Outside is the moon.

Wide stretches of darkness scar its once porcelain surface and lakes of shimmering fluid rest in craters and low points. All these blemishes concentrate where the moon split open. From up here, it looks like a cracked egg with pieces of its shell drifting away, with waterfalls of pink and purple pouring down them.

Inside the crevice, rainbow colours quiver around. An entrance to a Mystery Dungeon, and likely the largest entrance ever witnessed.

I suck on the straw and watch the big rock turn around. Even in its illness, its splendor captures my imagination, and I only have so much time to cherish it.

The space food’s loud as I squeeze out its last drops. I gulp the rest down and there’s a sense of emptiness that follows. What do I do now?

My eyes widen. 

The shimmer!

I leave my empty bag spinning around as I pull myself forward with handles bolted onto the surfaces. I swing around corners, hop through a ceiling, and scramble my way until I approach the hatch to the cargo bay. Before I open it, I check through its small window. There is no monster waiting on the other side.

The hatch swings open and I plunge in. This floor’s just how it was left: large machines buckled down and nothing else. The airlock we came through shows no damage and there’s no aura emanating behind it. My heart beats anyways as I launch towards it, hoping spending the night with Kommo-o wasn’t a mistake. I plant my face on the view window…

Our Lander’s still held in place by a mechanical arm and our space suits huddle in a corner. Shimmer has painted a vibrant mosaic of swirls on the walls and floors overnight, but there’s no damage. The only sign of danger is the terminal’s sporadic beeping urging me to bring the cargo inside.

I sigh and let go, letting myself float back. I should feel relief, but it’s not there. Instead, a dark pit inside my stomach gnaws me.

This fluid is only a by-product of what’s going on.

I rub the back of my neck. I think I regret learning this, as all I know now is I still know nothing.

Regret…

We pretended there was no threat right until a few minutes before lift-off. Was that wrong? A bit more caution and we wouldn’t have had such a messy escape, and we only could because I tried to learn more about the aura. Hell, I even felt stupidly over-precautious when I threw that first canister, until it showed us how close a danger actually was.

Yet, why would we have been afraid? We couldn’t see any threat that was close to us. It pretty much didn’t exist for us, until it attacked. In a way, we didn’t act wrong either.

I hold my arms around my waist. I really shouldn’t be thinking of should-haves.

I just want to be with my boyfriend.

My legs scramble to kick off the floor I nearly drifted too far away from. I go back through the hatch and crawl back to where we slept. He’s still sleeping. I cuddle up next to him and rest my head on his chest that rises and falls with his soft breaths. All my worries melt away here, the only place I need to be. I close my eyes.

The tablet across from us beeps. “Incoming communication” splashes across the screen.