Narsen: Prologue

A loud cry broke the tranquility of the night. A baby was bawling for food. A woman, holding a bottle, rushed to the bed. She was extraordinarily tall, having to duck under the crossbeams as she approached her child. She carefully put the bottle into his mouth, which was already widely open to receive it. The baby quickly drank the white liquid and emptied the bottle in a few seconds.

‘My dear Andrew,’ his mother said, gently stroking the newly-grown hair of the baby. ‘Soon you’ll become the greatest of all.’

Time flew. Andrew was now a fifteen-year-old teenager, growing even taller than his mum. He could not enter the classroom without bending his body. His eyes were as narrow as a thread and everybody wondered how he could see.

It was half past four. He returned home from school. He had just stooped and closed the door when his mum came out from her room.

‘How is your mission? Have you made any progress?’ she asked with great concern.

‘Not much, mum,’ he sighed. ‘Nobody wanted to make friends with me.’

‘Don’t give up, Andrew,’ his mum encouraged, patting his shoulder with her stretched arm. ‘One day you will succeed.’

‘Hope so,’ he said dejectedly.

They were no ordinary people. They were from Narsen, a minute, barren planet far far away from Earth. The Narsenese led extremely deplorable lives. All they possessed were iron ores embedded deep down in the centre of the planet. What they lived in and ate were entirely from underground. One windstorm, and everything would go up in smoke. The Queen, already pregnant for fifteen months, saw their plight and decided to change the situation.

She recalled the times when she was small, her father had told her a myth about a beautiful planet to the east called Earth. It was rich in all kinds of resources and the civilization was well-developed.

She hesitantly looked at the rusted spaceship that her father had built before he died, a spherical fuselage with a 'tail' that contains the engine. ‘Earth’ remained as a mystery, yet she was determined to save her people. She had no choice but to take the risk. So she clumsily crawled into the gigantic piece of iron. The whole interior was brownish red. She could only pray that the engine had not been melted during the sweltering summer or disabled by the chill of winter. She found a button, on which read ‘Start Engine’. She placed her right index finger on the rough surface of the button. At that moment, her courage wavered. She could see her hand quivering. But when the picture of the people crying in agony flashed through her mind, she mustered the intrepidity and pressed the button.

She immediately closed her eyes and waited for the engine to start. A few seconds passed but still nothing moved. Utterly defeated, she felt an aching void in her heart, as if it had sank into the ocean depths. All of a sudden, the spaceship started to shake.

‘Thank you, pa!’ she cried.

The shaking seemed to wane after a while and a sense of panic gushed from her chest. She jerked backward abruptly, hitting the back of the chair hard. Then she blacked out.