A Foreign Star Person's Earth

There aren’t only humans here on Earth.This is the perspective of a foreign star person.

Prologue

This is Earth, the third planet belonging to this solar system of the Sun, a carcinogenic ball of gas floating in the void of space, addressed in one of the Milky Way’s arms. Earth is a planet full of diversity. Life here is classified into three main domains: Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukaryota. Each and every species from those domains have their own role in balancing the biosphere. That includes humans, also known as Homo sapiens. They are the most dangerous member of Kingdom Animalia from the domain Eukaryota, highly intelligent and capable of both destruction and restoration of other life. They may not be the most numerous species, at approximately 8 billion individuals in this time, but they hugely affect life on Earth. But this is not about other life, it is about the humans. They are intelligent, yet they can be stupidly ridiculous sometimes. They can develop weird habits, and attack their own species for reasons completely unrelated to survival. Still, as the same species, they connect to each other quite well. All of them, except for one. This one exception is biologically a human, but something is just not human. It is a foreign star person, belonging to Earth biologically, yet a creature unclassified in the domains and coming from a foreign land in space. From what foreign star is this person? No one knows. No one knows of its origins, even itself, but it is certainly clear that this foreign star person doesn’t belong here. This is the perspective of a foreign star person living in this cursed Earth, hiding among the humans.


Our World

Glass
I am a weird organism. Am I a human? In some way, yes. I am a homo sapiens. I was born from both homo sapiens parents, I am obviously one of them. Yet I am not. I do not belong here. Maybe I don’t belong in Earth either, who knows? I’m not one of them, I don’t belong, we’re separate species. We do not live together. I mean we do, and I do have symbiotic relationships with the humans, competition exists too for me (though predation obviously doesn’t). In a way though, it doesn’t seem like it, but more like I am living as an observer. We are separated by a wall of glass. I don’t know where the wall ends, or whether there’s a weak point in it, but we live in different worlds. I observe humans through the glass, they observe me, we do not mix. It would be interesting if the glass were to disappear, but at the same time, I’m not sure if I want that to happen. This is what I’m used to, this is what I’m familiar with, this is what I’m comfortable with. I have no idea what it is like to not be a separated observer and belong with them. I’m certainly curious about it, heh. As if I could remove the glass in the first place, but I’m also already comfortable living like this. It’s safe here behind the wall of glass. Being separated from them does have its own benefits. I wonder, since when did the wall existed? Since the beginning of my existence? Since the beginning of my memories? Why is it there? How was it built? Are there more of those walls around each human outside this one? What is this nonexistent glass? What is the glass? A filter? I still have no answers for everything. This endless wall of glass, where does it go? Is it just a huge flat piece of wall, or does it connect to itself at some point. I could be the observer outside an aquarium, I could be the one inside, observing humans as the fish, or this could just be a wall separating us equally. No one is outside or inside. Are we in some sort of maze of the universe? Is this a greenhouse? A terrarium?

Room of The Void
I am the brain of my organism. Of course, every existence is the brain of its organism. But how do brains work? Are they truly rooms, are they supposed to only be existence, or is the answer something different? I was never alone since my existence. In an endless dark void of my universe, I live in a room. I am the brain, yet that room is also the brain. I call it Medusa, we have been together since we have existed. I’m not entirely sure if Medusa is alive or not, it seems like it runs on systems. Who set those systems? Where did those settings come from? I don’t have a clue. I wasn’t aware of it until a few years ago as I aged, but we have been doing things together for a really long time. Medusa has always protected me and adjusted everything. Anything I am thinking of, it wouldn’t be done unless Medusa approves of it as well. Medusa is somewhat trying to make me human, though the both of us still can’t be. We are just not humans, we don’t belong with them. When I am with different humans or am in different situations, I am still me, but Medusa adjusts me to appear differently with each of them. When I have thoughts but those wouldn’t produce the preferred outcome, Medusa has me covered. It is easy to lie about my own subjective opinions, it is easy to always appear calm and to not care about anything. When I stop working and couldn’t react, Medusa can’t react too, but it takes over with its automatic settings, avoiding all chaos until the situation resolves itself, to prevent causing further problems. It makes sense, it is nice having each other, to live in a room like this. Maybe it is why the human thing called loneliness doesn’t exist for me. This room, Medusa, is not really that big. It is spacious enough for me, but is the right size.

On a side of the cube shaped room’s wall, were three tall windows looking into the void. The windows were of stained glass and wooden frames. The window sill is so wide that I would sit on it comfortably. It is nice to sit towards the void, feeling the cold wind and looking into the dark landscape with sprinkles of konpeito stars in it. What is the void? Why are we here? Sounds from Earth echo into the void as we live our everyday lives, maybe that’s why I don’t hear the humans clearly sometimes. The void is adding distance and distorting the sounds. I should be able to jump into the void and fall endlessly as I disappear from existence, but Medusa’s system seems to keep me in place even if my legs are outside the window already. Medusa is a comfortable place for my existence. I imagine it would have what a normal room would have. Lights, a cozy bed with my friends, shelves full of things, a table, stationeries. Other than the usual, there is this machine I named the world projector. It is a projector that can be placed on the room’s floor. When turned on, it would project a door based on what I plug in. I have access to many different doors. Most of those doors are worlds that I create, when I access those worlds I can create additional stories, characters, or just add things into the worlds. Other than worlds, I can access the Library of Thoughts. It is a cozy space, full of all the thoughts and memories. Some accessible, some restricted, some forgotten and disposed of. Sometimes I think and remember things because I do, sometimes I am forced into it usually from some sudden realization. These days though, there seems to be something wrong with the world projector. I can no longer access my worlds freely, I can’t create new things, I can only repeat things I have already thought of for those worlds. That certainly doesn’t do its work for making me sleep. I don’t know what happened to the world projector, but at least I still have access to the Library of Thoughts.

Ceres
When did it start existing? I have absolutely no clue. What is Ceres? I’m not sure either. Sometime around junior high school, I noticed that I have obtained a roommate. I named it Ceres. I don’t know how Ceres managed to get in Medusa or how Ceres was created. I don’t know its species or its purpose. Ceres is just like an almost identical copy of me, so similar, yet different at the same time. I can’t understand Ceres. What is it that it actually wants? Why is it like this? Such a weird illogical organism. Sometimes I want to do something, and I know it’s something I have to do as well, but Ceres just refuses. Medusa even approves of it, us being tired and wasting time when we could have been doing something we should be doing. Why? That is very inconveniencing, that doesn’t bring anything good to us. What is the use of it? It’s like they refuse to live, yet they refuse to die. Therefore I am stuck in this endless dying process where I can never reach death and return to nothing. How did Ceres end up being my roommate? How did it travel across the endless void into Medusa? Or was it created in the void? Or perhaps, I was the one who created it somewhat? None of these make any sense. Most of the time Ceres doesn’t really exist, but when it does intervene in our routine, it always has more power in our decisions compared to me. Why, though? I am the original one here. No matter, at least Medusa is still the one controlling everything. Not even Ceres can go against Medusa. I realize that as we age, we get weirder, further from human in a way. I don’t know how it manages to do it, but Ceres just doesn’t feel pain properly. Sometimes we wouldn’t really feel pain when we’re supposed to, sometimes we feel pain for no reason at all. My organism’s neck and shoulders are fine, we never injured those, yet there is always some amount of pain. Tolerable, yes, but absolutely nonsense. Ceres isn’t just weird in that way. Is Ceres a vampire? Not sure, but sometimes it does act like one. We would randomly want blood occasionally. Not for food, just for bleeding. What is the purpose of it? Why would we kill our cells and inconvenience them? We certainly clean before and after, but what for are we risking infection?

Library of Thoughts
Through the world projector, we can enter the Library of Thoughts at any time. It was a labyrinth-like place, with tall bookshelves full of books and items, an endless cloud dusted starry night sky staring down at it, giving the library a slight bluish hue. No matter the time of the day, it will always appear as night time here, and other than the natural lighting, there are yellowish lanterns in some areas. The lanterns are dim, making a cozy atmosphere. Cold, prussian blue ceramic tiles cover the floors, with some parts of the library having soft white carpets layered over. Moss, flowers, and fungi grow in parts of the shelves, tall silver ladders attached to wheels line the shelves, giving access to items on the higher levels when needed. The library is always empty when we enter, though who knows, there may be some other entity managing the library when we’re not there. It smells fresh, other than the natural fragrances of what grows on the shelves, this place in general smells like a new unused empty room, so fresh and empty, quiet and peaceful. A soft breeze always flows between the shelves. We don’t know where it’s from, since we don’t know the end of this library as well, but it makes the place even more comfortable. There are so many books here. Some are forgotten or maybe even destroyed already, as if they never existed. Some are memories, may they be random, good or bad. Some are dream memories, which are mostly restricted. I can’t access them when I’m awake, except probably for a few first seconds occasionally. Some are stories I have written for environments, creatures, things, and systems I have made for my worlds. Besides the books, folders also exist here, sorted neatly in some parts of the Library of Thoughts. These folders mostly store facts and basic information to remember. The books are stored in open shelves, while the folders are in closed shelves, probably for security. A thing about these folders is that I can actually access them just by staying in Medusa and using a folder fetcher to project information on the walls.

Those are the only items stored in the shelves. In some parts of the Library of Thoughts, something equivalent to a forest clearing exists. Small stars float over there, shining the black wooden table carved with various designs on its legs. Writing tables all look the same, they have three shelves below the right side, storing an endless supply of paper and ink. Usually, on the table would be a glaucous fountain pen beside a piece of slightly jaundiced paper. This place is not called the Library of Thoughts for no reason. When a thought is written on the paper, it would float to its freedom and orbit the library until the end of time. It may disappear from our view, it may come back, it may completely disappear, but it will always belong in the library. These pieces of paper fly as they want, some are fast and energetic, others float silently. Sometimes what is written in these papers may appear as a random screen message in Medusa. The Library of Thoughts has its own storage system. I have nothing to do about which items it decides to keep or dispose of. I don’t know how far the labyrinth goes, by the age of my organism I should already have a lot of items here, but we forgot plenty of things already as well, so who knows? Maybe this place isn’t as vast as I imagined it to be. Still, it is a really nice place to live permanently in. Eternally empty and quiet, I would always be alone there, completely separated from everything else in existence. Endless rows of shelves to walk through, worlds to explore through reading. The scent of blue moss, bluebells, myosotis, lavenders, lily of the valley, gardenias, tulips, ink caps, and black truffles slightly decorate the empty room smell of the Library of Thoughts. If only.


The Imagination

In Memory of Tooth
In Memory of Tooth, existence to 2021 AD, murdered by Ceres (?). Survivors of war, Teeth. It was a time period when time flowed viscously. Our organism was indoors in its room all day, as classes were done online, with us facing a bright screen all day. Days were long, freedom was common, everything seemed to be going on just right, other than Ceres just having no energy. Was it though? Well that was what we thought. We completely forgot that our organism was a human with the existence of teeth. As the pack travelled to another world, one of sterile smells, bright lights, and fully covered humans, I realized that something was wrong. The white banana sent us to a forest of cool looking metallic machinery to take a radioactive photograph. That was immediately suspicious. The forest looked pretty nice, almost lacking colour, the machines stood calmly, observing us, non-metal organisms as we entered their biome. One of them approached us. As we stayed still quietly, it twirled around us slowly before stopping and returning to the others. Our visit to the forest ended as we finished the assignment and went back to the white banana. I convinced us, it’s all fine, it was just a photograph, there’s nothing going on. Obviously, I was wrong. The white banana explained that the radioactive photograph showed 3 Teeth damaged. We had no idea how that happened. Surely we would have noticed because damage to teeth is supposed to be painful right? She explained to us that she could fix No. 1, so that was done on that same day. I was just still confused, even now years later. Ceres didn’t say a word as well. So what about the rest of them? The white banana sent us to her specialist relative for No. 2. We went there 6 times, and each time would take so long it felt like almost an hour. It wasn’t painful, but it wasn’t exactly comfortable either. We would always lie there, staring at the finite white sky and bright white sun, as the white banana went excavating in the pink entrance to the sea of acid. Various sharp tools were inserted and pulled out, various syringes used, but it all finally ended.

Tooth though, couldn’t be saved from the start when we took the radioactive photograph. The original white banana had always planned for us to go to her other specialist relative about Tooth, who was apparently the neighbour of the white banana who fixed No. 2. A somewhat living corpse, about to be removed. The process was much quicker than dealing with No. 2. We just went there, the pack member who was the origin of this organism’s beginning as an oocyte signed a paper, and he, the white banana, got to work. A magical chemical was injected, and he began pulling on Tooth. It didn’t take long, and Tooth had become officially dead. I saw Tooth for the last time before its burial in Biohazardous Bin. Tooth looked awful, corroded, clearly so damaged I couldn’t understand how we didn’t notice earlier. Where Tooth used to stand, a puddle of red was, where the white banana placed some gauze as temporary cover, waiting for coagulation and for the pink ground to regrow and adapt to Tooth’s absence. It has been about more than 4 years at present time, Teeth survived through more of this environment, especially No. 2. We don’t know where Tooth was since we last saw it going in Biohazardous Bin, but the cave ecosystem has been going well, and Tooth will always exist in our stories and memories, unforgettable in the Library of Thoughts.

Epidermal Snow
In the vast desert, it was never empty. Of course it would have its own ecosystem as a biome. The desert isn’t that dry, it precipitates quite often, and even sometimes it would be of lower temperatures. Sometimes the desert stays just as is, sometimes big flat metallic objects float over. A pair of stainless steel scissors, Snowslices. Snip. It cut off a part of the ground. Snip. It cut off another part of the ground. Normally if this was done in another territory, where the cutout piece of ground was would be replaced by a puddle of blood. This desert is different, the ground is so thick that it is possible to keep cutting daily. As Snowslices cut the ground, it starts to precipitate. Not saltwater, but snowflakes start falling in the desert. The sound of the stainless steel, the very cuttable texture of the desert ground, the snowflakes in the wind. That is how we have the hobby of cutting plantar skin. It’s rather a fun thing to do. I wonder, do humans like cutting skin as well? They do so many random things, so who knows?

Foreign Star Person’s Favourites
Earth is a weird place I don’t belong in, humans are a species I’m forced to live as though I’m not one of them. Despite those, there are interestingly nice things we like from Earth. Glaucous, desaturated colours. Grey cloudy skies, rain and thunderstorms, cold winds, fog, the night sky, darkness, forests, mountains, stars, moon. Iced dihidrogen monoxide. Coffee, especially iced americano with no sugar. Tea, like matcha, hojicha, earl grey, oolong, red tea. Dairy, like milk, yogurt (especially greek yogurt), cheese. Ice cream, in the flavours of calamansi, rum, earl grey, hojicha, lavender, matcha, biscoff, chocolate mint, milk. Raw salmon, tobiko, mushrooms, pasta, bread, cereals, cheesecake, pudding, dark chocolate, biscuits, all in flavours that are more subtle and not too strong. Fisherman’s friend and Xinle dosmc lemon candies. Blahaj, Djungelskog, Glaceon, Ditto Snorlax, Snuffy, Miffy, Gossig Golden, Kesshoban, Aftonsparv, Jellycat. Hirono, Pinojelly, Skullpanda, Dimoo, Nyota, Smiski, Mofusand, Tiny Tiny, Sylvanian Families. Omori, Animal Crossing, Bee and Puppycat, Over the Garden Wall, Hataraku Saibou, Koudou ni Hattatsu, Kusuriya no Hitorigoto, Isekai Yakkyoku, Radiation House, Gekai Elise, Ameku Takao, Hospital Playlist, Kim Sabu, Pokemon Shinsaku, Ghibli. Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto no. 2, Vivaldi’s Recorder Concerto in C Major, Chopin’s Fantaisie Impromptu. Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake Overture, Beethoven’s Egmont Overture, Asleep among Endives, Parfum d’etoiles, Last Train at 25 o’clock, Cherish, Floating, Lost Library. Stationeries, ink, watercolours, alcohol markers, stickers, tapes, pins, keychains, charms and trinkets, books. Linen spray, essential oils, hand sanitizer, alcohol, empty rooms, soap, betadine. Drawing, reading. Science, biology, medicine. Tulips, moss, lichen, lavenders, myosotis, easter lily, lily of the valley, bluebells, mint, eucalyptus, geranium, pine trees, inky caps, wolves, dogs, cats, owls, geckos, sharks, koi, jellyfish, frogs. Cozy blankets, loose t-shirts, soft oversized cardigans and outers, loose shorts and pants, crocs. Patterned ceramic tiles, small beakers, fluffy carpets, stained glass, crochet, embroidery. Quietness, being alone, cozy dim environments, cold rooms. Counterpain cool, Hansaplast koyo. Grid patterns, checkered patterns, distorted checkered patterns, gingham patterns, cotton, wool, corduroy, polyesters. Reading new knowledge, creating worlds, drawing creatures and imaginary objects, looking at interesting designs.


Human World

Fuel Inefficiency
It has been this way for a long time. I’m not sure when, I can’t remember it exactly. Was it before or after Ceres’ existence? I don’t know, but we certainly have a fuel inefficiency. No matter how much or little sleep we get, we’re just always tired and sleepy. I have slept for 16 hours, I have stayed awake for more than 40 hours. No difference. We’re just always tired. Are we ageing early? That’s completely ridiculous. Even if we do nothing all day, we’re still tired. Forever sleepy, not as in “I’m going to fall asleep any minute now” but “I just want to sleep”, despite sleeping enough. Every night, the bed eats me. In the mornings, I would set 5 alarms to get up. It takes time, I’m sticky, buried in the coziness of my blanket, my neck and shoulder pain making me lazy to move. As soon as I close my eyes for a bit, I enter a time machine that I can’t control. Sometimes for a bit, sometimes for a while longer. I can actually get this organism ready in a hurry for 10 minutes (without breakfast) if I am forced to, but I always wake up at most 2 hours before I plan to go, so that I have plenty of time to collect the energy to release myself from the glues and the jaws of my bed. A lot of times, I just want to do nothing. To live is tiring, to exist is tiring. I wish that I can just disappear from this Earth, just not exist. If not, at least get away from these humans and live in my own worlds that I make. I know we shouldn’t be doing this. We have more important things we want to do, more important things we absolutely have to do. Still, we just don’t have the energy to do so despite enough time, and could only force doing it when time shortens. Sometimes I wonder if my organism is sleep deprived (maybe yes), but sleep doesn’t really do its job, so I don’t think it’s that.

Sometimes, between the normal routine of being tired everyday, there would be some random days of energy. Ridiculous, it’s like someone’s keeping the metaphorical energy pipes highly constricted most of the time and only dilating them for a short while randomly. Ceres? No idea. Medusa? Highly unlikely, it didn’t used to be like this. Those days were nice. We always managed to do lots of things, though we were still somewhat tired there is definitely more energy. It’s not as difficult as usual to just get out from the bed’s gravitational pull. Studying and absorbing new knowledge, no matter how much we weren’t even interested in the subject, was always easier in those days. Assignments, quickly done, studying, diligently done. I remember during one of those days we completed most parts of a PBL report (which was actually a huge group project) as a part of prison orientation assignment alone. Everything was speed, trying to be a human is always the easiest here, though still difficult. Yet, those days were short, with the lifespan of thrombocytes and leukocytes. They soon had gone extinct, replaced with several more days of tiredness even worse than the default, days that were absolutely lazy. Theoretically, biologically, yes I still can get my organism to move, but in those times Ceres would usually not want to move, so we just don’t. When the situation allows, during those extra tired days, we wouldn’t even get out of the blanket at all, not even to drink or go to the toilet. Though is it actually Ceres’ fault? Or is it my own? Am I the one who’s just so pathetic I can’t even do what I should? Is this all how the humans live too? Is this a part of growing up and ageing into what could be assumed as an equivalent as an adult human?

Inhuman Being a Human
Being a human is difficult. I just don’t get it. How are humans human? Why are humans human? They understand each other quite well, they connect with each other. They belong with each other. Some may like some things that don’t really make sense to be liked. That doesn’t really make sense to me. Language too. How are the humans so adaptable? Our organism had been using the human language known as English for so often in the first 11 years of its life, as it was studying in an English based school that whole time. We had been studying in an Indonesian based school for 6 years in high school after that, but even now in med school, we’re still not used to it. Yes we understand Indonesian too, and we’re quite fluent if I were to say. We do think in a mix of 3 languages sometimes, but still. English has always been our default. Ah speaking of language, it’s supposed to be a communication tool. Effective communication is about being as clear as possible, yet humans would sometimes say something but mean another thing. A completely different one at that. Such nonsense, how would others be expected to understand if the language is used like that? The thing is, most of the time, the other humans do understand what that human is meaning even with the obviously unclear language. What’s up with humans? They do so much yet they are always so energetic. How are they not tired of being around other humans for long periods of time? How do they enjoy doing things like walking long distances, maybe even up the mountains into a forest? How do some of them like getting up in the morning? I don’t know. I know I’m just some other organism. I’m not a human and I’ll never be one, but still. Wouldn’t this Earth be more understandable if I could be more human? See things the way humans do? Exist like humans? That would probably be useful, but I suppose I will never know how it would be like to be able to do that. It’s fine, besides, I have already decided to not try to be human a long time ago.

My memories may be mistaken, but as I remember it, I used to try to be human during the beginning of our organism’s life in primary school. We tried to want to be friends with everyone, we tried following trends and liking them, we tried living as a human. Still, no matter how similar I copied them, this glass would still exist. There is just something that separates me from humans. We never belong together, I was never one of them in the first place. In later primary school, we discovered an organism quite similar to us. This organism was certainly more human than us, but I learnt freedom from him. Since then, I realized that it is pointless to be human, as I am never one. Why should I follow their preferences when I have my own? Humans are complicated creatures. Interesting, sure, but still. Their reactions are also strange and difficult to understand sometimes, though I suppose everyone’s all weird including us. Sometimes humans are just so exaggerated and extreme in their reactions I think, though I can somewhat see the potential cause but not the connection. Like why does this cause this? Kind of nonsense. While at other times, their reactions may be quite unexpected. “Humans are social creatures.” I wonder how many times I have heard that phrase from the humans. I don’t know why but they kind of seem to really dislike being alone in general, and think it is incorrect to prefer being alone and avoiding others. There’s this concept of being lonely that they sort of believe in, which I don’t really get but eh I suppose it’s a human thing, I don’t think they’re absolutely wrong or anything. I don’t see why they would think that being with humans is more important than being alone (in the situation not related to necessary things relating to other humans). To be alone means freedom, no disturbance from surrounding humans, as well as peace and quiet, when alone one also doesn’t have to deal with other humans’ preferences and stuff. What’s bad about that? Just be with humans as necessary and spend the rest of time alone. I seriously don’t belong here.

Imperfect Machine
Medusa is the room I have always been in since the beginning of existence. I don’t know how Medusa was made, or why we exist together, but it has always been that way. Medusa isn’t entirely alive, unlike Ceres. Medusa is more of a machine, maybe artificial intelligence. It works following settings it came with, codes written into it. I have no access to those, and I don’t know who created those settings, but there are a few other settings we can adjust. The default settings are out of our control, I suppose they’re restrictive sometimes. Still, these settings are mostly nice to have and Medusa always does its job properly. Those default settings are absolute, there can be no exceptions made, though sometimes inconveniencing, Medusa’s settings can be helpful too. I think that out of the three of us, Medusa is the one who’s closest to being a human, though still not human enough. Medusa can estimate the human’s expectations. When our organism was still small and I was still new to this thing called life, Medusa and I followed choices that were supposed to be what the humans would probably want. We pretended to be one of them since we thought that was how living on Earth should be. Piano classes? Sure. Maths classes? Sure. Give us everything. We said yes all the time, as our assumption was that if we were offered to do something, the humans are expecting us to agree to do so. Being a human means liking to spend time with others and being friends with a lot of people? Okay, we’ll try that. We were absolutely clueless of everything so we just made assumptions based on our observations of the young humans around us. No matter our efforts though, we were still never human. We will never be human, and after our organism finished its time in primary school we realized that. There is no point in following what they are, what matters more is survival. The minimum is enough. We no longer tried being human as we aged, but Medusa still does its usual job. Pretending, shapeshifting, and staying invisible.

Our organism always appears as a quiet person to the humans. We’re very calm and don’t react much to anything. We stay invisible and avoid the attention of humans. That is our default human appearance now. Medusa also has settings to control reactions. I may be thinking and reacting in some way to something in the void, but Medusa makes it appear like no reaction to the humans. When our organism happens to get stuck in some confusing situation and we just freeze and don’t know how to react, Medusa’s the one who removes us from the situation. Medusa doesn’t know what’s going on either in those situations, but at least we wouldn’t make anything worse with Medusa’s help. Full of many important functions, yet Medusa is imperfect. Translation is perhaps another thing separating us from humans. Whether it’s writing or speaking, it’s difficult to exactly translate thoughts into words. It just doesn’t seem right a lot of times. We have plenty of vocabulary stored in the folders, we know our grammar, but arranging words based on thoughts doesn’t fully come out the same at times. At other times, it’s not really about turning thoughts into words but more about us not sending words to the humans. Like comets, some of those words melt away and reduce into dust while passing through the void. Human communication is difficult in both ways, whether it’s getting words out to them or understanding their words. So far we’ve been relying on our ability to see patterns and connections, quite good that I’ve heard humans call us AI or observant, but it’s not that reliable. There is not much use in being able to see patterns and connections if we can’t understand them. And sometimes, not sure if it’s Medusa or Ceres or maybe me, but we would focus on more unimportant stuff. A human would be speaking right in front of us, we hear them, yet we couldn’t hear what exact words are they saying because we hear more of the further background noise. Sometimes we miss seeing something because we were focusing on a completely random thing that somehow happened to catch our eyes. Cats, interesting plants, insects, decors, a slight construction mistake, whatever random thing it is. Medusa is imperfect, but is an important existence for us, a good nonliving friend who will always exist with me.

The Adult Lifestyle and Hibernating
I wonder, is it truly the lifestyle of a human adult? Is this how humans live? I don’t really see how they like living and existing on this Earth if this is how they will be living the rest of their adult lives. It doesn’t make sense. Adults wake up early, that part I can somewhat make sense of, even during my time in school for human children we would do the same thing, because that’s just the way humans do it. Probably based on their circadian rhythms and the fact that they don’t have a tapetum lucidum in the back of their eyes. But as we grow old, we become more rusty, we become more tired. Waking up one hour before going used to be enough, now not anymore. Two hours would be the same time. Every weekday, we had to set 5 alarms to wake up our organism. Two from the phone, three from three different alarm clocks. It used to work for a few months, but it seems like now we have gotten good at turning off alarms without being fully awake. The bed and blanket being more sticky than cyanoacrylate glue doesn’t help either. To exist is just tiring. So now, we have started adding one more alarm from the phone, and one from the tab. It has been working for now. I suppose Medusa can’t really automate turning off the alarms and going back to sleep right away since it’s different now. At day, as we were forced to exist with the humans, we studied, we managed to just survive the day, we did all we had to. Once we got home, the floor sucked us. All evening, we would be lying on the cold ceramic tiles, doing nothing at all. Was that Ceres’ doing? Or was it mine? Or is that just supposed to be part of the human adult lifestyle I have to follow? Exams every week. Meanwhile we just have no energy at all during the weekends and just stay in bed all day. Such a waste of time, we know that of course, but we just do that. I know we made this choice to go into med school, one of the places many humans would consider difficult, and we do like studying the subjects we have. But we just kept on being tired, yet we didn't sleep early because we didn't want to arrive to tomorrow. Sleep. Hibernation. Temporary nonexistence. We just kept switching between “perfect put together looking adult” and “existence is tiring, we have to sleep”. Is this what human adults live like? For all those years? Until they die or maybe age so much they no longer become an adult? I wonder.

Metamorphosis
We are an organism that is not human, but yes metamorphosis does happen too. Back when we were still young and had less knowledge, there were so many things that didn’t make sense for us about adult humans. I used to wonder, why do they never do much in their free time? Why are their handwriting bad in general? Why is being an adult something that looks boring? It took time, but when we reached there, everything made sense. Children, whether human, or non human like us, are more carefree. They have different priorities, they have different thoughts. We still assume the appearance of carefreeness, but that has disappeared slowly. Disintegrating into dust, ever since a look in a mirror. We were travelling, staying elsewhere other than home. A cozy room, with a rounded mirror framed with wooden carvings hung on the wall. A rounded machine with numbers spaced 30° degrees apart from each other and three different needles spinning in a consistent rhythm was reflected in the silvery mirror pond, appearing to go counterclockwise, backwards in time. We started imagining a world where time goes backwards, where we would return to the past, before reaching back as a zygote and disappearing from existence. What a peculiar world, it was interesting, but it was the opposite of reality. Time goes forward here on Earth, and it never stops. It just keeps going until the end of everything. That was the moment metamorphosis started, when we realised the reality of our death. As a child, we didn’t like death. Upon the realisation all we questioned was why we had to exist in the first place when it wasn’t our choice to begin with. To not exist would be really nice, since we were scared of dying. Of course, as we got older we realised that thought is stupid and pointless. There is no point in being afraid of death since no matter what, it will end one day. And death is not a bad thing, it is a return to nothingness, to sleep forever, an eternal rest from our short existence on Earth.

Slowly we aged, despite not understanding humans well, we finally made sense of why we viewed adults so weirdly as a child. That is just the reality of the human life cycle we follow. Adults don’t do much outside of the work they have to do, they don’t have fun and run around and be full of energy like children because they’re tired. Living is tiring, to simply exist in the first place is tiring. Living as a child may not be as tiring, since children generally are living in the free trial phase of life. But as the humans grow older and turn into adults, life is not that simple anymore. The Earth is a huge playground where competition is always available. Children are exposed to competition as well, but it will just worsen in the human adult life. Competition is essential for survival. It’s just a basic rule of biology. Adults are busy with many things on top of having to exist, so it finally made sense as we age why we have become tired. About adults’ handwriting, it made sense too. We used to write neatly back when our organism was young, but as we grew older we no longer did that for ourselves. Sure our font may look aesthetic, but the humans find it difficult to read. We finally understood why adults in general have bad handwriting: there is no point in writing nicely (except when decorating or something similar), it’s faster to just write in a continuous cursive font type, it’s more efficient, and it also provides memory as it is more difficult to read. We may not be human, but we have turned into the tired, pointless adult that human adults are. This is only the beginning of the endless competition for survival until we finally return to nothing. Metamorphosis completed.

The Cruel Curse of Chronos
In this Earth, in this existence, there is a concept called time. It is a consistent rhythmic thing, yet inconsistent. A long time can feel like the speed of light in memories, a short time can feel like waiting endlessly for death that will never come. Time just never stops or slows down. It stays there, ignoring everything else going in the world, it moves forward constantly. I don’t like this. Why can’t time stop and let me just stay in a moment forever? Why does time skip when I sleep? I’m tired of existing, I want to sleep forever. Time needs to stop. We’re not ready to exist for another day, we just want it to end. Let us sleep. Give us longer hours. Why must we constantly wake up and live as a human? What can be done though? It is futile, it is pointless to want to go against time. That is just the rule of physics affecting all life. As time goes on, life will be more disastrous, the Earth will be more chaotic. New humans born, previously existing ones may die, they may grow into adults, replacing the dying humans. With the age of a human, their life would be more difficult, with the first checkpoint in becoming an adult. Time doesn’t care. It’s not living after all. It’s just an existing concept that we can see, yet can do nothing about. Seconds turn into minutes, minutes into hours, hours into days, days into months, months into years. As we survive the human life, without realising, we have wasted a lot of time, we have aged that quickly. Time may be a long thing, lasting a human’s entire life, always watching us without a word. Yet the time a human has in life is actually a short one. Life is just a short interruption of nothingness. We were nothing, then we started living on Earth. A normal life span would be several years, then death happens and we finally return to where we once belonged, our home of nothingness. Compared to forever nothingness where we didn’t exist, the life on Earth is such a short time, highlighting more of how pointless this existence is. Life exists to balance other life, but if life was never created in the first place, there wouldn’t be any other life necessary to balance it. Life is a curse, existence is pointless, time laughs watching us, short lived creatures playing in its playground. In another universe, maybe nothing exists. Time stays still.

Red Days
Red days are nice, red days are comfy. I wish red days would last forever in the time of Earth. The humans count their days using a system called a calendar in Earth, which has 7 rows and depending on the design, may have numbers coloured in different inks. One thing stays the same across all the designs, red days. Those are the days when we can truly have a little break. A day of nothingness, just staying at home, alone, away from all the world. A day to be quiet, a day to hibernate under a fluffy blanket, a day to stay inside a dim cuboid spending time with ourselves. How peaceful. The world dissolves as our organism’s cuboid separates from the outside existence. In that present moment, Chronos’ Curse wouldn’t even bother us. We are temporarily carefree. Yet it is just an illusion. There is no stopping Chronos. Whatever our efforts, whatever our wishes, it is all futile. As night approaches, we just want the night to last as long as possible, since tomorrow means another day to exist, another day to be with the humans. If red days last forever, we would be more free. We can sleep enough, instead of going between the extremes of 3 hours and 16 hours, there will be no more need for alarms. Our perfect life in our own little world will be undisturbed, we would be able to abandon everything outside and all forms of communication. Can this existence stop? Can this peace not be temporary? In all those red days, we wonder. How nice it would be for all things to stop forever, to escape from this Earth and return to nothingness. We’re not ready for the next days, we’re not ready for the future black days. We want to remain in the red days of our life until the time has arrived for us to die.


Epilogue

It is one day in the future. Things have gotten peaceful now. Like how when an organ is transplanted, the body recognizes it as a foreign substance and rejects it, the Earth has done so as well. This foreign star person shouldn’t be in Earth in the first place, and now it has disappeared, leaving no trace. An eternal return to nothing, the one it has been waiting for, has arrived. Wiped away from existence, the foreign star person finally experienced true peace before completely disappearing into the void of nothingness, to nonexistence. It is finally free. Chronos is kind after all. It still allows everything to have an end. There is always a return to nothing, to finally achieve true freedom. The foreign star person dissolves into the void. Ceres has glitched out and disappeared. Medusa remains floating in the void, now empty and quiet, a place of where foreign substances used to live on Earth, now just floating in nonexistence. How calming. Konpeito stars travelled aimlessly in the void, each and every one of them holding a wish for quietness, nothingness, and nonexistence. Slowly but surely, everyone will reach their true freedom. It is time to go to sleep.