Echo of the Dead Nebula - The Path
The peaceful scene of the home was swallowed by darkness in an instant. The warm sunlight outside the window vanished, replaced by a pitch-black night without even the cold moonlight.
Lina and Zai lay asleep in their respective beds. No—they were dead. Bani stood beside them, speaking calmly but in a voice that seemed to tear itself apart.
“The nanospore crop growth accelerators scattered to terraform the planet's atmosphere malfunctioned.”
He stroked the pale faces of his wife and daughter.
“Those damn machines mistook organic human bodies for fertile soil.”
Crack. A horrific sound echoed. Changes began in the bodies of the mother and daughter on the beds.
Trees and flowers sprouted rapidly inside their lungs and blood vessels. Blooms pierced through their white skin, and vines coiled around their necks. It was a death as cruelly beautiful as could be. In moments, they became human flowerpots and breathed their last.
Days and nights passed dozens of times after that. In the memory, Bani opened the door and entered. The dirt-covered Bani, returned from exploration.
“Lina! Zai! Dad's home!”
He opened the door to the room, holding a bundle of gifts. And he saw it. His wife and daughter turned into a field of flowers.
A silent scream reverberated.
Even having learned mental fortitude from Nahibi, it was a wail so heartbreaking he wanted to turn away.
“The Federation... they just offered me compensation. An accident. A technical glitch. As if that scrap money... that worthless data could replace my family!”
Countless scenes flashed through Bani's memory. Throwing objects, smashing liquor bottles, boarding the survey ship again.
And then, back to the peaceful home once more. It was morning.
“Honey, I'm off.”
The young Bani in the memory waved to his wife and daughter. Lina and Zai smiled brightly, seeing him off.
“Have a safe trip, honey.”
“Dad! Bring presents!”
The family, smiling innocently, unaware of the death about to come.
And Bani, leaving them behind.
The old Bani of reality, standing beside Kal and Eve, slowly began to walk. He headed toward the house where his family laughed harmoniously.
“Bani!”
I shouted loudly. Bani halted but didn't turn back.
“Kal. Can't you just let me go?”
His voice was parched.
“Bani. Is that really what you want? Repeating these endless days, reliving that pain—is that the life you desired?”
“Kal. I've... been sailing the wrong course since back then.”
Deep despair loomed like a shadow behind Bani's back.
How do I convince him...?
I was at a loss for words. It wasn't a problem logic or reason could solve. Bani was walking into the darkness of his own accord. That place was eternal oblivion—the path to death.
Tap.
At that moment, Eve dashed forward. She grabbed Bani's pant leg tightly.
“Don't go, Uncle Bani.”
Bani stopped but still didn't turn.
“Let go, Eve. The path I should take broke back then. It's all my fault.”
“So what?”
“......What?”
Bani turned around. Eve's clear red eyes reflected in his hollow pupils. Eve looked straight up at him, asking with a firmness beyond her childlike appearance.
“Uncle Bani. You know I was an experiment, right?”
It was an awkward question. Because Eve looked as young as his daughter, Bani had avoided asking details until now.
“Yeah. I heard the story, Eve.”
“From the moment I had memories, I walked an endlessly repeating daily path.”
Eve's voice lowered. Faint visions flickered behind her. A cold operating table, needles piercing, a solitary cell without even a white bed.
Pain came. Hunger, cold, darkness.
Eve spoke calmly.
“Only now do I realize how horrific it was. But back then, I didn't know. There was nothing to compare it to. Not until Kal came.”
Eve glanced at me.
“He showed me ways to soothe hunger. Healing over pain, warmth over cold, shining light over darkness. Uncle. Is that path really impossible to continue?”
Bani bit his lip.
“There's nowhere left to go! What's the point of a path without them! Eve, unlike you... I don't have someone like Kal to save me!!”
Bani wailed.
“No. Uncle Bani is just being cowardly.”
Bani swallowed at the word coward from Eve's small mouth.
“What...?”
“If Uncle Bani closes his eyes and stops here, who is that for? Auntie? Or Sis?”
No.
It's just the easy path for Bani, isn't it?
“......!”
Bani's eyes wavered.
“What Uncle wants to turn away from isn't the path... it's himself, who doesn't want to suffer anymore.”
“No! I... I tried for them!” Bani shouted defensively.
“What did you try?”
“I kept exploring! Until my body broke, no dangerous planet too far—I pioneered new paths! I kept going somehow!”
“Why?”
“To... engrave them!” Bani cried, clutching his chest.
Engrave them. Could it be?
Something flashed in my mind. The reason Bani obsessed over survey ships and staked his life on route data.
“Interstellar routes.”
At my quiet words, Bani bowed his head.
“Right, Kal.”
Bani gripped the locket around his neck.
“I wanted to create interstellar routes named after them. Paths that would remain forever on the Federation charts, impossible for anyone to erase.”
He waved his hand in the air. A massive holographic map unfurled in the darkness. Red lines connected the routes Bani had painstakingly charted over decades with his blood and sweat.
“After losing Lina and Zai, I devoted my life to linking the wild space frontiers. But...”
Bani's finger stopped at the map's edge.
“Do you know where this route ends to be complete?”
The map zoomed in. It was darkness itself. And in that darkness, countless writhing red points.
“What I found was the xenoform territories—still at war with the Federation, endlessly slaughtering each other.”
Bani's voice trembled.
“The path I wanted to name after my family... led to the gates of hell. No matter how skilled an explorer I am, even the Federation military can't conquer xenoform territory. How could I chart routes through it?”
He fell to his knees.
“Going back to reality changes nothing. I'm a failure. My dream is impossible. So wouldn't it be better... to stay here in this false world with them?”
It wasn't the nightmare the xenoform showed that held him. What gripped Bani's ankle was his own shattered hope before the wall of impossibility. He wasn't trapped in a dream—he had fled reality and exiled himself here.
“Going out... what changes?”
Bani's question rang hollow. But.
“It changes, Bani.”
Eve's voice was firm. I looked at her. Her red eyes turned to me.
[Kal. Is it okay if I tell Bani my true nature?]
Eve's wavelength echoed in my head. I hesitated briefly. But,
If you've decided to help him, yeah. Do as you wish, Eve.
I nodded, respecting her will. Eve looked back at Bani.
“Uncle Bani said he doesn't have someone like Kal, right?”
“Yeah...”
“Then I'll be that someone for you.”
“What? Haha... Eve. You think that makes sense? Seems like being an experiment's made you misunderstand something. Xenoforms aren't that simple to—”
Bani laughed weakly. Then—
Riiip—
Eve's abdomen split open. Flesh tore, unleashing pitch-black darkness and her blazing red inner glow.
“......?!”
Bani instinctively sensed it. This was no mere human or lab subject.
“I'm one of the Queens who rule those xenoforms,” Eve said matter-of-factly.
Bani froze. His brain refused to process the sight.
“L-Liar... No announcement ever said xenoforms have Queens...”
Bani backed away, face twisted in terror and disbelief.
“You don't believe me. Squishy!!!” Eve yelled into the air.
[Haa... This is Nahibi, Your Majesty. Please, no more 'Squishy' nickname...]
With a grumbling voice, space tore open.
Bani's peaceful dream meadow. The green grass bleached white in an instant. White slime oozed from the ground, then erupted like a volcano.
A white wave engulfed the entire plain. And from the viscous mass, hundreds, thousands of red eyes emerged.
A colossal serpent-octopus abomination beyond description. Nahibi descended into Bani's mental world in her true form.
“H-Hiiik...!”
Bani collapsed. Overwhelming terror. His mind screamed at the presence beyond human cognition. The dream world shook like an earthquake.
[Fear not, lowly creature.]
Nahibi's voice thundered.
[How dare you doubt Her Majesty's words. With your narrow vision, how could you measure true greatness?]
Nahibi's massive tentacle loomed before Bani's face.
“Squishy too big! That's why it's scary! Shrink! Be cute!”
Eve shrieked.
[Khg...! Your Majesty, in the mental world, my essence projects fully, so shrinking is difficult, but...]
Nahibi rolled her hundreds of eyes awkwardly.
[I'll... try my best.]
The behemoth deflated like a punctured balloon, shrinking to the size of the basilisk we'd seen before—a slime blob.
Bani stared blankly. The overwhelming monster cowering and obeying at a child's word.
Is this real? If Eve is truly... no, even if it's illusion, let it be. Let Eve be a xenoform Queen. It has to be!!
“See? Believable now?”
Eve extended her hand to Bani.
“Uncle Bani. You said it's impossible? No path left?”
Eve's red eyes gleamed.
“I'm the path. I'll open it for you. So just steel your heart to walk again.”
“......”
Bani grasped Eve's tiny hand with his trembling one. The hand he expected to be cold was, astonishingly, warm. At the end of despair, he met not a monster, but new hope.
“......Got it.”
Bani bit his lip hard. The tears pooling in his eyes dried.
“Let's go. Wherever that path leads.”
As Bani spoke, the dream world shattered completely. Darkness, meadow, sorrow—all crumbled to pieces. We were sucked into white light.
*
“Hah!”
Bani bolted upright in bed, gasping raggedly. His body was drenched in sweat, as if fished from water.
Bani stared blankly at his hands, then clenched them into fists.
“......Damn. What a filthy nightmare.”
He roughly swept back his wet hair. But his eyes were no longer clouded.
“Bani!”
Eve jumped onto the bed and grabbed his hand.
“You okay now?”
Bani flinched, body tensing. His gaze from the dream monster flicked to Eve's abdomen.
It's closed.
“Uh... y-yeah, Eve... um... what should I call you? Your Majesty?”
Bani awkwardly faced Eve, glancing at me with a troubled look.
His eyes were confused.
I just shrugged. All I could say was, “You're awake? Bani.”