Lars in the Sky With Diamonds: Prelude
Somewhere in space, in territories unexplored by any humans before, a small, lonely ship drifts. Its main engines busted, it relies on its backup thrusters to take it to the nearest colony of the mighty Homeworld empire. Even so, the ship was moving at speeds thirty times faster than a human vehicle had ever reached.
Inside the ship, in the captain's seat of the ship he had stolen sat a young man, starring out the window at the infinite darkness, with dots of light and colorful wisps of gas here and there. He was the lone human amongst in a group of bizarre aliens…
Human. Could he still be called that? After all, he had… died. Died, in the depths of…
"Captain Lars! A vision appears before me!"
You could practically hear the snap as Lars snapped back to reality.
"What is it now Padparadscha, can't you see I'm brooding?" He immediately regretted his harsh tone. No matter how much Padparadscha wasn't very often useful, you could not be irritated with her. "Sorry. What is it you've foreseen?" he added in a softer tone.
"I predict… that the author will be late again!"
Of course.
"Oh, really? Why is he late this time?"
Lars was no expert when it came to children… or, well, Padparadscha wasn't technically a child. Heck, she was probably older than any human could ever hope to become. But still, there was something… childlike about her. Anyway, Lars didn't know much about children or how to raise children. So he wasn't entirely sure if it was right to play along with these weird fantasies the orange sapphire would have.
Every now and then, she would spout some nonsense about "the author." Mostly when he was late with something, so almost every darn day would she bring up the author.
"Hmm… I see… a big building? Maybe… a word is coming to me… skola?"
"What, school?"
"Yes! The author is working on something for this 'skool!' And so, he is unable to work on the fate of this universe, even though he really wants to! And he is hoping his awesome 'readers' will forgive him and be patient until he can update next time."
"You know, this 'author' is starting to sound more and more like one of those fanfic-writers," Lars said, not to Padapradscha, but to himself. "Those freaks that write about cartoon characters being tortured and dying horribly and stuff. Good thing he's not real, or else we'd be royally screwed."
You know, being trapped out her in space sometimes made him forget just how beautiful the stars outside the ship's window could be.