Some part of you was unwittingly tearing you away from unconsciousness. Desperately but not too successfully, you tried to keep your overnight revelations from fading away into the depths of your mind, never to return. As you struggled to do so, you blinked the sleep out of your eyes. You pushed an arm beneath you to sit up, only for it to slip off the side of the mattress.

"You-" Popola wore a concerned look as you almost fell out of bed, being so disoriented as your body catapulted you into the waking world, "You don't need to get up, Theodore, it's fine. I... wasn't trying to wake you."

"No, no," you blearily tried to wave off her concerns, "I'm- it's fine."

Popola remained unconvinced but seemingly relented. "I didn't want to disturb you, I just thought to check in and see how you were doing."

Your second attempt to sit up was more successful. "It's fine, it's fine. I'm up, anyway." You felt coherency start to return to you as the world became more and more 'real'.

"Did you sleep well? Ignoring this last minute."

"Yeah, yeah. Just had... uh, an interesting dream."

"Do you-"

"I'd prefer not talking about it." You swallowed hard. "At least, not at the moment." Now that your senses were starting to come together, you noticed Popola was holding a container close to her chest.

Noticing your gaze, Popola seemingly also realized what she was carrying. "Sorry. I didn't expect you to be so hard asleep. Devola and I figured you would be awake by now." She handed over the container.

You popped open the lid, slightly surprised at seeing biscuits and gravy again- at least they realized which meal it should be served as. "How long was I out?" Something in the back of your mind made you worry over this, considering the twins had thought you would have woken up.

Popola pursed her lips in thought. "Ten hours, I think? I didn't get a solid time from your pods. We thought you'd message us when you were awake."

"Ten hours?" You raised an eyebrow as you cut into your food. "That can't be right. I don't sleep that long."

"We were surprised, too. We thought you didn't need to sleep for a while after you got back."

You were about to take a bite when a thought struck you. You couldn't be entirely sure, but you vaguely recalled something from the back of your mind. You turned to one of your pods. "904, how long was it between me waking up in the amusement park and me going to bed here?"

"Interval of previous major excursion: Twenty-eight hours and-"

"Twenty-eight hours‽ No, pod I'm not talking about the whole thing, I'm- that-"

"This unit has followed the request, only stating elapsed hours between activation and deactivation."

"'Rest', pod, we call that 'rest'." You absentmindedly corrected the pod, half aware that it wasn't the major thing you were occupied with at the moment. This couldn't be possible. You've tried to pull an over-nighter with your friends a few years back, and you knew you didn't have the willpower to last the whole night, and you especially shouldn't have been able to last twenty-eight hours without completely collapsing through exhaustion.

"Theodore?" Popola caught your attention, surprisingly calm even after hearing this. "What's wrong?"

"'What's wrong' ? Popola, there's no way that I could have been awake this long. It- Wait, 904 was knocked out, maybe there's something wrong with him keeping time. 320, what do you have?"

"Wait, Theo, that's not what I'm getting at. Is there something wrong with your circadian rhythm?"

You couldn't believe what you were hearing. "...Yeah? I mean, who's heard of someone being awake for twenty-eight hours, then sleeping for ten?"

Popola tilted her head in confusion. "What's normal for you?"

"Uh, sixteen hours awake, eight asleep, far as I know."

Popola paused, bringing hand to her chin. "...I mean, I can't think of anyone with a cycle that short..."

"'That short'‽ What the hell kind of day-night cycle did you-" You stopped as a realization hit you. Something similar hit Popola a second later.

"You're attuned to a twenty-four hour cycle, aren't you? Is that why this is so odd to you?"

"Wh- and you're not?"

"No. For as long as I've been alive, I've only had my internal clock to keep time. You've-" she let out a short laugh, an odd smile forming on her face, "you've actually dealt with day-night cycles."

You blinked, not really understanding what was happening with her. "Yeah?"

"...What was it like?"

"What?"

"Like, nighttime. Dawn, dusk, all that. I heard about it from some of the people I helped take care of..." She leaned forward, now far more invested in the conversation.

"What are you-" You suddenly realized what Popola was getting at. "You've never left the daytime side, have you?" Earth must have been tidally locked for thousands of years, you realized. Funny, this sort of revelation would have seriously messed with you before you got embroiled in this whole mess.

But now? You almost take it with stride.

Almost. It's still worrying to find out.

Popola shook her head. "No. There's the Kingdom of Night- which should be obvious by its name- but Devola and I have never been there. I've heard tell that there was somewhere other than there, even on this continent, where you could theoretically see nighttime, but it's just a rumor, as far as I know."

You considered what Popola said. You never really knew where you were on the planet- or even if you could recognize it- but you figured that the androids would probably have something to help. The Commander talked about airtight flight suits and space, so they could probably spare a global map or a satellite to take a photo.

"But still," Popola grabbed your attention, pushing a little more insistently, "could you tell me what nighttime's like? -Wait, no, hang on. Devola should hear about this, too."

"Huh?"

"We've wanted to hear about this for so long. She's made an image of nighttime, pulling together everything that we know about it."

You blinked in confusion. "Alright, fine. How much do you two know about nigh-" You couldn't believe that you barely heard the front door open, then someone hurrying up the stairs.

"...Hang on, is that-"

Your door flew open, and Devola hurriedly stepped through, at first turning to her sister. "He didn't-" she turned to you, "you haven't started, right?"

"No?"

Devola let out a sigh as she sat down, "Good, good, I was worried I was going to miss out!"

A moment passed as Popola stared at her sister. "Devola?"

"Hm?"

"Don't you remember what I asked you to do?"

You could almost hear the gears turning as the thought struck her. "Oh! Sorry, the picture! I just need to-" she suddenly stopped, "...wait, no, I can't forward it to him. 904, would you please?" She made a gesture towards your pod, and he immediately projected an image in front of you.

You wondered what was going through her head while she made the picture.

If you had to guess at what the original goal of the work was, it would be "a sunset over the plains", but this concept had obviously been crumpled and spindled several times over. The sky was rendered in a rainbow hue, from a bright red at the top of the image to a deep violet on the horizon, the delineation between the colors... less than delineated, but not quite blurred. The sun sat high in the image on the border between the red and orange zones and was colored appropriately. What you at first thought were errors in displaying the image were supposed to be stars, you realized as you looked closer- though stars aren't supposed to be laid out on a grid, and definitely not supposed to be out at the same time as the sun.

Behind the image, you saw the twins sitting forward, eager to hear what you would have to say.

You didn't know how to break this to them.

"So?" Devola asked, "How is it?" Her face fell as you struggled to come up with a good response that also wouldn't break her heart. "Not good, huh?"

"It's definitly artistic," you tried to reason.

"I wasn't going for artistic." Devola crossed her arms.

Popola set a hand on her sister's shoulder. "Devola, Theodore was going to tell us about what night's like. Maybe you could take it into consideration?"

Devola slowly uncrossed her arms, then sighed "Fine."

Popola turned to you and nodded, "If you'd please, Theodore?"

You sighed, taking a bite of breakfast as your started to organize your thoughts.

"Imagine the sun slowly growing lower and lower on the horizon. As it dips, an array of reds, oranges, and yellows begin to greet the sun. Cooler winds start to blow as the descent continues, and the sky begins to darken. In a final burst of dim reds, dusk begins and swiftly ends, drawing twilight closer and closer. Gradually, the sky dims and you realize its dim enough to show a single pinprick of light, a different intruder on its surface than the sun and moon. A few minutes later, you see another, then another, then another. Not even half an hour later, and the sky has become pitch-black, revealing the dazzling array of stars. Clustered together in the Milky Way, arranged in constellations, everywhere, a shimmering display decorating the sky like waves on the sea.

"The world is covered in a tenebrous blanket, turned from a land of warmth and welcome to one of quiet, stillness, and cold. A different set of animals stalk the world in this state, ones trained to use their other senses and the cover that night gives. Crickets singing a tune unheard of an hour ago, fireflies dancing as the stars above, maybe if you're lucky, you'll catch the stars blink for a moment as an owl passes overhead.

You took another bite of your breakfast. "It just surprises me that you've had no experience with nighttime. Isn't there anything written that someone's found? The scavenging community must have dig up something."

"They have," Popola looked slightly upset, "but it's never anything substantial."

"I find that hard to believe. If humanity had to leave so quickly as to leave so much behind, then there has to be something about nighttime that we would be out there."

"You'd think so," The twins uneasily glanced away.

The conversation slowed to a halt, letting you get a few more bites in.

"Thank you, by the way," Popola smiled, "for telling me about nighttime."

"Oh, no problem."

"I liked it, it was really poetic. You should write it down."

You shrugged. "I'll pass. It's all really spur of the moment, anyway. If I wrote it down, I'd want to revise it a hundred times before I'd let anyone see it."

Devola tilted her head and opened her mouth as though she were about to respond, but Popola stopped her before she could. She whispered, "No, it's his choice."

The conversation lapsed into another lull, and after a few more mouthfuls of food, you caught Popola staring at something on the right side of your face. You sighed, bringing a hand to your face. "I'm sorry, am I that sloppy of an eater?"

"No, no," Popola waved her hand, "it's just that I'm looking at your burn. You've healed up really well."

Your thoughts ground to a halt. 'healed up well'? No, that couldn't be right. You brought your hand the remaining inches to where you remembered the burn sprawling across half of your face, how angry and irritated your skin looked, and how much it stung in the following hours. You weren't sure if it was bad, considering how much it stung, of if it wasn't, because of how quickly you got used to the pain. You expected to flinch back when your hand brushed the epicenter of the burn, but you felt only the slightest of irritation, like touching an old scab.

Not even a day ago, 47D couldn't even apply whatever cream she had without you involuntarily pulling back. It was almost as bad as when you were bitten by that dog, but now it barely registered with you.

"Theodore," Devola asked, "is something wrong?"

"320, could you please show me what my burn looks like?" You barely tried to hide the building concern in your voice.

"Affirmative." As 320 swung around you, a hologram fizzled into existence, slowly clearing up to reveal your face. Your mostly unmarked face. Where once the burn stretched from chin to temple, ear to eye and nose, only a small patch remained where you remembered seeing the center, the worst of the burn. The only indication of any previous damage was a small bubble of peeling skin, not much worse than a mild sunburn.

What happened to it? Burns like this don't disappear overnight, even if you're apparently sleeping for more than eight hours at a time. Not when they cover that large of a section of your face, not when you received them from machines with whom androids have been fighting for thousands of years.

What was happening? You couldn't have just healed it yourself. Did you not even receive the burn in the first place? No, you remembered the stinging and pain. Were you out longer than you thought? You did kind of doze on the trip to the machine settlement. Except that wouldn't explain you not feeling extremely hungry, or needing to worry about your other needs on the trip, and-

"Theodore!" Popola spun you around, snapping you out of your maelstrom of thoughts. You couldn't help but think back to when Devola had to snap you out of a similar situation, keeping you from losing yourself further in unending trails of thought in your mind. She continued to speak, but calmer. "Focus, talk to me. What's going on in your mind?"

"I... I..." You swallowed hard, trying to recapture where your derailed train of thought had wandered. "I don't- I can't..."

"You asked 320 to show you what the burn on your face looked like," Popola explained, a strange, practiced calm to her voice, "When you saw it, you stood up and started panicking..." Popola stopped herself and looked over her shoulder at Devola, who still sat on the bed, doing her best not to look at anything in particular.

"Theodore, please," Devola's voice had a quiet waver to it, "s-sit back down, finish your breakfast. I-

"We have something to tell you."


Thanks to okamisenpai34, who helped beta read this chapter. Give her works a read, she might even update soon!