Hi!

For context, this OS is a translation of my collection "All the ways you come back to me", so you can find the text there in French under the title "Myosotis (Forget me not)".

Anyway, English isn't my native language so please forgive any weird spelling or mistakes this text probably contains! I'd be more than happy to correct them if you can point them to me!

I wish you a good reading, hope you'll like the story!

All the ways you come back to me

Myosotis (Forget me not)

Part I : Micro-Ice

Everyone says that Asteriat is a garbage planet.

If he had been asked for his opinion, he surely would have answered that without all these wrecks and rubble, they would have all died of hunger long ago. But he is not asked and all the stranded people seem to agree on this description. No need to contradict them.

Asteriat has a dreary gray sky, an infinitely long day and nights as short as they are suffocating. Its unstable ground crumbles with every step and is difficult to see under the layers of garbage. Its horizon might seem mountainous and steep, but when the rain falls, bringing down the fog, the mounds take back their appearance of ships, scrap metal and other sordid corpses.

He is not quite sure he understands what the purpose of this place is, no one has taken the time to explain it to him, and he hasn't really dared to ask either. But every other night, two ships cross the thick clouds and land at the feet of an iron arch, where the ground is clear enough to create a makeshift astroport. The pilots then open a gate on the side of their ships and offer the miners to trade with them. The first ship, large and cubic, buys what the miners could find. The Wamba who runs it is not very pleasant. His prices, which are never fair, seem to drop again and again with each passage, offering only a few coins for the hard-found scrap metal. The other smaller ship offers to buy food. And there too, it is never good, never hearty, and always expensive. Buying food leaves him with only a few coins to spare, and he knows that if he can't find anything to sell in the next few days, he'll have to dip into his savings to eat, and he'll never leave.

Here, leaving is a common goal. An objective. An obsession. One of the pilots displays with an orange neon the price of the ticket to get on board with them and leave this planet. With each glance, the price seems to climb again and again, and when he thinks of the few mud-covered coins that litter the bottom of his bag, he doesn't dare get his hopes up.

When he arrived, he asked Soria "What are you doing here?", and the Ryker had growled back "Can't you tell? I'm leaving!"

And yet, he's been here for a while, and no one ever leaves.

He knows most of the people here now, the group often varies, but there are never more than about fifty of them. Some have gathered in small groups, others keep to themselves as much as they can. The crowd is quite heterogeneous, many Cyclops, some Rykers, rare Wambas and some, like him, are alone. An old Shadow, a young Xenon, and him, the only human. Despite the differences, most of them are cordial, even if it is not uncommon to hear that one has killed the other. They sometimes help each other to extract the biggest pieces of value and share the winnings equally. The only rule applied by all is never to share food or money, commodities too precious to be passed from hand to hand without accusing theft.

One of the first days after his arrival, Antis, the old Shadow who doesn't talk much, had taken a reel out of his bag and hidden it under his coat. He was able to sell it for a few coins and finally eat. Antis could have sold it and shared a gray bowl with him, but those weren't the rules.

Antis had been there when they'd found him by the way, maybe that's why the old Shadow had felt obligated? "I'm forcing this life on you when I could have let you die and be at peace. Here is something to make the experience a little more bearable"? Maybe. That does sound like him.

Soria told him that a rescue ship had crashed and that she, Antis and a few others found him inside, unconscious, bloody, but alive. Not that he remembers it, not that he remembers anything for that matter, but thanks to them, he's alive and that's a good start.

He woke up shortly afterwards, with no memories, no bearings. The little ship he had arrived in showed no sign of having come from anywhere, and even after searching it from top to bottom, he found no clues except for a few purple petals wedged under the seat.

So in order to survive, he had to abandon his questioning, and adopt the pace.

The group spent several days questioning him, certainly the amnesia didn't look very convincing in an open-air prison. It was Antis who asked him his name, and when he didn't know what to answer, the elder had replied, "You better find one soon, nameless graves are the ones no one ever visits." Maybe that's why he offered him a reel after all, it might not be the ideal welcome for the new guy. He didn't come up with a name either for that matter, nothing seemed to fit him, and everyone ended up calling him "the human" anyway.

Time passes and when the refueling nights come, groups form against the twisted iron walls and each one tells his stories in a low voice. Where they come from, who they want to see again, how they got here...

And of course he has nothing to tell. Him and his empty memory. At first, he is not even sure he wants to leave. He has no idea what he might find beyond this planet, where to go, or who to look for.

One night like this, Soria finally took him aside to ask him if he knew where he was from. When he naively answered "From here?" she retorted "That's not possible, man, nobody comes from here. You end up here, and either you manage to leave or you just die here, that's it. And if the kids were falling from the sky, believe me I'd know about it."

He must have made a sad face because the Ryker, usually quite sullen, had decided to help him out. Or maybe she just knew that no one survives long without a purpose in a place like this.

"I won't lie, a human like you can come from a lot of places. Not that I know much about the human species, but by your size and hair, I'd say you're already quite grown up. Maybe you have a family waiting for you somewhere too. Have you ever tried to activate a flux? If you have one, that would already give you a home planet to start with."

A flux. Was it possible that he had one? He hadn't been paying much attention, hadn't felt one in his body either. If that was his only lead, he was afraid it wouldn't get him very far. More to show Soria that he appreciated her help than out of any real conviction, he raised a hand from his bowl and held it in front of him. A few seconds passed without anything appearing at his fingertips, before he felt something running down his spine. A reflex? An instinct? His body remembered for him how to activate this flux which seemed so foreign to him, and which however now danced gently in the hollow of his hand.

"A blue flux like that is either the Ionic Wave or the Breath. And since you don't have blue skin, I would advise you to visit Akillian when you leave here." He'd clearly seen Soria frown, as if she wasn't telling the whole story, quickly hiding her face in her metal glass. But it didn't matter, his goal was there, in those blue reflections that seemed to burn his fingers.

And since that night, since those few words spoken that echoed in her head, it was the only thing that mattered. Akillian. It had become a prayer, a mantra. Go to Akillian. Go back maybe? Find something, anything. About him, about those people who might be waiting for him.

But above all.

Leave Asteriat.

That night, Soria must have decided to adopt him, because the very next day she came to propose to him to team up for the day's research. And morning after morning, the request became a habit, then an automatism. She had quickly become a pillar on which he could rely on. By searching together, they brought back more things to resell, bigger items too, sharing the winnings and watching each other's backs.

He knew that the gang she came from had thrown her here to die when she made an ultimate mistake. She never shared the details. Maybe she killed someone, maybe she just wanted to leave them. But whatever the reason she was exiled, he knows one thing for sure, Soria would do anything to get back to Unadar to reunite with her daughter. Anyway, if she decided to bet on him to get out of here rather than anyone else, fine by him.

Antis also seems to have taken up on their cause. When he finds big pieces, which he cannot bring back to the astroport by himself, he systematically calls them. They share the earnings, and he is convinced that Antis gives them more than their share every time. Nobody really knows since when old Shadow is on Asteriat, but he obviously decided to bet on them both rather than on himself.

This merry-go-round goes on for a long time. Searching, bringing back before the ships arrive, protecting themselves from theft, selling, buying, eating, saving. Again and again. In a grueling rhythm imposed by the day/night cycles of the planet.

Impossible to say how much time has passed, the days merging together in his head. But little by little his money is getting heavier at the bottom of his bag, and he knows that Soria's is too by the way she holds it against her back.

Some miners disappear, others arrive. No one ever leaves.

Like an endless loop, over and over and over again.

Until one day the Xenon decides she's had enough.

Teruun has never made any waves until then. She arrived a little before he did, didn't attach herself to any group and decided to work for herself. Her natural strength made it easy for her to match the gains of small teams, and she seemed to revel in her solitary pace. One sale at a time, one piece saved at a time.

And yet, when the ships descend into the makeshift spaceport this time, she decides she's had enough.

No one had ever messed with the ships, they were their lifeline, if they decided to stop coming none of them would survive. So when Teruun jumps, landing on the right side of the resale ship still in the air, all the miners freeze as one.

The metal caves in on impact and the ship spun around, quickly traveling the last few feet to the ground to crash into the chalk floor, which crumbled under the weight. Teruun screams words he can't make out behind the din of the burning engines.

The scene unfolds quickly, but when it is finished, only a general stupefaction remains in front of the gaping hole where Teruun and the craft were swallowed up.

The food ship lands in its turn with haste. Instead of opening the grid on the side of the vehicle, the side door opens with a bang to let out a tall and thin Wamba. A Wamba with a weapon in his hands.

The Wamba immediately closes the door of the ship behind him, and points his weapon at the group of miners, warning them to stay where they are. His voice trembling with stress makes the barrel of his gun even more frightening, although his whole body seems to be shaking. The Wamba takes a few steps to cross the twenty meters or so that separate him from the crater, without ever taking his eyes off them. And finally, he leans over the void.

His face, illuminated with an incandescent red, lets guess the flames at the bottom of the abyss.

Soria grabs his shoulder and whispers to him in her metallic voice "Human, if we don't try anything now, we are dead."

He can only nod, but how? To steal the food ship, they would need the keys. They can't use a flux, getting out of one prison to get to another doesn't make much sense. He can't run fast enough to reach the Wamba before he shoots him down, and Soria can't force the ship's door without damaging it. And how long do they have before someone else tries something?

A Cyclops rushes in.

Then a Ryker.

And soon enough, an angry crowd is rushing towards the frightened Wamba, too tense to think of using his weapon.

He is about to follow the movement when he feels a hand grabbing his bag.

A black veil passes in front of his eyes and space seems to suddenly distort. The world seems to have stopped and to have passed under a black and white filter. The cries of the others reach him as if he was under water. The space contracts again, and again, and again. And suddenly he falls to the ground, which he hits with a dull, metallic sound.

A hoarse voice suddenly thunders "Soria! I don't know how to drive it, Soria! Let's go! Let's go! Quickly!"

Antis teleported them inside the ship. Antis used the Smog. Antis saved them.

He sees Soria out of the corner of his eye, stranded to his right, leaping to the cockpit where she settles in a second.

Sitting on the ground next to the Shadow, his brain can't keep up with what's going on. All seems so unreal to him. His pants full of mud stick to the ground, his bag full of parts and debris crushes him a bit and his wicks a little too long sting his eyes. Seated with his back against the locked door, Antis is shaking, and when the engines start, his vision starts to blur.

In 30 seconds, everything changes. The screams of the fighting outside. The shots that ring out, rattling impacts against the ship's walls. The shadows cast by the mounts of detritus.

Everything disappears, and suddenly, the whole world is quiet.

Without a backward glance, Soria enters the coordinates of the Shadow Archipelago and pysh the gas. No guard ships are stationed around Asteriat, making them wonder where the dealer and the canteen ships came from. But there is little point in wondering now. They are gone. The three of them are free.

The journey to the archipelago takes more than a day. The geographical isolation of Asteriat was a surprise only for him.

Since the day he met him, Antis speaks of his planet as a distant and fantasized legend. Grandiose and sublime. And yet, when it appears through one of the windows, he sees that it's real. Once again, a surprise only for the human with amnesia.

If Antis manages to escape the Flux council long enough, he may have time to see his family again.

As the ship slowly began its descent, approaching the departure of its elder, he finally dared to ask the question. Why use the Smog? Why take them along? Antis answers "I'd rather spend my old days dry and well fed in a galactic prison, than in a hellhole like Asteriat. Soria knows how to fly, and you, I'm convinced you didn't belong in such a place."

He understands in a way. In fact, he doesn't need to understand. Antis has sacrificed himself for them. And yet it all seems so unfair to him. How is he ever going to return such a favor? He is convinced that he does not deserve such an act.

"You really want to thank me? Well, let's just say that if, when you get home, you find out you're an amnesiac billionaire, you'll come see me in a cell and bail me out."

He laughs at Antis' request, promising he'll do it if such a miracle occurs.

He does see that strange gleam in old Shadow's eyes, which dissipates in seconds. And he sees Soria turning her head towards them from the cockpit, looking at Antis from the corner of her eye. The silence reigns until the landing.

Soria has landed the ship on the ground, hiding it as much as possible behind reddish crystals that run through the planet, careful not to draw too much attention to the stolen ship and its occupants. When the door opens, Antis puts a foot in the ochre ground, trembling with emotion.

The goodbyes are brief, full of thanks and encouragement. And just as old Shadow is about to go out for a hatch that allows to go underground, he turns to Soria one last time.

"Don't do it, he doesn't deserve it and it will only bring you more trouble."

The Ryker suddenly stands up straight, glaring at Antis with a cold look.

"You think I have a choice? I need it."

"I think you need your daughter more than you need money. What's the point of having survived all this if they accuse you of taking him? Can you even imagine the consequences? Soria, think about your daughter."

"It doesn't matter if I get my daughter back if I can't offer her a good life."

Again, he's not sure he understands the exchange. His two friends look at each other without moving, the tension palpable in the air. He gets that the issue is about him. And yet, he doesn't understand. Since when has there been an undertone in their relationship? Antis and Soria have always been cordial to each other. He feels left out. Are they hiding something from him?

Antis finally shakes his head. "Think about it." He turns, giving them one last smile, and leaves.

Soria and him stay for a few minutes staring out at the endless desert, before returning to the ship without a word.

The Ryker takes over the cockpit, enters Akillian's coordinates on the dashboard, and he sits in the co-pilot's seat. He knows Soria is not a recommendable company, strictly speaking. But they've been through a lot together, stood by each other for a long time, and he thought he could say they are friends. And now he doubts all of it.

"Why did you drop Antis off first?"

"I'd rather take a fine for a stolen ship than be accused of helping an irregular fluix user. The sooner he got off the ship, the sooner we were safe."

"And why don't you go back to Unadar instead of dropping me off?"

"Because you wouldn't know how to fly between Unadar and Akillian, would you?"

"Maybe? I don't know."

"Stop asking questions and be quiet, we'll get there soon enough."

The silence falls again. It's hard to get things straight when they're alone in the little cabin. One wrong word and he wouldn't be surprised if the Ryker threw him overboard, friends or not. Unsure of what to say, he begins to stare at his feet, absently noticing that small purple petals stuck to his shoes.

None of them speak during the few hours of travel. Through the window, sometimes, planets pass in the distance, and he is surprised several times to feel like he recognize them. The more their destination approaches, the more the galactic landscapes are familiar to him. An asteroid belt. A stray moon. Galactic regulation beacons.

And suddenly it appears. Far away, in front of them, a white point cutting through the purple galaxies.

This is not how he had imagined Akillian. Not how he thought he had seen her in his dreams either. And yet, now that he sees it right in front of him, he realizes that this is the only possible version.

90% of the surface is covered with a crystalline white, making it shine with a ghostly glow. Where the carapace seems to have broken, a bluish earth can be guessed. His breath gets stuck in his throat and his vision blurs.

Soria begins the descent. Everything seems unreal. And yet a ball of nostalgia takes place in his stomach.

The Ryker makes the ship descend until she sees a city, turns a little, and lands on a frozen field at a reasonable distance.

The ship touches the ground, the engine cuts, and nobody in the cockpit moves. Soria looks straight ahead, her hands clutching the controls. She doesn't press the button to unlock the door.

When he catches her eyes, he understands she won't let him out.

He's getting cold, but he doubts that the snow falling gently on the windshield is responsible.

"Do you know how many people in this universe possess the Breath?"

He senses that the question isn't really one, but him who doesn't know much wouldn't have known what to answer anyway.

"You want my estimate? I'd say less than thirty. I heard only the generation born during the ice age can have it. Hell of a story, yeah."

He feels lost. He had no idea. Does owning the Breath make him valuable? Does Soria want to sell him?

"But the good thing about this bullshit story is that when some of them go missing, the whole fucking galaxy knows about it, you know. Everybody knows that the two retards in the back didn't come out of training with the others. How many years have they been fiddling us at game launches? How many times have we all heard the calls for witnesses thinking 'Give it up seriously, they're dead, quit kidding yourselves.'"

Outside, the wind howls.

"And you had to stumble upon Asteriat. So many years later. Knocked out, but alive. All happy to show me your flux like it's the answer to all your fucking problems." She shakes her head "Making the connection wasn't too hard from there, you know. All I had to do was keep you under wraps, keep anyone else from knowing about it, and leave with you."

Soria looks at him out of the corner of her eye.

"There's a bounty on your head, you know? A ransom even, a hell lot of money. And I'm sure if I shake you up a little, they'd be willing to double the bet."

He feels his heart stop beating.

Soria lets out a long sigh and rests her forehead against the controls on the dashboard.

The coins at the bottom of his bag have never felt so heavy.

"You'd better get out in a hurry. And keep your head down, you never know who might recognize you first."

Behind him, the side door opens with a metallic squeak.

It takes him a few minutes to come to his senses. Short of breath, eyes unfocused, he's not too sure what to believe anymore. Sitting in the co-pilot's seat, he finally puts his foot down, slipping between the two seats, finally turning his back on the Ryker, who hasn't moved.

He stops again before passing the door, suddenly deciding to remove his bag. He sets it down next to the stove, if Soria needs money to find her daughter, he can leave this one to her.

"Bye, Soria." And because it sounds a little hollow, he adds, "Thank you."

"You can thank Antis when you get him out of jail." The Ryker straightens up and turns to meet his eyes one last time.

"Goodbye, Micro-Ice."

He stands there for a while, in the middle of the full frost. Even after the ship has left.

Everything almost spins out of control so quickly.

His head spins a little, his vision tunneling a little. Soria looked sincere. People are looking for him, apparently for a long time. He is on the right planet. He has a family to find. Suddenly, all the sleepless nights he spent on Asteriat seem very sad.

He is aware he has a debt to Soria now. She could have abused him, easily, and sold him for a high price. And she decided not to. Thanking her for that may seem silly, sure. But she could have, she should have, and she didn't.

He has so much to digest.

The planet is beautiful. Hearing the snow crunch with each step makes a joy bubbles up in him that he didn't expect. A little more and he would have laid there in the snow to enjoy it fully. But he puts his hands in his pockets, tucks his chin into the collar of his jacket, and begins to walk back towards the city.

Seeing so much life after Asteriat is a shock, seeing humans again too. Seeing his reflection in the store windows has about the same effect. Not that he imagined himself differently, but he had never had the opportunity to see himself anywhere but in the reflection of a puddle or a broken cockpit window. He doesn't look clean nor well-fed, but he's standing on his two legs and with all his limbs. That's enough for him.

He decides to let his steps guide him. His legs found their way back into the town by themselves, so he intends to trust them for the rest.

Soria called him by a first name. Maybe he could find a clue somewhere? He is reluctant to ask, if money is really promised as a reward to whoever finds him first, he is too scared to run into someone with bad intentions. He's already had a hard time with the Ryker, he doesn't really want to repeat the experience.

He walks around and around, discovering step after step sceneries which seem familiar to him. And yet, after having wandered around for a few hours, he starts to doubt. Nothing seems to push him in one direction more than another. Nobody shouts his name when he passes by. The onlookers are indifferent, and he doesn't dare enter any shops.

People are chatting, a group of children is playing with a ball, teenagers are running with surfboards in their arms... He suddenly feels out of place in this setting, and all this world starts to make him dizzy, anxiety starting to encroach on his hope.

Taking a narrow turn, he moves away from the city core. Behind the buildings, smaller houses form a silent neighborhood. Eventually he comes to a patch of land, wedged between several old buildings. The place seems calm, and the earth contrasts with the snowy decor, resting his eyes. The bench at the end of the courtyard calls his name. A break is well deserved, for his legs and for his head.

He sits down, chasing the doubts from his head and the fatigue from his body, trying to catch his breath. After a few minutes, his mind is finally clear, and his gaze falls on the flowers around him.

The plot is well furnished. On one side, closer to one of the houses, all kinds of herbs grow, separated in small, well-defined squares of earth. Between the bundles, little objects shine in the sun to scare birds away. A wind chime sways softly in the wind. The person looking after the garden obviously takes care of it with all their heart.

And on the opposite side of the garden, near the bench where he is sitting, multitudes of small blue and purple flowers are growing in a jumble, decorating the ground. The sprigs are so numerous that they almost exceed the earth, some passing under the bench, resting gently against his shoes. Lost in his contemplation, he doesn't hear the door open.

"Forget-me-nots."

He had managed to calm himself but he jumps to turn around. A woman has come out of the house near which the herbs are planted. She must be in her fifties, brown skinned, a headband tying her hair. Surely he should apologize for entering her garden without permission, or perhaps even run away right now. But she doesn't look too bothered by his presence for now.

In fact, she doesn't seem surprised to find him there.

"They symbolize memory, through separation or death. But above all, they represent the bonds between people, the relationships that last through time, no matter the distance or the adventures."

The woman gives him a smile and, with a serene step, comes to sit beside him. The woman places a hand on his arm gently, like she is trying to convince him to stay where he is, to reassure him. Seeing the softness in her eyes, without really knowing why, he feels his throat knot up.

"My son plants them every year for you, glad it finally worked."

I hope you liked it!

The next two chapters are being translated right now, it shouldn't take too long!

In the meantime you can find them in french in the collection "All the ways you come back to me"