Episode 4 - curious message
The words of a messenger that came deep in the night.
Hello, I hope somebody is reading.
Nebulous City is bustling as soon as the sun becomes visible in the sky. But for me, the day doesn’t start until afternoon, when I wake up for my duties as a Keeper, followed by evening lectures that run late into the night. The City doesn’t force me to keep up this odd schedule. It’s just that, during the day, the City is too lively, and the sun too blinding that, strangely enough, even my eyes refuse to open.
But once afternoon passes, Nebulous City turns into something else. Steam rises from the ground, mixed together with the stench of rust and something else. If you ask anybody about it, they wouldn’t really know how to explain that – some even pass it off as natural gas. And for me, well, I didn’t really care what or why Nebulous City is the way it is. It’s just that, in the evenings and night, the City looked more like how it should look like.
That night, I laid on bed as usual, and I don’t know how much time had passed or whether I had even fallen asleep, but my eyes opened to a light blaring on my face. I sat up straight and watched as the Terminal in my room turned on and began booting itself up. I was sure I had turned it off. Or did I?
I got up and walked over to it and watched as the Terminal was logged into using my own data. Was it a hack? Or maybe a virus? Whatever it was, it opened up a typing program and words began to flow across the screen.
“Hello, I hope somebody is reading.”
My eyes went wide with recognition. Is this… me? The typing continued before I could think of other possibilities.
“If you are reading this, please go to the 3rd bus stop near K-Station. There is a key ring with two keys in it. One of the keys will open a locker by K-Station. Take whatever is inside it and hold onto it. It may be useful to you in the future.”
Nothing was typed out after that and as suddenly as the screen had turned on, it turned black. The Terminal had been shut down.
I stood staring at the screen, contemplating what just happened for a second. There’s no way that could have been something from within Nebulous City. And the chances of it happening from outside was also quite improbable. The chances of the whole thing being a trap or a setup was likely.
But the way how the message was typed out, the familiarity gnawed at my curiosity. Despite my logic telling me that I shouldn’t, I grabbed my jacket and walked briskly to K-Station that was, fortunately, just five minutes away from my apartment. Looking up, the stars were still shining in a sky that was beginning to tint blue. I realized that it was just before dawn. I’d better hurry before someone spots me. Sure enough, several meters away from the 3rd bus stop, I spotted the metal of the keys glint under the dim street lights. It was on the ground, next to the bench, looking as if someone had dropped it and forgotten about it.
I picked it up, and just as the message had said, one key was from a coin locker, with the number “27” carved into it. But what took me back was the other key. A face like a mask was drawn on the circular bow, and its blade was carved in a peculiar design. I recalled that the instructions said nothing about this key. I wonder what it was for.
Snapping out of my reverie, I walked over to the coin lockers another several meters away and easily found the locker numbered “27”. Inside, there was a thin rectangular shaped object about a third the size of my height, wrapped in old brown-colored parchment paper. Cautiously, I took it out, and for a moment, I wanted to rip off the wrapping right then and there, but I decided that would make too much noise and instead, promptly carried it back to my apartment before letting my curiosity run wild. I messily tore off the wrapping, which had a painted canvas hidden inside it. For a moment, I was disappointed, but as I began to study the colors on the smooth fabric, I began to be drawn into it.
The painting was of a winter night, with evergreen filled mountain sides framing a far away town. But what stood out was not the details of the trees or the town, but the night sky. A crescent moon glowed palely in the corner while small white stars oscillated, almost becoming one with the small drops of snow specked on the painting. I stared at it for a while, and thought, “The world must have seemed beautiful to the person who painted this”. And for some reason, it reminded me of you, Meraki. You were like that too, weren’t you?
I wonder, are you perhaps reading this?