– – – – – – – – – –

  Hoddesdon (England)

  21 October 20XX

  1 day until Ethan’s disappearance

  – – – – – – – – – –

  When the bell at Stanstead Secondary School signals the end of classes, a crowd of students pours out of the building, laughing and shouting. I am among them, alone, as I head for the pole where I have chained my bicycle. Once I remove the chain, I get on and ride into the city traffic.

  Pedalling briskly near the edge of the road, overtaken by quick-to-honk cars, I can finally think about my own interests.

  Not far from the school, a strange individual on the pavement is screaming at the top of his lungs, a sign hanging from his body that reads “The end is near.” Most people seem to ignore him, and even I pay him hardly any attention as I pass by, catching only a snippet of his religious-themed words:

  “… let us build ourselves a city and a tower, whose top may reach the sky. But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that men were building. And the Lord said: let us confound their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech. The Lord scattered them from there across the face of the whole earth…”

  The day after tomorrow, the book I ordered should arrive, I think to myself. Damn it, what was Maggie thinking, spoiling it for me like that? How infuriatin… nooooo!

  I slam on the brakes, just in time to avoid running over an elderly lady who decided to step onto the pedestrian crossing without warning, right in front of me. With my hands clamped on the brakes, I find myself a few centimetres from the woman, who notices me only then.

  “Oh, hello, Ethan!” she says, smiling at me through her thick, bottle-bottom glasses.

  “G-good afternoon, Mrs Lonsdale,” I reply, my heart still pounding from the near-miss.

  “Long time no see!” the elderly lady says. “You’ve grown so much! And you’ve…”

  Then, as often happens with people her age, she starts chattering away without stopping for quite some time. I listen in silence, bored but afraid to interrupt her. After all, she used to be my mother’s employer, and they stayed friends even after she retired. I don’t want to seem rude.

  It’s made harder by the tension still gripping me from the near accident. I feel a strong throbbing at my temple, a remnant of the fright I just had. Damn… I’m getting a headache. Again.

  There was already the one yesterday. Good thing Mum should have picked up some more painkillers.

  Thank goodness, she finally finishes by declaring:

  “… and you’re so good, polite, and kind! I always said you should have been a Scout! Do give my regards to your mother!”

  “Yes…” I answer, as the woman resumes crossing.

  Scout?

  – – – – – – – – – –

  Stanstead St Margarets (England)

  Same day

  A few hours later

  – – – – – – – – – –

  The afternoon sun shines in the sky. A rare event for the autumn season. However, this fine weather is not destined to last. Very soon, banks of clouds come rolling in, darkening the sky. Thus, when the sun begins to set, it becomes so dim that at home we are forced to switch on the artificial lights.

  Having finished dinner with my family, I head into the living room, where I left my backpack. The moment I flick the light switch, though, there’s a sudden flash, and the bulb explodes.

  What the heck… I thought LEDs didn’t pull stunts like this!

  Frowning, I stare at the shards of glass on the floor. That’s when Jason appears behind me. With all the authority of his fourteen years, he doesn’t hesitate to say:

  “Now change it!”

  Under my little brother’s watchful eye, I grab a stepladder and a box of new bulbs. Lugging weights certainly does no favours for my head, which has been throbbing non-stop since earlier, even though a painkiller I took as soon as I got home has started to ease the discomfort.

  Using a torch to light the spot, I manage to replace the blown light. Satisfied, I then go to the storage closet to put the tools away.

  While I’m setting the box of bulbs on a shelf, Jason takes the torch I’d left nearby. I pay him no heed until he calls me:

  “Ethan…”

  “Yes?”

  “Did you use the torch?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how, if there aren’t any batteries?”

  As he asks, Jason shows me the empty battery compartment. It’s completely bare.

  I grab the torch to check for myself. Indeed, my little brother was right.

  Pulling a puzzled face, Jason leaves. As for me, I put the torch back, feeling bewildered.

  And yet I’m certain I used it, I think, absently resting my right hand on the box of bulbs. Huh?

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  A light has flared from a slit in the side of the box. Frowning, I open it to see what caused it.

  There’s nothing unusual here.

  I pick up one of the bulbs. As I look at it, it seems to give off a faint glow. It lasts only an instant, then vanishes without a trace.

  Nah… I must have imagined it.

  Over these last few minutes, carrying the ladder has made my headache flare up a bit more. I press a hand to my forehead as I turn my back on the box. At which point…

  “… Ethan.”

  My father was standing behind me. I hadn’t even noticed him come into the storage closet.

  He looks from me to the shelves behind me.

  “You’re not feeling well?” he asks.

  “Just a headache… it’s easing up,” I reply.

  “… go and get some rest. Your brother was saying some curious things about the torch.”

  “Ah… yes, it’s strange… apparently I used it without batteries. Maybe I took them out without realising? Who knows…”

  Dazed by the pain, I shuffle out of the closet. As I go looking for my backpack…

  “Ethan,” my father calls after me. “If… something odd happens… anything to do with electricity…”

  I turn to look at him. He seems hesitant.

  “… well, let me know,” he concludes. “Actually… tomorrow we’ll have a talk, all right?”

  “… okay?” I reply, puzzled. “After I get back from the research centre.”

  “Yes, that’s better.”

  … I’m not in trouble, am I?

  ???

  As Ethan goes on his way, his father glances again at the box of bulbs on the shelf. He didn’t mention it before… but he saw it: how, while the boy had his back to the box, light began to shine through the slits in it, emitted by the many bulbs inside.

  A phenomenon that ceased the moment Ethan realised his father was there.

  – – – – – – – – – –

  Epos (Maltia)

  ?? ?? ????

  Ethan’s 3rd day on Tersain

  – – – – – – – – – –

  Suddenly, I wake up. Or rather, the dozing state I was in comes to an end, disturbed by a loud noise. I realise I was dreaming. Heaven knows why, but in that near-sleep condition, memories of some of the last events before my arrival on Tersain came back to me.

  My head throbs slightly, due to a headache that set in a few hours ago. Trying to ignore it, I attempt to get back to sleep. Fortunately, bit by bit, the pain begins to fade.

  Through my half-closed eyelids, I think I catch a faint flickering from the dim night lights in the corridor.

  ???

  I didn’t have a good night. My anxieties alone were enough to delay my rest, but being aboard the Epos has made things much worse. First of all, there’s the humming: continuous, relentless, emanating from who knows which mechanisms of the vessel, permeating its prison quarters. Then there are the occasional lurches of the ship, the fluctuations of the magnekinítiras, and the cold, thin air.

  Perhaps the nighttime drop in temperature bothered me the most, given that I’m stuck with a blanket that’s far too thin. Naturally, the temperature range is caused by the lack of solid ground. On the island, it was different, but now—without any landmass to absorb the day’s heat—once the sun “sets,” the air quickly loses several degrees. Being used to a milder climate, I find that this discomfort is no small matter.

  If only I could have a bit more oxygen, maybe I wouldn’t feel like my brain is in a fog, I think as the daytime lights in the corridor come on, prompting me to abandon all attempts at further sleep.

  At least I’ve managed to clarify the origin of my shortness of breath. According to Jim, the gravity—or as they call it here, magnetism—is generated not by the centre of Tersain, but by each individual fragment. So it’s normal that you start to float once you move away from them, and for the same reason, the air tends to gather around the islands, thinning out the farther you go.

  So each fragment has its own subjective gravity… yet I’m sure I’ve seen they have a top side and a bottom side, as if the pull were only in one direction. It’s odd, too, that despite their modest size, the islands individually maintain a gravity very similar to that of Earth.

  The more of this world I manage to explain, the more new questions arise.

  I let out a big yawn, which does little to ease my craving for “normal” air. When I went to be questioned, I noticed that in other parts of the Epos, the temperature and oxygen levels are higher. A pity I’m a prisoner who clearly isn’t to be granted too many comforts.

  I cast a glance outside the cell. A thin, taciturn man has taken Jim’s place for the night. He hasn’t spoken a single word to me, simply dozing in his seat.

  A siren sounds, signalling that the magnekinítiras have been switched off. I promptly grab a handhold, waiting for another gravity generator to come online. It seems they rotate these devices aboard, perhaps for maintenance or just to cool them down.

  Once the weight returns, Jim shows up beyond the bars.

  “Hey there, Ethan!” he greets me cheerfully.

  “Hi.”

  I can only imagine how I must look after a near-sleepless night.

  “Sion, go sleep somewhere else,” the boy says to the guard, who rises, grumbling, and gives up his seat to the newcomer.

  “On duty again?” I ask.

  “Only this morning and tonight, then I’ll be doing something else for a while,” Jim replies, taking the keys. “Let’s go—I’ll take you to the loo.”

  I suppress a grimace of displeasure. Unfortunately, there’s not much to be done about that.

  ???

  Once I’m back in my cell, I find a meagre breakfast waiting for me, made up mostly of dehumidified sticks. I munch them without much enthusiasm, then sit on the floor just behind the bars so I can watch the corridor.

  “What do you think they’ll do to me now?” I ask Jim.

  “Hard to say,” he replies. “You were interrogated by the captain himself, so it’s clear they consider you a person of some importance… more in a bad way than a good one, seeing as you’re suspected of being a spy.”

  “Will they torture me?”

  “We’re not the Republic, we don’t resort to those methods lightly. Of course, it would help if you didn’t spout certain nonsense during interrogations.”

  “I understand you don’t believe me, but I’m telling you again—I spoke the truth,” I declare.

  “And I’m telling you again that, at best, you’ll manage to come across as crazy,” Jim shoots back. “If Tersain was ever all one piece, it must have been thousands of years ago.”

  “I’m telling you, I’m not from Tersain.”

  I have to think of a way to prove I don’t belong to this… planet. But how do you prove something like that? If only… my phone!

  Actually, they confiscated my mobile yesterday along with the few other belongings I had with me. No doubt they’ve already examined it thoroughly, but maybe they still don’t really grasp what it is. I’m starting to understand how technology works here, and I doubt they’ve got anything like a phone of that sort.

  If I showed them how it works, maybe they’d believe me. Sure, I can’t call anyone, but if it still has enough battery, I could at least show them a few apps…

  There’s only one thing holding me back: I want to save the battery. Not that there’s any reason to think I might eventually find a signal and contact someone. It’s more of an irrational wish, as though having a phone that still works helps me feel safer.

  While I’m considering another way to prove my origins, someone steps in front of me, right outside the bars. I lift my gaze and lock eyes with Dawn.

  “Hi,” she greets me.

  “Hi…” I reply automatically.

  Of all things, I really didn’t expect to see her here. In fact, I haven’t seen her since we parted ways in the hangar of the Epos.

  She studies me for several long seconds. Her expression is serious.

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