The Great Wide Somewhere

Chapter 1

When your path is the unknown, you have to expect the unforeseen. That is the life I had always wanted, the life of an explorer. I thought I was ready, willing, and prepared to let this life devour me; consume me so entirely that I would indeed become something different. I didn't expect that everything I had once thought was trivial would suddenly become my focus, my destiny.

As a little girl, I didn't dream of my wedding. I didn't play house with the other little girls. I wanted to know. Even before I understood what it was I was seeking; I knew that I wanted to know. I needed to learn what the tunnels of worms were like and feel the excitement of soaring like birds. I was compelled to taste air that wasn't saturated with the bitter burn of pollution and let the chill of the dark side of the moon penetrate me.

My father had longed for me to change my ways. Each day his hopes depleted as I returned home covered in the dusty grime from chasing ants and climbing trees. It dwindled even more as a near-constant focus on reading overshadowed my interest in local boys. If I were to learn of the unknown, I first had to consume all I could of the known. My thirst was insatiable; my relentless need for knowledge kept me up late into the evening hours and woke me with a start at the first sign of morning's light.

"Rosa, no reading at the table. I want to see that beautiful face of yours," my father would often chide over breakfast.

He was not dismissive of my desires. On the contrary, he was proud of my studies and quick wit, but our world had eroded back to simplicity. Some reveled in a romantic notion of a quiet life in sparse villages. Since the migration to distant universes far beyond the oceans of Earth had pulled the yearners to far-off lands of intrigue, Earth had been left with its mum. The ways of old came coursing back in like the rush of an incoming tide.

Those that stayed wanted the expected. Fairy tale cottages sprung-up as new families lived modest lives of love and warmth. The path was enticing, like being invited to a world that was all sunny days. But if all the days are bright, they are no longer sunny days, but merely days. None any better than the day prior nor the day ahead. The monotony, the tedium, bit at me.

"Luke stopped by again last night. I tried to find you, but your window was open and you had vanished," my father spoke casually, but his intent was clear.

"Sorry, Daddy, I heard there was a meteor shower and it pulled me straight from my window."

"He is a good man. The Gaston family is well respected. He would give you a happy life," my father gazed at me, only partially believing the words himself.

"I know; I will be kind when I see him next and apologize for my absence."

Luke was a good man, charming and handsome. He would always send a buzz through the girls at school when he was near. But, for me, he was just Luke; he did not make my heart flutter like the allure of the sky.

"Hello," his smile was a cheeky one, as though he was holding a comical secret.

"Hello, Luke."

He plucked a twig from my hair tenderly. "Already gotten into trouble before the sun has even brushed away the echos of sleep." This pulled the chuckle he had been stifling from his broad chest. It was infectious and led to a trill of laughter of my own. "Ah, there's my Bell," he smiled, always partial to my string of giggles.

"I'm sorry I missed you last night. There was a meteor shower."

"I should know by now to look in the tops of trees before your home," his smile was gentle and genuine. It was a smile you could build a life around if it were the life you were seeking.

But Luke knew that life around our village was not ahead of me. No one was surprised when I joined the military, and no one was surprised when I specialized in tactics. I was following my path, singular in my focus. I graduated with the highest decorations and my pick of posts. Again the way was clear, Agathe. The mystic of Agathe saturated every wide-eyed recruit. She was an enchantress that captured the soul of all seekers. The mission to seek new civilizations, learn, study, and collect, cast its spell on many, but few were offered the opportunity. Among those few, some were called back. Pulled to the normalcy of the life they know. The crew of Agathe did not have the normalcy of routine. They committed their lives to wander, pursue, but never settle.

One year, I had been aboard one year before we approached Provincia. It was the nucleus of our recent discoveries, the heart of the uncharted Universe we were roaming. And still, one step on the darkened planet made me feel more isolated than I had ever thought conceivable.

The planet was frozen in the moments of twilight. The greyscale permeated more than just the sky; the colorless soil gave way to a gnarled and sinister forest of trees. They twisted and warped at painful angles in their quest for even the slightest hint of light. Their leaves had long been shed like the final tears of a rolling sob. Any hope for light was strangled by the swirling clouds of an oncoming storm. The constant threat of nature's wrath left an offputting pressure on my chest as we gathered samples and set up a primitive tent base. I knew that if the clouds decided to open up and descend upon us with their rage, our small shelters would be of little protection.

But it was not the fury of a storm that halted our excursion. It was not the unsettled temperament of this strange world that contorted around us. It was a beast.