Big Egos (an ego oneshot book)

Fireflies (Engineers Background)

Tw: none, I think. Please correct me if I'm wrong!

When Mark was a child, he used to sneak out of his house at night and lay in the grass in his backyard. In the summer, fireflies would be everywhere in his backyard at night. When he stared at the sky, it would sometimes look like the fireflies were part of the cosmos itself.

Stars dancing among the stars, weaving in and out of each other while the ones plastered in the sky like a heavenly painting stood idle, maybe occasionally pulsing.

He would be part of that painting someday, he told himself. He would be in a ship, among those stars. The lights of his ship would weave in and out of the galaxy. He would create a star among the stars.

Many children dreamed of space, and he was lost in the crowd. Him expressing his dreams always lead to a brief 'that's nice'. A chorus of children wanting to fight aliens, float in zero gravity, and explore more than earthly confines made his own dreams insignificant. A dime a dozen.

---

By the time he was a teen, the fireflies still captivated him. He would sit by his window doing homework, but would glance out the window quite frequently so he could see them dance across the yard and the sky. He still knew he would be up there some day. No matter how many chuckles he got when he said so. No matter how many 'shouldn't have you grown out of that by now?'s he got.

He belonged up there. Beyond the fireflies and among the vastness. Earth was feeling smaller and smaller by the day. The walls were closing in, and the only place that had enough room was space itself. Earth was only a prison, and he would break out.

---

As soon as he turned 18 he got a tattoo. A small, simple one on his wrist. Just a singular firefly, to always remind himself of his goal, and the depth of his desire to be up there.

An annoying amount of people were surprised when he went to college for engineering. Specifically engineering rockets. Every 'Wait, you were serious?' only fueled his need to be in the sky. Beyond the sky. Beyond them.

---

Years later he joined an organization and actually started drafting the blueprints for a massive ship that would take thousands to a distant planet. After all, humans were destroying earth like they had been for hundreds of years now. Earth would only be habitable for so much longer, and if this worked, it could buy another few thousand years for humanity.

That's not why he was so dedicated though. This wasn't about humanity, this wasn't about the withering earth. This was about the fireflies and stars.

Soon, he started hearing about a captain who would probably pilot his ship. He never met them, but he only heard good things. That they were the most capable person there could be.

And then the construction started. He helped and watched as his childhood dreams took the physical form of a large space ship. He wanted to call it The Firefly, but that would result in questions and he didn't want to explain how this all started because of the bugs he would watch in his childhood.

So he named it The Invincible. They would all assume he was referring to the ship, but to him? It was more of an affirmation. He was Invincible. People told him he wouldn't be here, but their words didn't falter him, and now his dream was right there.

—

It turned out The Invincible wasn't... well, invincible. It was a blur and for some reason he couldn't exactly remember what happened. But that was fine, he started again. With more ambition this time. Larger, more polished, more defenses, more systems. A warp core beyond anything he had ever built before.

Then they were in the stars again. One hundred thousand people, ready for a new life. A capable crew. They were an artificial moving light among the stars. They were fireflies.

The Captain came, and Mark had nothing but faith in them. Since he had first heard of them, they had piloted a record number of ships. Nothing this big, but more than anyone had ever done before.

Never a single casualty from this captain, so why would anything start now?

—

Mark tells himself all this every few hours (probably. Time didn't make sense there), while trapped in that room, trying to rebuild the warp core.

He had been stuck for so long. For a while the dull nothing was welcoming, after falling through so many alternative universes. It was so much and he told himself that he could breathe now. It was a good thing.

It turned out traveling through so many universes really messed a person up. He had no clue how long he was really in that room, but it was longer than anyone should survive without sleep, food or water.

He felt the need for these things, but there was no food or water in the small Warp Core room. He couldn't sleep no matter how hard he tried. His hunger and thirst grew so strong yet he never died. He just worked.

After a while, things started to slip his memory. So he told himself his own story. He told himself about the fireflies, and his determination. He told himself he was invincible. He told himself what the captain had done to him. He told himself about why he had to keep going.

He recited it until every word was burnt into his brain. He recited it till it was impossible to forget, and continued to recite it all like a song that was stuck in his head. He couldn't afford to forget. He needed to remember for when the captain eventually showed up. They needed to show up. He couldn't finish what had been started withou-

Suddenly, as if the room hadn't been utterly stagnant for what felt like eternities, a wormhole opened.

Mark quickly picked up a fire extinguisher, knowing exactly what he had to do.

"Hi Captain"