As Sjon opened his eyes, the bright white light hit his eyes with a burning sensation. He tried to sit up in bed, and was greeting with unfamiliar surroundings. Right. He, Pilar, and Cyrus were captured and brought to a transport ship. Sjon had no idea what was going on. All he knew was that after they had entered the small ships, they had boarded onto a gigantic spaceship.

The ship was called the "Ingen", a Kameng name. It meant something along the lines of 'Gigantic' or 'Monstrous'. Certainly, the ship was huge compared to the other ships Sjon had seen, but Pilar claimed that it wasn't the biggest she'd ever laid eyes on.

Now, everyone was separated, and Sjon had no idea what time it was. They had been escorted into different parts of the ship, and were commanded to stop talking after taking a few steps in the ship.

His room—more like cell—was small. It contained a small twin sized bed, with nothing more than a thin blanket and poorly stuffed pillow. There was a small chair in the corner, but it didn't look more comfortable than the bed. Inlaid in the door was a rectangular window, which Sjon peered out. He saw a long hallway filled with piercingly bright white lights, with many doors similar to his lining the walls. At the end of the corridor stood a tall figure.

"Hello? Can someone please tell me what's going on?" yelled Sjon, pounding on the door. The guard didn't do so much as to turn around.

He banged again. "Hello? Please?"

The guard turned around, revealing a dark face and strong features. She slowly walked over to Sjon's door, and placed a square cube on the window of his door. He only looked at her, confused.

"Shut up, or else I'll do it for you," she spoke menacingly, her voice low and rough.

Sjon looked at her, confused. He assumed the little box on his window was supposed to incite fear in him, but it didn't seem that threatening. Still, he stood back from the glass pane, not wanting to risk it.

"What's that?" he asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

The woman narrowed her eyes. "Were you raised in a barn?"

"No, I was raised on Earth," replied Sjon, folding his arms.

"Earth?" scoffed the guard in disbelief. "I didn't know we carried crazy people on this ship."

"Can you just tell me where we're going?"

"No can do, son. Even if I wanted to, Ingen's destinations are completely confidential. I do hear we're going to a warp station though."

"A warp station?"

"You're kidding me, right?" the woman paused, and then sighed. "It's where ships go to use wormholes, since we don't have a portable one."

Sjon nodded, only half understanding. "Um... Thanks."

The woman had already walked away, uninterested in the rest of the conversation.

Sjon lied back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, after all, there was nothing else to do. He had no idea how much time passed, he assumed it was around a day or two, but that was purely based on how many times he was fed. It could have been up to 6 days. He mostly lied down and slept, feeling the hum of the ship under his body. Because the ship was made of milium, he thought maybe he could escape, but the ship's mass was too huge to even try.

Eventually the hum stopped. He assumed they had arrived at the warp station, or whatever it was called. The process of going through wormholes was a mystery to him, as in his time, the data was highly confidential as people tried to monopolize on it.

From what he had picked up from Cyrus, it involved negative matter to hold open the wormhole, a form of matter easily accessible to people with a certain form of magic. Regular people, however, had a much harder time accessing this exotic form of matter, and the technology had only been invented in the past thousand years. Additionally, an object had to be at the absolute zero temperature, where particles had no motion. If a regular object attempted to travel through the wormhole, it would be torn apart by gravity and space. Of course, that excluded the special people with the power to manipulate wormholes. They could maneuver around the dangerous areas, called singularities. Therefore, that was the reason milium was used in space crafts. It was a special and rare metal that was used exclusively on space devices, and cost more than a person's life. The element also had the property of easily reaching absolute zero.

How the objects inside the milium survived, Sjon had no idea. Eventually the ship started humming again, this time at a higher frequency. Sjon was suddenly slammed back against the wall as the ship started to move rapidly. A strange feeling overcame him, like his body was slowly collapsing in on itself. An immense pressure weighed down on him, and his heart started to pound. The compression lasted for only a few more seconds before it was released, and the hum of the ship returned back to how it was before.

In a few minutes, a different guard opened Sjon's door. He was enormously tall, and held a similar cube to the woman's at his side. The man placed two rings around Sjon's wrists. He felt the hum of the ship disappear, wondering if the rings stopped his powers. Although they weren't physically attached, they couldn't be pulled more than a few inches apart.

He was led into a large hangar area, with many of the tinier ships sitting around. Sjon was pushed into one, and although it was nicer than Cyrus', it was certainly more cramped.

The guard flew him out of the hangar into the vastness of open space. Outside the window, Sjon could see millions of stars in unfamiliar constellations, and a strange blue coming from the bottom of the ship. He floated up in his seat a little to try and see the lower part of the window. It became easier with the descent of the vehicle.

Below them was a gigantic planet, covered by a cool blue hue, indicating an atmosphere. Below the air, Sjon could see a lush green landscape, filled with mostly water. It was strangely reminiscent to Earth, but with different shapes for the continents. Along with the lush hues of the planet were strange whites as well. Sjon could only assume they were buildings, or rather cities, scattered in the wildlife. Some shapes were strangely round, and some seemed to be placed right on top of the topiary. It was too far to saw anything for sure, but they seemed as if they were floating cities. Along with the white cities flew fluffy yellow clouds, ranging from near white to a dark brown. The clouds were few and far in between, and each one seemed to have more of the white circles around it.

As they approached the planet, they flew past one of the huge clouds. This one was a yellow ochre color. The cloud was gigantic, spanning a huge amount of area. Underneath it were several white disks, completely flat, doing nothing but sit under the cloud, completely still.

Moving into the lower portions of the atmosphere, Sjon could see giant floating cities, complete with large spires and strange loops. Underneath the cities were large gray disks, which seemed to act as magnets keeping the city afloat.

Lower down on the ground seemed to be mostly greenery, but the pair was descending into a large city, surrounded by a clear dome. A hexagonal portion of the dome lifted into the air, allowing the guard and Sjon to descend into the city. It was mostly white, with circular districts in the city. It was large, possibly larger than some of the smaller countries on Earth. He had no words to explain the monstrosity that was the giant dome. As they got closer to the land, the dome reached so far up, it disappeared into the atmosphere.

Finally landing, they appeared to be in a large field, except the ground was purely white, and completely flat. As the ship landed, they started rolling towards a large building, adorned with the letters "U S".

The guard turned to Sjon. "We've arrived at the Urbus Spaceport. I have orders to pass you off to another L.E.A.F. agent there." The statement was short and curt, and nothing was said after the brief conversation, if it even could be called that.

They arrived inside the large building, which appeared to be similar to an airport. Many people flooded the area, many of them taller than him, although he spotted a few people around his height, although they all seemed stockier and were slightly shorter.

Dwarves, he thought. In fact, as soon as he noticed the different race, he began seeing many of the different races running around the building. The Elves, with their long ears, the Seraphs, with their huge wings, and the Felins, with their cat-like features. He spotted more of the short Dwarves, easily spotted by their wiry hair. He didn't see any of the pale Seipys, but he assumed they must be present as well.

He was pushed into the hands of a very tall Seraph, dressed in the same bland uniform as the other guard.

▅ ▆ ▇ █ ▇ ▆ ▅

It was not long after that Sjon found himself in another holding cell, albeit this one was significantly larger than the last one.

There was not anything to do again, except this time there was a table, conveniently place for Sjon to sit and do nothing. Every couple of hours a person in a lab coat would come in, either to give him food or ask him questions. They either wanted to know about Earth or Cyrus, or both.

After a few weeks of sitting around and answering questions, Sjon was restless. They didn't let him out of the tiny room, and he was beginning to feel claustrophobic. He had asked, and food was given to him around three times a day. It was always the same meal. Bland food that tasted dry. He learned later it was because of rehydration.

Another day like this, and he wouldn't be able to stand it much longer. He looked out the small window on the wall in his room, his only solace. Unfortunately, what lied outside wasn't much more interesting. It only showed him that he was in one of the top floors of the building, and that all of the buildings below were painfully white. He assumed he was in the center of the city called Urbus, because he couldn't see the edge of the clear dome.

Sjon looked away from the window, sitting at the compact table. It was made of a soft material, and he had been drawing on it using his fingernails to pass the time. Adorning the surface were several blocky drawings of the floating cities and the strange people he had seen before.

Seeing the people of this time up close was terrifying. Pilar had claimed the average height of a human was seven foot six, but most of the people he had seen were taller. Perhaps it was due to a ton of short people messing up the numbers. Short people like him.

His nail slipped on the face of the table. He frowned. He had been sketching one of the weird plants from Delphi Oon, and now it was ruined. Thinking back, his finger had twitched because of a weird feeling. It was very cold. Weirdly cold.

Sjon turned around to see a very strange apparition. There seemed to be a spherical section of his room that had completely warped shape. He stepped away quickly. The sphere was shaped from the light of the room, seemingly bending it out of shape. Freezing cold temperatures radiated from the orb. At the center appeared a strange vision. It was a completely different landscape, as if Sjon were looking through a window.

Then suddenly a figure popped out from the orb, and it vanished completely. The person stood up, their height easily reaching seven foot eight. It seemed to be a boy, with extremely pale skin and white hair that was mostly short, but some sections came down to his shoulders. He looked around the room, and then looked down at the terrified Sjon. Although Sjon was standing completely straight, he only made it up to the person's chest. What's worse was that the boy appeared to be around Sjon's age, even though the gap in their heights was so prominent.

"Hello, may I ask your name?" The Seipy held out his hand with the palm facing inwards, similar to how a handshake would be presented.

"Sjon. What are you doing here?" he asked.

The boy looked around. His amicable face fell to confusion. "Isn't this the Urbus Temporary Housing Facility?"

"I think so?"

"You think so?" scoffed the tall boy.

"Well, I was brought here after my... uh... guardian got arrested, but no one really told me what was going on."

"Well then. This seems to be the right place." He nodded, smiling again. "Could you move out of the way? I should go. I have a meeting with the captain here."

Sjon obliged, not sure what the boy was planning to do. He stepped over, sitting on the table, and the Seipy nearly climbed over him. He groaned in frustration as the door wouldn't open.

"How can I get out?" he asked, clearly disturbed.

"Well, some people in lab coats come and check on me every two hours. It's been a while since the last one came, so they'll probably be here soon and can let you out."

"That's great." He smiled, sitting on the bed.

A few moments passed. "Do you have anything to do in here?"

"No." replied Sjon passively. He had returned to scratching the table.

"That sounds awful. How long have you been here?"

"Only a couple of weeks," Sjon shrugged. From what the Seipy had said before, it seemed like this building was meant to keep people with nowhere else to stay until they found another place to be.

"Why are you here?" asked Sjon.

"I'm here to look for people to recruit. My father is the captain of a space cruiser in charge of patrolling a dangerous area, and we could use some extra crew."

"No, I mean why are you in my room?"

"Oh! The blueprints for this building must have been wrong. This was listed as a conference room."

"How'd you get here?"

"Didn't you see the wormhole? It's kind of hard to miss. I'm a wormhole esper."

"I've never seen a wormhole before."

"Not even on TV?"

Sjon shook his head.

"Where were you raised? That's ridiculous!"

Sjon sighed. "I was born on Earth."

"Earth? Um... Wasn't Earth abandoned, like two billion years ago or something?" The Seipy looked at Sjon like he was crazy. Why wouldn't he?

"I died, and somehow my body survived this long, until Cyrus brought me to life. Cyrus—that's who I was living with until he got arrested."

"That's ridiculous," he said, shaking his head. "Wait! I knew I saw you from somewhere!" The boy jumped up and walked over to Sjon, grabbing his face. "My father once went to a gala with this eccentric rich guy, and he had this collection of dead bodies from all these different time periods. Yeah, you look just like the oldest one he had! He was so proud too, I wonder what he'd think about it coming to life...?" The Seipy stared at Sjon in wonder, moving his face around to get a better angle. Eventually his hands dropped.

Sjon rubbed his face. "Yeah, I was told I was a... collector's item." He frowned, thinking about the strange feeling the situation gave. His shoulders slumped, his being feeling less and less valid, and more like an object. He hated being reminded about the time when he was dead.

"That's so interesting. Perhaps I'll do some research on it next time I'm bored." The tall boy sat back down on the bed, immersed in thought.

Sjon hadn't imagined a Seipy would be like this. They seemed like a closed off race, but this one was open and friendly. Perhaps it was just his curious nature.

A frantic woman opened the door. "How'd you get in here? Who are you?"

The Seipy stood up, revealing his height to be taller than the woman's. "I'm Ilo Rembrandt, I'm here for a meeting with Mr. Ryshan?"

The woman stood back, unblocking the doorway. "Yes, yes. But why were you in one of their rooms?"

Ilo took the opportunity to step outside and follow her down the hallway. "You really need to update your bluepri—"

The door slammed behind them before Sjon could hear another word. He watched them walk down the hallway and turn right. He sat back in the chair. That was... strange.