"I was born in Korea. Do you know where that is? No, you probably don't. You Western pricks never cared about anything East of India, so you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. You probably don't even remember how to locate your own asshole let alone some smear on the map of a mold-crusted planet that we used to call home. Why would I even think you cared? You don't. Just stop asking so many fucking questions and listen."

Shin-Hyun Moon rubbed the rim of his cup with a black-gloved thumb as he receded from his sudden hostile outburst. He never meant to get so antagonistic, it just came out of him sometimes when he least expected it.

Looking down into the thick liquid in his cup as it gurgled back at him, he waited for his drinking partner to respond. Moon despised the dark, bubbling concoction, but if he was going to dig deep into the pit of himself to share this torturous story of his gruesome beginning, he was going to need a few more rounds of the rancid stuff. The story Teeno wanted came from a place where the scraps of Moon's humanity still lingered on the tragic sequence of events. He could access them only when properly drunk off the black shit before him.

With a small, empty space between them at the black-stone bar top, Teeno eyed Moon with half-lidded skepticism. Reclining, his arms crossed over his decadently decorated chest, he waited for the strange man to begin. Teeno was dead curious. He'd heard strange legends of Moon, the Earthen man who was broken down and stitched back together with pieces of the universe.

And there he was.

With one leg fully extended in front of him, the other knee bent and a foot resting on the top rung of the precariously unstable stool, Moon leaned into the cold, bare counter where he regarded the other man with a similar wariness as he rested his temple on a knuckle. Black hair fell over his clean face where his gold-filled eye socket gleamed between the strands. Covered from head to toe in sleek black and brown, he didn't seem particularly epic.

So far, the man did not match the legend.

But Teeno had heard things. He was going to get the full story, or there would be no deal today.

After a hard pull of the drink, Moon slammed the cup down dramatically and looked at the sweet little green drink-keep behind the massive stone counter in the dim room that smelled like the armpits of a wet Satyr. She started at the noise and, with red eyes narrowed, came over to pour another small shot.

Moon went back to running his gloved finger over the rim of his drink. He regarded Teeno, the lithe, silver-haired, dignified man of massive wealth and chuckled into the full cup as he put it to his lips.

Oh, yes, the rumors were true. Teeno was handsome.

They were quite the sight in this ancient rest-stop on a rarely visited planet, somewhere comfortably stationed as a forgotten dot on an overcrowded map.

"You want a story?" Moon began, leaning back as well, "Fine. You remember the night you were abducted?"

Teeno's eyes rolled to the ceiling. "Yes, yes," he said with his crisp accent, one that he had taken pride in remembering, "We all have a horrible abduction story. Get on with it, Moon."

"That night I was abducted, I was restless. Sleepless. Unable to close my eyes because my mind was alive with thoughts of the next day and the future I was about to begin in our capital. I was being summoned. My studies, my family's tradition, all of my future success and fortune was resting on the promises of the next day when I'd travel to begin training as the king's astronomer. To add my findings to the records was all I'd ever dreamed of, all my mother and her mother and her mother's father had dreamed of as well.

"I was just beginning to finally settle into sleep when I saw the lights. I remember every second of that abduction. Especially the paralysis. I remember that like it was yesterday, but no, it must have been nearly five hundred years ago now. I don't keep track of Earth days. That's just pointless.

"They stuck me in the holding. You remember that? Worst night of my life by far, even after everything I've been through. Look at me. I've been through a lot of fucked up things. That night though, that was the worst. We were crammed in there, the flesh of strangers everywhere. I remember being jammed against skin slick with blood and saliva. Body parts surrounded me. I remember shifting left and right and touching hands, shoulders, feet, heads, genitals, you name it.

"And then someone took a shit. Can you believe that? Someone shit right there while we were all crammed together like rocks in a jar. Yours must not have been that bad, you don't seem as devastated. Someone shit and others bled. I remember tasting it. It ran into my mouth like cream, Teeno. We spent hours crammed together, mixing and swallowing all the fluids the human body can produce.

"But more than the taste of that concoction, I remember the moans and the cries of the people I was crushing with my body and the ones who were crushing me. I cried as well. We didn't know what was happening.

"Do you remember the slave auctions? Do you remember the way they prepared us, stripped us, wiped us, dressed us in those ridiculous flat garments? The air was cold and there was nothing on our feet but shackles. There must have been thirty of us up for auction. A little boy came to stand between me and another man, but what protection could we offer? We were just as fucked as him. I think the other man told him that.

"We were led in our massive huddle to a platform where we waited just behind it. We saw nothing but the textures of the different feet on the other side of the stage. It wasn't a large crowd. Maybe twenty or thirty. I was horrified. I saw skins and bodies of monsters and minerals who were waiting, tapping impatiently on the other side of the stage. These things were something beyond my nightmares, things even I wasn't creative enough to come up with."

"I know the markets, man! Get on with the story. We were all in them at some point or else we wouldn't be here," Teeno interrupted, scowling.

"My apologies, Teeno. I figured a man of your extensive means would have left the horrors of market days long behind him. No? Well, please forgive me. I didn't realize you had such a sensitive nature."

Teeno continued scowling.

"As I was saying, I watched the other Earthen get sold. Do you remember that? How that cuts at your flesh and every time another is led away, it's another hole in the stomach and slit of the throat?" Moon watched as Teeno's eyes hardened and his legs crossed and uncrossed uncomfortably. "I was tenth. I don't know how I remember that after all this time, but I remember I was tenth in line. Fourth, fifth, sixth, they all went fast. Domesticated pet, hard labor, fresh skins for the homes of the Cinyaizo... I'm glad I didn't know then what I unfortunately know now. The universe is not a loving place for Earthen.

"It was my turn. I shook. I shook so hard I couldn't step up without tripping forward. The little boy clung to my leg, making it harder for me to move away. I stared at my feet, weeping into them. I remember the cold of the platform and the silence of the crowd as I was presented.

"But then I looked up.

"Funny thing about that day is that all that fear, all that naïve terror died right there on the auction platform when I turned my eyes to the sky and noticed the universe for the first time.

"I forgot where I was and what was happening to me. The atmosphere of that planet was a thin, clear, translucent layer that let us all gaze out into the greater sky. That was the first time I real-ized where I was. I was in the middle of the universe, Teeno. Do you remember the first time you saw it? The darkness spattered with a heavy dusting of thick colors that congregated like blankets around celestial bodies that hovered nearby? The stars just only a stretch away?

"I suddenly realized I didn't want to go back to Earth where stars are an occasional pleasure. I wanted that sky and its nakedness.

"But I was only twenty-three. I was barely more than a fetus. I didn't know what I wanted or how to go about getting it. I will always love my Mother Planet, but my whole life I'd been a visitor on her. My home was in the stars. Suddenly, I found myself among them. Fear left me.

"You know it was a Meltronian, a little piece of brain-trash Meltronian who finally won me in the end? I could have been dead in ten sondits. I swear, this one looked evil. It was something in its bulbous blue head, the way its neurons blinked with excitement when it finally won the bid — I didn't know what was happening but I knew whatever it was, was fucking terrible.

"I was handed over, charged with following the Meltronian with loud noises and violent gestures when chaos struck. The Gilded Legion swarmed in, taking the entire market by complete surprise. They were like a metallic dust-storm released from hell and they ransacked the place with the most brutal ferocity I'd ever seen. I was stunned and couldn't move. They slashed at the market holders, the auctioneers, the participants, and my new Meltronian Lord with their spears. All, dead in ten sondits, sliced by razor gold so thick and heavy, my eyes were exhausted from simply watching. You've seen the Gilded, haven't you? No? They're a sight.

"Their armor is thick as stones and made entirely of gold. Up close, it's incredible: huge, heavy, and intricately laid with Juno's symbol - that one she blasts all over the fucking universe. You've seen it. It's the thunderbolt and feather strapped together with ribbon.

"The Gilded Legion busted up the place. But I had no concept of what was happening.

"I watched the carnage and instead of being terrified like I probably should've been, I became insatiably curious. Pulling my eyes away from the cosmos, I turned my attention to the planet I was standing on. I watched in fascination as the black sand under my feet absorbed the blood, sucking it into the core of the globe making the ground clean again. I was stunned. Despite the brutality and death around me, I was driven by my primal nature to observe and record. I wanted to study the sand.

"I was on my knees with death flying around me, but none of it broke my concentration. Instead, I crawled over to the nearest dead body that had been hemorrhaging profusely. When holding them, lifting them, letting them slip through my fingers, the black grains of sand cascaded like normal sand would. When I cupped the creature's gray blood, I stared in awe as each grain sucked up the ooze until my palm was clean. Nothing left in there but the black sand itself. I dug my fingers into the soft ground to try and see what was below the surface, but a Gilded grabbed me by the shackles and pulled me up, shoving me forward with the rest.

"I looked over my shoulder and actually wished I could go back to continue my observations. To this day, I've yet to return or even find out which planet we were on. I was crushed. There was so much to learn, but I was being stolen away again.

"We were marched down long, large, cold halls that echoed. I looked around and discovered that the little boy must not have made it. Only half of us had been taken by this new captor, and the others? I assumed they were killed in the crossfire.

"We stopped at two large doors with a golden sheen made dull in the darkness. When the guards opened those doors, they spread slow and heavy, bathing us in ethereal light as if the gates of Heaven had opened. As a collected congregation, we sighed with relief. Something that beautiful could not be bad."

Moon paused his story for a heartbeat, giving Teeno a sideways glance with his one good eye before he broke into a fit of uproarious laughter.

Teeno tensed at the hollow noise and tried to ignore the stares from the few menacing patrons in the otherwise empty saloon.

"Still restrained, they pushed me forward with the golden points of their spears. I stumbled. Anxiety was returning, rolling through my skin and landing heavy in my gut. I couldn't even hold my head up anymore. I had resigned myself to this new fate, whatever it would be. They made me kneel at the end of the hall where everything was still and silent.

"I looked up and there she was.

"'Juno,' she said from her throne which was made entirely of gold. She placed her hand on her heart to indicate she was referring to herself, 'is the master of this ship and the savior to whom you owe your life.' A guard came from behind me to cut my restraints. 'She welcomes you to the Olympi.'"