STRANDED, 3000.

“0416, 0416, 0416” Kayelin was on her knees passing the long dull tunnel recalling this number. ‘How long was this tunnel and where did it end?’, she was asking herself. It felt like she had been in this dark place for more than an hour now. Slowly, she could see a light of faint blue light and a small door that looked like it was impossible to get in. She reached her hand towards the blue light because it looked so magical then suddenly a voice asked: “Please give the 4 numbers.” “0,4,1,6! Please let me in.” The door suddenly got bigger and bigger and it opened widely. “Please come in.” and someone outside the door reached out the door waiting for Kayelin to grab it. She got up and grabbed the person’s hand and went in the new space. “Thank you for giving your hand.” she looked up and saw another person that looked exactly the same as Jin. He must be another personality of Didion, or maybe Didion himself. “Welcome, Kayelin. I am Didion.” “Didion? You are the one!” “Yes, I am the one. And you are Kayelin. So what’s going on?” “Well, I just met Flays and he let me to this place.” “What’s your question? I know that you know all the people you met are me.” “You are right. I know that you are the one. You are the one that did everything. But then, why can’t you stay as Didion?” “I don’t know. It isn’t something that I cannot control. But things are getting better after you came.” “What do you mean? I didn’t do anything.” “I cannot explain what it is but Newton told me he fell in love with you. Also, Zimbardo and Horace who were hot-tempered aren’t coming anymore.” “Does that mean…?” “Yes, your love is curing me. And I thank you a lot. When I realized I had DID, I tried to cure it by myself but it didn’t work.” “How did you try to cure it?” “I shot myself in the heart because I thought even if I die, the other 6 would die as well. But then, Mrs. Brigitte saved me by cryonics and when I woke up again, I realized I was the same.” Kayelin went to him and hugged him. “You didn’t have to be so harsh on yourself. It’s okay, from now on I will always be with you. Tell me more about Zimbardo and Horace. I want to know more about you.” Didion put Kayelin on his laps. “Zimbardo is 30 years old. He is a homosexual and claims there are people chasing him. He doesn’t go to public places where there are lots of people and he won’t tell you anything about his past. A very enigmatic man. Horace is a little different. He believes that it is 2914, the year that his parents passed away. Oh, and he thinks you Kayelin as a daughter of his mother’s friend.” “I see.” “Kayelin, who do you think I am? Now you have met almost everyone inside me.” “I just think of you as Didion. You are not someone else but Didion. It’s okay, I understand that you would be confused and worried when you will become another person. But listen to me. You know who you are, you know your name. If you wish, all the special talents others have can be yours because it is yours. Then, you will always find yourself as Didion. Believe in yourself, trust and love yourself than anyone else. Talk to me when you are weary and try to think more about the good memories than the ones you want to forget. We made some together when we were young, remember? Aldwin, you and I used to do everything together in middle school and that was one of the best moments in life for me. You deserve to be happy Didion.” Kayelin didn’t finish what she was saying but Didion called her. “Kayelin” “Yes, Didion.” “Let’s get married when we reach Kepler-186f.” “Okay, Didion. But first, we have to get out of this place… We need Newton. He is the only key to the exit.” “Hey, I am also Newton. I know the way, let’s go.” “Didion, actually do you have an idea where we are right now?” “We are in the private room of Mrs. Brigitte. This is where she keeps all the secret documents and make the decisions. That is how I designed the room but it might have changed because it was quite long ago. Nobody except Mrs. Brigitte is allowed to come in here but I know the password for every other room because I set it.” “Then does that also mean we don’t have to run through the maze anymore?” “Yes.” “Didion, let’s stay here for a couple more hours longer. There must be something important in this room and I don’t want to miss any information that we can get out of. Let’s look around the room. I will look at her desk and you can go to the bookshelves or take a rest.” Kayelin went to the right to go to where the desk was. If Didion was remembering the structure correctly, there had to be some evidence left of what was going to happen. The desk had nothing on top of it except a very dusty globe on the edge. Kayelin grabbed the globe with her hands and blew the dust out of it. The dust didn’t fall down but just moved away in the and soon she realized all the parts except the ocean were red. She didn’t know what this meant and so opened the 3 drawers in order to see if anything was remaining. There was nothing she could see. She thought this was impossible and called Didion. “Didion! Can you come here for a second?” “Sure wait a moment, my love.” “It is impossible. Did she move all her belongings? Why can’t I find a single thing related to her?” “Is that true?” Didion opened the drawers like Kayelin did and looked carefully putting his hand inside touching all the edges of the drawer to grab it if he found something. “I think I can feel something.” “What? Really? Bring it up.” Didion put the object he found. It was an USB. “Hey, well done! There must be something inside this. I think she forgot to take it with her because it was too small. Where can we connect this?” “I already found a remote control that can connect the USB and the screen at the same time. It’s right here next to the desk. Let’s try.” Kayelin gave the USB and Didion started connecting it. Soon they found a 10-second video in the file but there wasn’t anything else in the USB. “I think this is all we can find here. Should I play it?” “Yes, go Didion.” He pressed the play button and soon they saw thousands of creatures moving on their two legs. They had a face with 2 eyes, a mouth, and a nose just like a human being. The body size didn’t seem much different with Kayelin but the only big difference they could notice was that the size of their head and eyes. The head was very slender like an ice-cream cone and it seemed that their eyes were covering half of their entire face. “Oh my god… What is this?” “Shh. Be quiet.” The creatures were walking around like a human making strange sounds and the video ended. “Didion, I think the government lied to us completely. Those must be the aliens that are living on Kepler-186f. How did they take the video? They were contacting with the living creatures of Kepler-186f. Or maybe humans are already living there. If it isn’t, how is this possible?” Didion was scratching his head then replies, “I think I may know the answer. I remember something from the past.” “What is it?”, she asked in a worried voice. “Kayelin if I am fully cured of my disorder and remembering this right, then they have been watching us all this time. ‘They’ means the creatures living on Kepler-186f. You know I came here before right? I have been in this room. This is where Mrs. Brigitte used to contact them. Their world is different from ours. The time is different completely and that means from the past, they could see the process of the earth disappearing. They told us the earth would be demolished on the 16th of April, 3000 and they were the ones who are trying to save us. Why? Because their world isn’t as developed as ours. They wanted technology, AI from us. They admired humanity and wanted to become like us. I know that we have already sent them AI robots we had and they promised to accept us, that’s what I can remember. Mrs. Brigitte’s mind is more complex than this maze.” “Looking for me?” someone whispered behind them and Min and Jin froze and turned back slowly at the sharp voice. Mrs. Brigitte? It was her. “You both know what I want. He is right. We have been contacting them for more than 200 years. Now, take me there, guide me. I have given all I had for you and you just have to lead me there.” “Go join the rest of the 9 spaceships.” “The 9 spaceships don’t exist anymore because I exploded them.” Kayelin asked her looking in Mrs. Brigitte’s eyes. “What are you talking about? They are going to Kepler-186f already, isn’t it?”

“At first, I thought that all these students would be necessary to get there. But, I changed my mind. I want power, absolute power in that world and your clever friends and the tiring politicians who had enough money would disturb me there. Everyone wants more than others. That’s how nature works. So I just got rid of them. It was kind of sad but please understand me. But we are not all. I brought some people who are sleeping in cryonics. If we need more labor, we can use them so don’t worry. They promised me that they would follow me as an owner in their next life. I am planning to wake them up in the order of dumbest to clever so that I won’t be too tired.” Mrs. Brigitte and looked at Kayelin and Didion. Kayelin was too shocked but Didion had his head lowered. “What…? No… That can’t be true! Didion, say something. Tell me she is lying.” “Oh, didn’t your boyfriend tell you? He was engaged in this from the beginning. He made all the decisions all this time.” No, Didion isn’t a person like you. Right, Didion? Don’t try to change him. He is now cured and has only one integrated personality.” Didion raised his head. He didn’t say anything and just looked at her as if she was preparing to say sorry. He didn’t say anything and then he said: “Sorry, Kayelin...”

“What? Did you know this the whole time? How could you just watch this? Didion, you knew all the personalities inside you. You could have stopped all of this.” Kayelin started hitting him but Didion just got hurt. Mrs. Brigitte stopped her hitting. “Don’t fight. No humanity is strong enough in front of inhumane actions. I made a deal that if he didn’t cooperate, I would send his sister to that planet. Then this kind friend then agreed to follow my plan.” “What do you really want?” “Good girl, I was wondering why you didn’t ask me that. I want absolute power. More than what I had on earth. I want to have absolute power and control that planet and become a god forever. I will make that happen in my new world. I will make everyone the same so that they don’t feel anything; love, anger, happiness. All they should feel is love towards me, loyalty towards the party and the heart to devote anything to what I say. “You can’t. They are not human. They don’t look alike with us and they wouldn’t have no such emotion and isn’t that the reason they are looking for us?” “No, they are looking for someone who can be a leader. Those creatures are intelligent more than you can imagine. The video you saw was from more than a thousand years ago. Now, they are different. Watch this.” Mrs. Brigitte touched the remote and then another video came out in 4D. As soon as the video started, Kayelin and Jin noticed a big difference in the world they were living before. There wasn’t any yellow dust and they could smell the fresh nature. It wasn’t foggy and all of the buildings could be seen clearly. People were walking down the street and they just looked so busy. Both Kayelin and Jin were wondering why she was showing this right now. This was the world that looked a little different but still, there were creatures, which were human. One thing they realized that was different from their world was that they were not living underground. They were walking, running, working inside the buildings that were on the ground. Also, people weren’t walking around with their robots. They were all staring at something that was about the size of their hand no matter where they went. Kayelin was looking at a girl that was crossing the road that looked about her age. She came out from a building which looked like a school. She wasn’t in the crowd where all of the other students were but was walking to the other side alone. The girl took out her earphone from her bag and put it on her device she was holding and walked. Kayelin kept chasing this girl with her eyes because she was just curious what that device she was holding was. Everyone in the street had the same object. Maybe it was something students needed to take classes. Was it? Then why were adults also staring at the same thing? One more curiosity came out of Kayelin’s mind. If she was a similar age with her, why did she come out of a school? She was a girl. Girls normally didn’t get chosen to get educated. It was the boys, mostly the boys who had the chance to go to WSA because it was scientifically believed they were better at math and science while the roles’ of females was to support them. Then the girl started crying looking at her hand. Kayelin zoomed the screen and could see she wasn’t crying looking at her hand, but it was the little device she was looking at. She looked tired of her life and her hand was actually trembling. She looked scared at something and suddenly he turned back at the group of students that were going to the opposite side. Their eyes met and the girl turned her face fast. Someone was screaming to her and she put her earphones back as if she wanted to ignore them. Kayelin could see something was going on. Something, or maybe everything was weird. This world as she first thought, wasn’t the world she thought she used to live. It must be the past generation of where we lived. “Jin, look here.” “Where?”Jin asked. “Look at this girl.” “Why?” “Because she is telling us how the world was like before. I never learned this from anywhere and I wasn’t allowed to ask such things. There weren’t any ways to find out how it was back then when people were living outside and when it was okay to live. Jin and Kayelin kept talking for a moment and a few minutes later, they looked back at the screen. The girl was crossing the road still looking at the device in her hand. She only looked at her hand instead of looking front. Then it happened. A few seconds later, a car hit her and she fell down immediately, Jin and Kayelin saw the girl laying down on the floor with blood coming out of her body. There were still other people crossing the street and students coming out of school but no one went to her. “What…? The girl is dead…? Why isn’t anyone coming to help her…?” Others just looked at her for a second because of the sound of the accident but soon turned their head back to the screen they were watching. They seemed to be addicted into that and this reminded Kayelin and Jin of the world they used to live. There used to be accidents among the miners because of the mini A.I. robots they were forced to carry around when working. Miners would dig holes looking at their robots to see how much they had done and if any news came out of the robots, they would watch that while digging. That was the problem. They didn’t look above because of staring at the robots and sometimes big rocks would fall off from the dirt. When they hurt their head, there weren’t any ways to rescue them. The one requirement for cryonics was when the brain was alive and this took the miners out of the universe forever. “Bystander effect.” “What? What effect?” “Jin, this is what I learned before. The larger group of people who witness an emergency situation, the individuals who are watching this will feel less responsibility for the event which means they won’t help.” “Okay…? So you are saying the people aren’t helping that girl that seems to be dead now because of a lot of people around her?” “Fools.” It was Mrs. Brigitte. She was still standing there this time. “Those aren’t your parent’s generation.” “Of course they aren’t. My parents didn’t live like that. They lived underground like us” “I mean they are not human. They are our new children.” “What are you talking about? Children?” “They are the creatures you were talking about. Didion told you that they wanted to become like us. So I gave them a suggestion.” “What suggestion?” “Cute Kayelin, how innocent! I said they could work under me if they changed all their appearance into a human as well. We sent them plastic surgery robots about 100 years ago and now they look just like us!” “You are a crazy woman. What have you done?” “What did you just say to me Kayelin? Apologize now.” “I said, you crazy woman. I didn’t say anything wrong. I won’t apologize.” Mrs. Brigitte smiled at her. “Honey! Come here! Help me get rid of this cutie!” “Who are you calling right now?” “My husband to get rid of you. Stay here and I will send you back to earth where your parents are because it seems you don’t like me nor this place.” Kayelin tried to run away but Mrs. Brigitte grabbed her hair and soon Mr. Brigitte came in with a gun. He passed the gun to his wife and she put the gun on her head. “You can’t!” Didion screamed and tried to protect her but the security robots came and took him away. “Let go of me. I programmed you.” Didion was crying for her. There was a sound of a gunshot and Didion closed his eyes. One more gunshot and now it was quiet. Didion heard someone falling down. It was over. Kayelin was dead because of him. He didn’t turn his face and just cried. It was his first time crying in life. Then someone hugged him. “I’m not dead.” It was kayelin. “What?” He turned his face and saw Mr. and Mrs. Brigitte lying on the floor in blood. “Who…?” “Look, he came here for us.” It was Paul. Paul was holding the gun instead of Mrs. Brigitte. “Paul!” Didion ran to him and hugged him. “Oliver… Thank you so much for saving all of us. Where were you? I am also so sorry for confusing you with Oliver. It is because I have…” “I know, you have DID. I could tell that. It’s okay. Don’t thank me for saving that girl because I killed them for myself. They raped my mother and I couldn’t bear it. By the way, I have been chasing you two all this time from the beginning but you guys didn’t notice because when you love someone, you can only see that person.” 3 of them laughed together.