Am I dead? Oh, Science above, I’m dead. Wait, let’s try breathing first. If you’re dead, you can’t breathe. Breathe.

Nice, I can breathe. Good, so I’m alive. Why is it so quiet though? I can’t see anything either. Are my eyes closed? And why can’t I move my arms or my legs? , , . . Don’t panic.

Did someone just pour something into my mouth? I’m drinking something. It’s cold. Tastes kinda okay. I’m so confused. What’s happening? I need to know.

Open your eyes, dammit!

Moonbyul’s eyes shot open. They darted around as she attempted to comprehend her surroundings. Above her was a ceiling of stars, of asteroids and space dust floating around against a pitch dark canvas. She tried to lift her hands, and found that she could, in fact, do so. Lifting them in front of her face, she noted with some interest that she could bend and flex her fingers, and as her vision became even clearer realised that cuts and bruises dotted her arms.

“I see you’re awake,” a woman’s quiet voice remarked. Pushing herself up to a sitting position, Moonbyul turned towards the source of the gentle voice. To her left was a woman dressed in-- was that a toga? Sporting neatly braided snowy hair and soft, doe-like eyes against pale skin, she smiled at Moonbyul as she sat cross-legged on the ground.

Moonbyul nodded back, apprehensive. “Uh, yeah. Hi, uh…”

“Salus,” the woman finished. “Though you can call me Sal. Are you feeling better? It took quite some time to patch you up, you see. You took quite the beating when you crashed. Broken bones, significant head and spinal injuries, cuts everywhere--” the woman shook her head at that “--you were very lucky to have landed here, of all the places in the belt.”

Moonbyul gaped at her. “You’re joking.”

The woman shook her head. “I’m afraid not. Your companion, now, suffered from fewer injuries. Fewer, but still major. I believe it’s because you took the brunt of the fall when your vehicle crashed, and protected her from taking most of the damage. She also has an extremely strong constitution, as expected, and is now resting in the other shelter.”

“No, no, that’s…” Broken bones meant she shouldn’t be able to move her arms. Head injury sounded very much like brain damage, or at the very least a terrible, terrible concussion from such a crash. And taking a good look at herself, the cuts seemed to be either already stitched, or had some odd ointment applied on them. “Did… did you do this?” Moonbyul stretched one arm out and pointed to the healing injuries. “All of it?”

The woman chuckled. “Yes, child. It may seem hard to believe at first, but yes.”

“Right. And how long was I out for?”

The woman hummed and pursed her lips. “I would say one and a half Earth days.”

Moonbyul gave a dry laugh. “Hah. No way.” The woman’s expression never changed, and Moonbyul’s grin faltered. “You’re serious. You’re actually serious.”

“I certainly am. Now, I would suggest you stay here, lie down, and rest for now. I’ll be going over to check on your companion.” The woman stood up and brushed off invisible dust from her toga -- it was a toga!, Moonbyul thought, slightly amused -- and strode away.

After the stranger left, Moonbyul continued to sit and take in the ‘room’ she was resting in. To call it an actual room would be a great exaggeration, as the only ‘walls’ that contained the room were large metal plates that were arranged at strange and erratic angles. The ceiling was made of foggy, transparent glass that reminded Moonbyul of the windows in space vehicles created in the early 2000s. Looking down, she realised that she was sitting on a pile of clothes and beddings. The textures and colours of the pile were eerily similar to the loose tee and trousers she was now donning (courtesy of her host, she assumed), and the tears in the clothes making up the pile did nothing to make her feel better.

Taking a deep breath, she pulled herself into a kneeling position before standing up. She immediately stumbled back a few steps, and had to lean on a wall to regain her balance. Pain flashed through her head, like a sudden streak of lightning in the night. She gripped her head in her hands and squeezed her eyes shut. Her lungs felt like they were caught in a vice-grip, like her windpipe was all but crushed, and she pounded a fist on her chest in an attempt to force herself to breathe.

The pain in her head grew worse, almost as if she was trapped between two wrestlers fighting. It seared directly into her left eye, carving agony on the surrounding skin. Moonbyul clutched at her eye, and with a hoarse gasp, out.

She awoke a while later to a cooling sensation being applied to her face. Hovering above her was Solar’s face, twisted in concern as she dabbed at Moonbyul’s face with a damp cloth. “Ah.”

“Are you awake? Didn’t I tell you to rest?” Moonbyul and Solar instantly winced at the tone of the stranger’s voice, and the latter lifted her head to look at the stranger.

“Salus, did any part of your teachings include shouting at your patients?” Solar asked.

The stranger was silent for a moment. “But the child refused to listen to my advice, which no doubt triggered the headaches and bleeding!”

Moonbyul frowned. “Bleeding?” She quickly sat up, but Solar pushed her back down onto the floor. “What bleeding?” She took inventory of her limbs, patting her torso down to find any sign of wetness or a newly applied bandage.

Solar touched Moonbyul’s forehead in response. “Here.” She closed her eyes, prompting Moonbyul to do the same. Solar’s hand was much warmer compared to the cool air in the room, and Moonbyul’s hand unconsciously moved up to hold it.

Solar spoke in a soft voice, lulling Moonbyul to sleep. “Sleep. Without it, your body cannot repair itself. For saving my life not once, but twice, I bestow a blessing upon you. May your body be warm and comfortable, and you recover as fast as humanly possible.” By the time she had finished speaking, Moonbyul had fallen deeply asleep, her fingers still wrapped around Solar’s hand.

Smiling slightly, Solar removed her hand from Moonbyul’s loosened grip. She gently brushed back the sleeping woman’s bangs away from her forehead, her fingers tracing the new piece of gauze that covered the entire left side of Moonbyul’s forehead. “But what does it mean?” she murmured, her voice laced with concerned confusion.

“Curious, isn’t it?” The woman called Sal agreed. “And she looks awfully like Artemis -- or as you call her, Diana -- when she’s sleeping, too.”

Solar whipped her head up to face Sal, her eyes shining. “You see it too, do you not? The resemblance is uncanny. But her personality, her behaviour, it is nothing like Diana’s. This one is rude, stingy, and has the most foul mouth I have ever encountered.” She frowned down at Moonbyul, as if she had completely forgotten that she was helping to nurse her up to only a few minutes ago.

Sal chuckled, turning her face away to laugh. “And yet you wish to accompany and care for such a human?” she teased.

“It was not my choice at all!” Solar retorted loudly, then hurriedly lowered her voice to a whisper lest Moonbyul woke up. “She was the one who whisked me away onto her shuttle before I had even the slightest idea of what was happening around me.” She glared at the sleeping woman as she said so.

Sal shook her head. “Eyes don’t lie, Solar.”

It was true; her father had taught her that a long time ago. And to Sal, it was more than obvious that Solar held great interest in this human lying unconscious on the floor, from the way she asked about Moonbyul the instant she had woken after the crash, to the look in her eyes and the furrow of her brows when she was informed of her condition.

“Salus? How long will it take for her to fully recover?”

The woman in the white toga glanced up. “Not long. Perhaps a day or two, depending on how much rest she gets and how fast her body decides to repair itself.”

Relieved, Solar slipped her hand into Moonbyul’s before quickly removing it with a horrified gasp. She stared at her hand, as if shocked by its betrayal. She turned around when Sal laughed again, splashes of red spreading across her cheeks. “Speak not of this. Ever.”

Shrugging, Sal started to leave the room. “I told you, Solar. Eyes don’t lie.”

Moonbyul awoke to the alluring scent of hot cocoa. Her eyes fixed themselves on the small chalice next to her, nestled in Solar’s lap. It was a simple metallic cup, polished and shiny, with an serpent carved in excruciating detail into the stem of the cup. “What’s that?” she asked, feeling as dry as the desert.

“Oh!” Solar startled, nearly upending the steaming cup of liquid onto Moonbyul. “You are awake. How are you feeling?”

“I’ve been better.” Moonbyul winced as she stretched with the flexibility of a two-hundred-year-old man. Twisting and turning, she somehow managed to prop herself onto her elbows, panting. “Oh, Science above, I am so sore.”

Solar nodded wisely, as if she had predicted this all along. She held up the chalice and brought it towards Moonbyul’s lips. “Drink.”

Moonbyul narrowed her eyes at her. “What’s in it?” Whatever it is, she thought, it smelled bloody delicious. Not that she’d ever admit it to the pretentious woman attempting to feed her.

“Medicine.” Saying so, Solar once again offered the chalice towards Moonbyul. The latter, although suspicious, was curious enough to take a sip of the clear liquid in the metallic goblet. Her eyes widened in amazement when the liquid, despite its deceptively transparent appearance, did in fact taste like how it smelled: dark hot chocolate with a dusting of cinnamon and a tinge of milk, the richness of whipped cream, the sweetness of marshmallows -- it all tasted so familiar, yet so foreign. She was sure she had never drank something this exquisite before. Yet there was something niggling at the back of her mind, like a lost memory scratching at the door. She stared at the chalice in wonder, watching how her reflection rippled across the liquid.

“You must be feeling better,” Solar proclaimed at the sight of Moonbyul’s expression. “Salus truly is very useful when she is needed.”

“That’s very nice of you to say so, Solar.” The woman in question breezed through, appraising Moonbyul with a quick glance up and down. “You look better. Not the best, I have to say, but much better than two days ago.”

“Two days.” Moonbyul spat out her drink. “I’ve been sleeping for two days?”

“And you’re almost very nearly recovered because of it,” Sal added. “I reckon some exercise would do you some good, so if you could just finish your drink and hand my cup back to me…” Eager to get up and start moving around, Moonbyul downed the contents of the cup in one go. In no way would she allow herself to lie here for one more second like some grievously ill person. She was Moonbyul, the youngest miner of Section V, and she couldn't bear to think of how her co-workers would laugh at her if they saw how pampered she was now.

“I never thought I would see you sleep for so long, kid,” Moonbyul imagined Lars remarking. His eyebrows would be raised in amusement as he pretended to antagonise her. “Come on then, get a move on. You can't be less fit than a centenarian, now, can you?” Embarrassed, she would have immediately jumped out of bed, injuries be damned, and would have headed to work with even more vigour than ever.

She now jumped up with the same enthusiasm, tossing her hair away from her face. Handing the chalice over to Sal’s waiting hands, Moonbyul quickly went through a series of routine exercises, warming up her body and testing her movements after what she felt was too long a time recuperating. “Okay, yeah, that feels good.” She swivelled her neck; both Solar and Sal winced when it emitted a very audible ‘pop’.

“Right.” Moonbyul clapped her hands together. “Where’s my baby?”

Sal blinked. “I-I’m sorry? I wasn’t aware you were with child.”

“I believe she was referring to the vehicle we had landed in.” Solar exchanged pointed looks with Sal.

“Ah.” Sal rubbed her hands together nervously before gesturing towards the door. “Follow me.”

Stepping out of her designated room for the first time in days, Moonbyul took a good look around. Surrounding her were walls similar to those of her room -- sheets of metal fixed together with screws not entirely tightened, put together at awkward angles to make a whole. Occasionally, panels of glass would appear like airplane windows down the aisle, allowing a view of the outside.

Not that there was anything in particular to observe as far as Moonbyul could see. It was way too dark outside, and not a single square inch of the outside ground could be seen. In fact, the only reason she could even see was due to the bright fluorescent lights located in the corridors where they were walking, and despite all their brightness they just were not strong enough to illuminate the outside even a little bit.

As they winded through the odd maze of metal and glass, Moonbyul noticed with some interest that there were minute scratches on the walls. They were not deep enough to be considered significant, and leaned towards small nicks from accidentally grazing one’s nails across the walls, but there were too many to justify a mere accident.

“We’re almost there.” Sal broke the silence and inclined her chin towards yet another metal plate with a handle crudely drilled into it. A door, Moonbyul thought. Crude, but effective.

Sal pushed a button on the side of the door, revealing a row of astronaut helmets and some astro-suits hanging from hooks. “You’ll need to wear these since we’re going outside.” She passed the suits to her guests, and after zipping herself up in one, proceeded to assist them with outfitting themselves in the unfamiliar suits.

The suit clung to Moonbyul’s skin like tight yoga pants. To her delight, it allowed her a full range of movement without any form of chafing. Its nearly negligible weight would easily make one forget that they were wearing a suit specifically designed to go out into a vacuum space and somehow maintain Earth’s atmospheric pressure as well as protect one from space radiation. As she tested the comfort and mobility of her suit, she caught Solar’s eye.

“What?”

“You are very skinny,” Solar stated with a slight frown. “Are you not fed enough?”

No, Moonbyul wanted to say, they barely feed us miners anything, since it’s apparently a waste of resources. But she kept mum and shrugged. “What’s it to you?”

Solar regarded her for a moment. “Nothing. Nothing at all.” They broke eye contact when Sal slid a helmet over Solar’s head and fastened it to her suit. She patted the top of the helmet before moving on to Moonbyul to help her.

Once she was sure that Solar was not paying attention to them, Sal leaned in. “I don’t know why she’s being weird, but when you were out, she was very concerned about you.”

“Huh. Really?” Moonbyul angled a glance towards the stoic pink-haired woman. “Doesn’t seem like it at all.” She took the helmet from Sal and placed it over her head.

Unlike the spherical helmets of early space travellers, the helmet that Moonbyul now donned was shaped like a sleek, aerodynamic motorcycle helmet that fit snugly on her head. It came equipped with in-built wireless microphones and two small pockets of man-made crystals that acted as catalysts to convert exhaled carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen. The visor protected its wearer from the often-too-bright glare of the sun’s rays -- as they were originally designed to do -- but also had voice-activated holographic technology and a personal AI unit, very much like Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit.

All this Moonbyul tested out with apparent glee, her eyes shining with the curiosity of a child. “This is so cool!” she exclaimed. “What’s F-Grip? Woah!” She gasped when the gloves of her space suit rippled and changed texture, forming miniature ridges down her fingers and along her palms. Her visor recited the uses of the activated F-Grip, which included not only a firmer grip on whatever objects she carried, which basically meant that she could never fumble and drop anything, but due to the strength of the material, she could actually carry objects up to ten times her original muscle power without actually needing to exert a large force.

“Oh, . This. Is. Way. Cool!” Moonbyul looked up from her hands and grinned excitedly at her companions.

“I’m glad you’re having fun with the equipment, kid,” Sal said, “because you might not be so prepared with what lies behind this door. Are you sure you want to see this?”

“I mean, yeah.” Moonbyul pointed at the door. “If my baby’s behind that, I’ve got to go through it.”

“Very well.” Before opening the door, Sal turned to Solar. “And later we must talk further about what we were discussing before.”

Taking a deep breath, she led the way out.

Sal was right. Moonbyul was not at all prepared for what lay behind the door.

Her entire space shuttle, once lovingly put together and decorated with the enthusiasm and energy of a first-time mother, was a complete wreck. The large glass screen that made up a major part of the cockpit had shattered, leaving what seemed like a million pieces of glass shards scattered on the ground. There were indents so great in the shuttle it was as if the Hulk himself had took out all his rage on the poor vehicle. Long scars ran down the sides, a result of the shuttle being knocked around by orbiting asteroids and random space debris.

“No.” Moonbyul took a shaky step forward, her hands outstretched as she tried to process the painful sight before her. “Oh, no.” She dashed towards her ruined vehicle and home and immediately tried to open the door. When the door responded to neither her voice print or her attempt to slide it open manually, she uttered a howl of frustration and started to ram the door with all her body weight. It took a mere three slams with her shoulder for the heavy piece of metal, once so sturdy, to crunch and collapse, exposing the ruined interior to a heartbroken Moonbyul.

“I don’t understand.” Behind, Sal stared at Moonbyul with a bemused gaze. “Why is she so concerned about a large piece of metal?”

“One must suppose the vehicle holds great emotional value to her,” Solar said.

Sal glanced at her. “Then in a sense I guess she’s lost a home, hasn’t she?” She looked back at Moonbyul, who was now crawling into her wrecked shuttle with the hope that she might be able to salvage even something small. “Just like us.”

Solar looked out through one of the many windows that lined the main corridor of Sal’s oddly-fashioned dwelling. “She has been out there for a long time, has she not?”

Sal leaned out from around the doorway of a room. “A few Earth hours, I reckon. Wonder what she’s doing out there? I thought everything was completely ruined.” She wiggled her eyebrows at Solar. “Worried, are you?”

“No.”

Sal chuckled. “Honestly. Gods are such liars. Go check on her if you’re that worried.” She laughed off Solar’s cool stare and waved her away.

Grumbling, Solar returned her gaze to the woman moving outside. She saw Moonbyul finally emerge from one of the many punctures in the shuttle, and watched as Moonbyul settled down to rest, her head in her hands. Hard as it was to admit, seeing the woman so despondent hit a chord in Solar’s heart.

Wait a minute. Solar slapped her hands to her cheeks and shook her head violently, as if the action would somehow remove any thoughts of Moonbyul from her mind. She tunnelled her fingers through her hair in frustration when, to no one’s surprise, it didn’t work. It didn’t make any sense for her to be concerned about the welfare and happiness of the human sitting outside. Not at all.

Yet for some reason Solar found herself tugging on a space suit and helmet and walking out towards the despondent woman. Arms akimbo, she stood over Moonbyul and fixed what she hoped was an exasperated expression on her face. “Well, out with it, then.”

Moonbyul sighed and kicked at a loose pebble, sending it flying in a graceful arc over the horizon. “Just go away, Solar. I’m not in the mood.”

“In the mood for what?”

“Nothing.” Moonbyul’s reply, curt and dry, only served to frustrate Solar even more. She nearly pulled out her hair before remembering that she had a helmet on. She settled with baring her teeth and kicking Moonbyul in the shin.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“Nothing,” Solar answered. She proceeded to kick Moonbyul’s shin again.

“Okay, okay! What do you want?” Moonbyul returned the kick with one of her own.

“I want you to tell me what is going on in your head, not mope here outside and alone.”

“And why do you care?” Moonbyul asked. “It's not like you've suddenly decided to care about a mere 'human’.” She sneered and made air quotes with her fingers as she said the word.

Hurt and beyond pissed off, Solar quickly in a breath and spun on her heels, turning her back to Moonbyul to hide the tears that suddenly started to brim. “Very well. If you insist on being like that, I have nothing more to say to you. You can stay outside here for the rest of your miserable life.” She stormed away from the shuttle, desperately holding back angry tears.

“I lost two homes, dammit!”

Solar stopped in her tracks at the sudden outburst.

“I lost two homes in a matter of days, left the only people I knew and loved as family for a random stranger who couldn’t care less, got myself nearly killed, and you’re standing there and asking me what’s wrong?”

Solar winced when Moonbyul’s voice teetered on the edge of cracking, and made her way back to the ruined vehicle. She eased herself down onto the edge of a rogue shuttle part and folded her hands on her lap. “I am sorry.”

“I… I put so much time and effort into making this my own,” Moonbyul murmured, lightly touching a frame where a door would use to slide out. “The first ever thing that I worked really hard on, the first home I could call my own. And now it’s gone.” Now she raised her gaze to look at Solar. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying, her face streaked with tear marks. “Do you know what that feels like? Losing your home?”

“No.” Unable to meet Moonbyul’s gaze, Solar stared at her shoes instead, scuffing them on the dusty ground and tried a small laugh. “I do not recall having one to begin with.”

This time it was Moonbyul’s turn to wince. “, really? I mean… Sorry.”

“There is no need to apologise for something you had no control over.”

In the silence, unsure of what else she could say, Moonbyul pushed herself to her feet with a huff. She extended a hand to Solar. “Let’s go inside. It’s getting kinda cold out here.”

Solar merely frowned at it before pushing herself to her feet. “I was not aware of that fact.”

Even Moonbyul had to cringe at herself and her lame attempt at an excuse to overcome the dead air. Of course Solar wouldn’t think that it was getting cold; after all, the space suits they wore were temperature-regulated and kept them as warm and comfortable as they could be.  awkwardly tucked her hands into the space suit’s built-in pockets. “Whatever. Let’s just go in.”

“Certainly. I have matters to discuss with Salus, after all, and this has only served as a temporary delay to information extremely crucial to me.”

Moonbyul scoffed at her words. For a second, she had thought that Solar was actually concerned about her, but it seemed as if the woman had gone back to her brusque mannerisms. She was, however, curious about what the doctor had to say to Solar. “What did she want to talk about?”

Solar simply said: “Gods.”