This collection’s significance is debatable. Beloved as she was, the 70th Seeress of Exo doesn’t introduce concepts otherwise undiscovered by Beings. Entries from July 24th to August 9th, 4835, as their predecessors, are filled with heartfelt sentiment. However, unlike those invasive peeks into her last days, they outline the infantile stages of numerous government polices and social movements.

For this reason, the Council had these entries sealed to the public. In 4840, someone stole the original documents from the Council’s Court in Trädgård and uploaded their contents to the planet-wide web. They were returned to Dunai’s Library of the Extraordinary the same day. While this thief remains at large, he may have very well stopped history from repeating itself. 

JULY 24TH, 4835. Innovation puts me at Trädgård’s docks a day earlier than expected. Scientists fleeing the Capital turned to Exo Planet’s largest resource in their idleness: fish. The docks are lined with sheet metal and iron frames. Boats boasting beastly speeds don’t build themselves. 

Necessity pushes us to undertake jobs beyond our expectations. Reconsidering skills and dreams may not always coincide, the newest aptitude tests appear restrictive to a Being’s capabilities. Rank is inevitable. Boat builders will be wealthier than fish catchers. Scrap the numbers. Open jobs to all Exotians. Goal-setters live to learn. 

Sehun is waiting for me; Luhan called ahead. Trädgård is under construction. What used to be a sparsely populated coastal village became the largest growing city after Jingxi. Sehun intends to make it home to the new Hall of the Guardians. He refuses to show me his progress, but his charmingly blunt presence could create modern art out of a shattered city. 

“Smile; you’re not on camera,” he tells me as we stroll through streets lined with iron fences and plastic tarps. Exotians crowd the street, rushing through shortcuts and half-built buildings. I get some lingering looks, but he’s right — it’s common knowledge he loves to be right. So I smile, even if no one’s watching.

JULY 25TH, 4835. Chanyeol insists Sehun’s become a homebody. He pours himself over old books on the Tree of Life and ancient architecture. Baekhyun sends the occasional stack over from Beleuch’s collection of Exotian Historia. D.O occasionally visits to assist Sehun’s research into “rock consciousness.” 

Hard labor attracts Chanyeol to the construction efforts. He looks good in a jumpsuit. “I’m creating things, your highness. Me: the guy who’s consciousness is only recently evolving past that of a rock’s.” Such an ambiguously abstract concept: identity. Who am I? More importantly: who will I be?

JULY 26TH, 4835. Chanyeol lives near his birth parents. He’s had numerous family dinners — always including Franklin. It took Chanyeol 24 years to put himself first. From birth, Guardians must act selfishly for the sake of Exo Planet. 

This isn’t a matter of giving one family precedence over another. Xi believed his sole purpose was to be with Ela Nektor. We need time to figure out what’s important to us before we start protecting what’s important to others. Although I set sail on favorable winds, I arrive in Beleuch mere minutes from midnight. 

JULY 27TH, 4835. “There was a time when Exotians called us monsters,” Baekhyun says to me from an unseen corner of his personal library. “In the 1200s we were characters of lore who ate live dogs for breakfast, slaughtered goats for lunch, and sautéed dragons for dinner. Eating: what a sacred ritual. Want to grab a bite before lunch?”

“Will we be grilling dogs or goats for brunch?” I yell from my self-made book fort.

Baekhyun has a mind that relishes in itself. Beleuch, an underground city carved into a cave system, is brighter than it used to be. Chen installed a new electrical grid powered by previously untapped aqueducts. He brought Beleuch’s residents out of the dark ages, and the city has become a center of learning to rival Dunai.

“Let’s switch things on and off,” Baekhyun answered, and we ate pickled dirt worms. As strange as it sounds, I’ve never felt fuller. Dinner passes, and I give Baekhyun a book: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia by Samuel Johnson. I simply wanted him to read Johnson. 

JULY 28TH, 4835. I recommend the reformed Council turns its eyes to progress: what do the planet’s everyday creators and innovators need now? Past public forums have been the ire of Exotians. Detaching themselves from their government’s goals and achievements won’t bode well for the future we hope for. “We are one,” aren’t we?

Chen wonders if I’m listening to him; a tour of Beleuch’s hydroelectric energy facility leaves me at a loss for words. “From entitled Moon Guardian to Beleuch’s lead electrical engineer; I’m rising up on the planet,” he boasts. Employees are sparse down long hallways and overhanging levels. Efficiency is effectiveness, a nearby sign reads — a cat hanging on a branch as its background. 

Creator and innovator Baekhyun’s humor has a mind of its own.

“It’s not as lonely as it seems,” Chen claims. I say I believe him. I do. I don’t think he hears me over the whirring machinery.

JULY 29TH, 4835. A public forum is scheduled for August 10th. I daydream about flowers sprouting from the ocean. Bout du Monde is a day away by underwater tram. 

JULY 30TH, 4835. Bout du Monde is a city on ice — literally. Flat sheets of glaciers come and go, fuse together and break off, and cartographers work nonstop to keep up. Snow blankets the landscape, and animals large and small roam the island’s white plains. Exotians tuck themselves into wooden huts glowing red, orange, and yellow with warmth.

It’s in one of said huts that I play chess with Xiumin. His fondness for the game hasn’t changed despite his new hobby: hunting. Stalking snow leopards, polar bears, rabbits — jerky is sadly unpopular in Bout du Monde — is a strategic test of strength, decisiveness, and a few other nouns Xiumin listed off to me. His pride is showing. 

Skinning, cleaning, crafting, nothing is wasted. “I’ve developed perfectionist tendencies,” he announces, and the customers who come from all over Exo Planet to purchase his wares can attest to that. He wins our game of chess, as expected. I show him the secret carved into my skin. Why Xiumin?

He says with a smile, “Give up so fast and you’ll never beat me.”

JULY 31ST, 4835. Llago is too far to delay longer. I want to fight the cold. Xiumin makes me three sets of underarmor, and I feel powerful beneath stitched wool. Pieces kept assembled by his belief in me. The most whimsical idea hits me with the force of the ocean’s waves as I sail south.

AUGUST 1ST, 4835. The reformed Council is making inquiries into the Bloom Project. Luna deflects their questions by bringing up the elections postponed across Flior, Jingxi, and Beleuch. 18 provincial seats are added to the reformed Council’s committee in Trädgård. The rebellion marching on Bout du Monde quells itself.

AUGUST 2ND, 4835. Personal space isn’t an issue here. Houses stacked on houses line Llago’s coast. Cramped between Exotians, I find myself lost at the docks within minutes. Luckily, the dock’s master spotted me from a distance; Suho looks strapping in his sailing togs.

The buildings are brown, but the people are dressed in red, yellow, blue, orange, pink. Llago trails close behind Dunai in luxury exports following its mercantile boom. Suho doesn’t expect the fervor to die down anytime soon. Local businesses are discussing the formation of a merchant’s guild. The reformed Council should consider urging other cities towards likeworded conversations. 

This planet is louder. Bigger. Better. 

Suho’s personal quarters are in Llago’s lighthouse. Nicknacks, treasures, and photos galore line the spiraling staircase. A miniature dragon perches on a circular windowsill, pecking at a peach core. A photo hangs beside it; its water-breathing brother swims circles around Suho at Llago’s crescent isles.

Letters are pined to the walls. The latest is addressed from Trädgård. Rumors don’t build ancient halls of yore; get me something concrete, Sehun writes. “Some things never change,” Suho says. He waters a potted, white rose. A fur skin jacket drapes across an armchair. 

Louder. Bigger. Better. But some things never change.

AUGUST 3RD, 4835. Suho takes me sailing along the crescent isles. Salty air whips at my face. Humidity snakes along my hairline. A person can just melt into the dipping waves. Xiumin’s underarmor holds me together.

AUGUST 4TH, 4835. Thunderstorms keep me from heading straight back to the Capital. Suho cashes in a favor, and a small dinghy slowly says goodbye to Llago as the city sinks into the horizon.

AUGUST 5TH, 4835. Breathing is like blinking. Once you start thinking about it, it gets harder to do.

AUGUST 6TH, 4835. I alight miles out of Dunai, and book a land train ticket for a Council outpost turned traveler’s pitstop due south. I can’t tell what temperature it is outside. It smells like bacon, and I wish it was July 11th. 

AUGUST 7TH, 4835. Voices wiggled into my tired head. I wonder how much longer we have, they say. This ride seems to go on forever, they say. What’s on the other side, they say. Getting off, he asks.

Screeching yanks my eyes open and I see Kai. Hooded. Observing. Passengers alight. The doors are closing. Getting off, he asks again. 

And I do.

AUGUST 8TH, 4835. A jeep arrives in the morning, Capital-bound. Victoria, adopting my derisive phrasing, updates me on the recent news from the “reformed Council.” They’re acting relatively docile to the recent election’s results. Henry Lau has resurfaced. Something smells — neither like salt nor bacon. Luna props her feet on the dash. “It’s not fair,” she decides.

I haven’t a chance to ask what she means as Victoria starts lecturing her on proper car etiquette. Zhoumi spoon-feeds me my dinner. Being babied suits me just fine. I try to get a cup of water in the middle of the night, but I can’t walk. 

AUGUST 9TH, 4835. But I can moonwalk with my fingers. Zhoumi isn’t impressed. Victoria and Luna disappeared this morning. “We’ll be back soon,” Victoria assured me. Luna didn’t say anything. I get it; I must look awful lying in this patch of untrimmed dandelions. 

White leaves climb down my arm, across my torso, up my neck. Indentations sting against my cheeks. My pores are hollowing out. Sinking. Melting away under sunlight that peeks through the overgrown canopy. It hurts to speak, but I can still moonwalk with my fingers. 

“Hypothetically speaking.” I pause. Breathe. You know how, lungs. Please. “Becoming a part of the Tree of Life imbues me with certain abilities.”

“Yes, your highness, you can,” Zhoumi answers, but I hadn’t asked him yet. 

“I’m supposed to be the mindreader.” I laugh. Bad jokes: 4. Good jokes: 0. A breeze carries a whisper: celestial comforts. It’s the little things.

Even in death, being can live on. Whether in fond memory or forgotten history. Nothing is more exciting than sharing secrets. Moving forward. Ovals and obscurity. Keeping being fresh and fighting to keep becoming fresher. Who will I be? It’s not as lonely as it seems, because some things never change. 

As Zhoumi puts it, “Time with you has taught me to expect the unexpected.”

This is my stop. I may be getting off here, but I’m not going out without a bang. 

12:00am, August 10th, 4835, Exotians from Flior to Llago feared the Bloom Project had returned to rip their planet apart. The ground shook with tremors, lightning ripped open the sky, the moon cried streams into rivers and rivers into lakes. It was the “end of the planet as we knew it.” Then sunrise came. 

Standing tall, sprouting from the center of the Capital, was a tree. The 70th Seeress of Exo’s three advisors informed the planet of her highness’s death. Scientists investigated the ruins of the Capital and discovered zero trace of the Bloom Project’s serum. Coincidence? Authorities on the history of Exo Planet plan to add these entries to Folklore and the Like: The Seeress of Exo, Vol.70 on February 1st, 4848. 

Little is known about the 71st Seeress. In accordance to the guidelines laid out in the Respite Act of 4838, all future Seeresses and Guardians of Exo Planet are granted the freedom to pursue their lives — uninhibited by the responsibilities of their birth — until the age of 18. A seat remains empty on the reformed Council’s panel, made up of elected representatives from Exo’s 9 cities and 18 provinces. They wait for February 1st, 4856. 

Trädgård is enveloped by rumored sightings of twelve boys and a girl playing hide-and-seek in its city park. Coincidences are rare on Exo Planet; the Tree of Life is an exacting weed. Personally, I’m looking forward to what new and extraordinary feats the 71st generation has in store for we, Exotians. 

—TELLIUS KIND, PH.D, LIBRARY OF THE EXTRAORDINARY’S DIRECTOR OF HISTORY.

A/N: What this story means to me can be summed up in three words: progress, change, and perseverance. What does it mean to you? One chapter left.