Chapter 1: The Anger of the Moss
Shuun-Vo was irritated with a piece of moss.
It was common moss, the kind that grew on the walls of unregistered spaces, feeding on moisture and darkness. It did nothing but exist. It asked for nothing. It expected nothing. And yet, Shuun-Vo felt a dull irritation every time he saw it.
The moss had been there for three cycles. Shuun-Vo visited this space, the forty-seventh he had created since the beginning of the Third Cycle every five days. He sat on the central stone. He checked whether the walls still maintained the quality of silence he had learned to cultivate. He observed whether anyone had used the place.
And the moss remained there. Motionless. Persistent. Alive.
- "You shouldn't be here - Shuun-Vo said, on the third visit."
The moss didn't answer. Of course.
On the fourth visit, Shuun-Vo tried to remove it. He extended his hand, the plates of inverse biomatter glowing faintly, and touched the surface of the stone where the moss was lodged. Normally, his touch was enough to make any symbiotic organism recoil not from pain, but from incompatibility. The Rejected Presence rejected the world around it.
The moss didn't recoil.
Shuun-Vo frowned. The plates on his forehead, larger and darker than the others, emitted a faint glow. He pressed his finger against the moss for a longer moment.
Nothing.
- "You're too small to feel me - he murmured."
The moss, as always, didn't answer. But Shuun-Vo had the strange impression that it was... comfortable.
That irritated him even more.
On the fifth visit, he gave up trying to remove the moss. He sat on the central stone, ignoring the green stain on the wall, and closed his eyes. The silence of the space enveloped him like a familiar cloak.
And then, for the first time in cycles, Shuun-Vo felt something he hadn't felt since the Sterile Fields of Helyon:
Loneliness.
Not the comfortable loneliness of being alone. Not the necessary loneliness of being the exception. It was a different loneliness, one that hurt. One that asked questions.
He opened his eyes and looked at the moss.
- "You don't miss anyone, do you?"
The moss glowed faintly, reflecting the light from Shuun-Vo's plates.
- "No. You just... stay."
Shuun-Vo was silent for a long time. Then he did something he had never done before: he touched the moss with the tip of his finger, without trying to remove it. He just felt its texture. It was rough. Dry. Alive.
- "Maybe - he said, quietly." - "You're the only one who understands me."