Boboiboy: Elemental Tales

In Time Gone By

Hello! Glad to see me again? You won't be when you finish this.

I really should be revising for my exams. But I found this old draft in my folders which was written for a late-night angst craving and since it's my birthday, I thought I might as well publish it. Please note that I didn't intend for this to ever see the light of day when I wrote it, which is why it is 100% self-indulgent and not entirely... restrained, for want of a better word.

Warnings: dystopia, isolation, major character death, wound infection, sepsis (implied).

***

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high and life worth living...

***

Five weeks.

It's been five weeks since they've last had contact with an ally—since they were cut off from the world. These days there are enemies around every corner, technicians forced by the Empire to report the first sign of a rebel, and any kind of call is far too risky. And no one comes across their tiny hideout, tucked into a forgotten corner of the galaxy.

It wasn't meant to be just the two of them; originally, the entire team (or what was left of it) was dispatched to one of the few research labs they had left, where the scientists were out of ideas and desperate to turn the tide of the hopeless fight. But they were tracked. The lab was destroyed, the rebels killed on the spot. Only the fastest three escaped, and not without consequences. And then they lost Ying in the ensuing chase.

It's a miserable existence: living in an old, abandoned space shuttle, knowing no backup is coming, fighting for a cause that was lost the moment TAPOPS and TEMPUR-A fell. Slowly running out of supplies and afraid of landing to restock, lest they're tracked and killed—if they even find a planet before the fuel runs out. Possibly going mad from isolation and cabin fever.

Hang on tight...

They cope by preparing. (Preparing for what, they aren't sure. What can two teenagers do against a galaxy-wide empire?) Halilintar forges and sharpens blades. Solar makes potion after dangerous potion. They work themselves to the verge of collapse. Eat, rest, repeat. Far away from any solar systems, day and night have little meaning.

It's fine, most of the time. Keeping themselves occupied leaves no time for dark thoughts. Exhausted minds have no room for brooding. But powerful as they are, they're still human, and humans need to rest. When they rest – that's when the thoughts come.

Right now, they're sitting on a mattress in the dusty sleeping quarters, the lights switched off to conserve energy. Halilintar has a flimsy blanket over his lap and Solar curled against his side. He stares into the inky black and, not for the first time, wonders what's going to happen to them.

Will they starve to death? Die in a ship malfunction? Be found and executed? Or are they cursed to wander the cold, unforgiving galaxy without seeing another soul until they both grow old?

Well. One of them might grow old. Solar has stretched out the medical supplies longer than should be physically possible, but he isn't a miracle-worker. He tries to hide it, but these past few days he's started sweating and shivering violently in his sleep, and each time it gets harder to wake him up.

Halilintar doesn't need to be a doctor to know what that means. It's almost absurd to think of someone dying of a simple infection in a world as technologically advanced as theirs, but, well, here they are.

Is it wrong to be glad for Solar?

Whatever Halilintar's own fate is, he hopes it doesn't take too long. Maybe then he can finally reunite with everyone, in a place without danger and worry. Sooner or later—most likely sooner—there won't be anyone left to keep him on this side anyway.

Hang on tight...

"You think anyone's still out there?" Solar murmurs.

"Maybe." Halilintar answers noncommittally. He doesn't mention that it doesn't matter anyway, since no one can find them. Or that it's kinder to wish the rebels dead.

Silence falls again. Neither of them are really conversationalists, and he's never minded before but now he desperately wishes he was. Any kind of talk is better than this heavy, oppressive silence.

He remembers the makeshift guitar leaning against the wall next to the mattress. He made it from scraps, for lack of anything else to do, not long ago. It's acoustic because that's the best he can manage, and even then it's an abomination to the ears, but it gives him something to do besides making weapons for a fight that'll never come.

"Do you remember how dad played us lullabies on his guitar when we were little?" He offers.

Playing also reminds him of their late father – of simple, peaceful times long lost. And even if that alone makes picking up the instrument painful, he doesn't quit. He'll never give up anything that ties him back to their family.

"Worked like a charm," Solar huffs out the ghost of a laugh, "He ruined so many of my nighttime plans whenever he was home."

And even when dad wasn't home, he still managed to play them to sleep through video calls – some of them recorded en route between posts, in the very same shuttle they're in now. Halilintar knows that if he turns his head a little to the left, he'll be looking directly into the camera his dad used. There's also a guitar case next to the desk, but dad's beloved guitar is long gone. He would know—recently he's had plenty of time to search.

"Gempa was eternally grateful for it." He adds. His gut twists at the memory of his younger brother, their leader and protector, the living embodiment of the phrase over my dead body. Over his dead body, indeed, the enemy went.

Solar doesn't reply. Their brothers are even more of a sore spot for him, especially with the loss of Duri in that last attack. He never got to apologize for the quarrel they were having.

Hang on tight...

"Go to sleep, Solar." Halilintar finally says. They can't afford to dwell too much on grief, or they'll collapse; perhaps death would be a blessing, but they're both too stubborn to give up just yet.

Solar shifts restlessly against his side, "I'm not sleepy."

Halilintar rolls his eyes. He's heard Solar say that same sentence since they were little, and fall asleep not fifteen minutes later to their dad's lullaby. He picks up the guitar and strums a few notes.

It sounds as unpleasant as ever—a pale mockery of the lost, loved instrument that once resided in the case by the desk.

"That thing doesn't even sound like an instrument." Solar grumbles, not for the first time.

"It does the trick." Halilintar rebukes, like clockwork. The first notes of Bersedia fill the room.

Halilintar closes his eyes and lets memory take over, lets his hands move of their own accord as an image of his family, alive and happy and together, paints itself in his head. His dad's soft voice sings along with him. Not long after, tears prick the corner of his eyes and a smile tugs at his lips. He doesn't try to hold them back. There's no point in that anymore.

He finishes the song and starts over again, before the illusion can break. He focuses on the soft melody and the way Solar slowly uncoils, pressing warmly into his side, and he willingly loses himself in the past.

He's not sure how much time passes—maybe fifteen minutes, maybe an hour—before he finally stops, fingers smarting. There's barely a twitch as silence blankets the room once more.

His family fades from his mind's eye again. He can taste salt at the corner of his mouth.

"Hali..." Solar mumbles after a while, words so slurred with sleep that he's probably not even aware he's talking out loud, "I'm tired. I want to go home."

Home. Halilintar thinks of a crumbling ghost town, of the stench of death and decay, of utter, deafening silence. He thinks of lush green grass and rainbows against a blue sky, of the sweet aroma of hot chocolate and homemade food, of familiar laughter drifting by on the wind.

Hang on tight...

"Me too." He murmurs into the silence.

***

Title and quote taken from I Dreamed a Dream from the musical adaptation of Les Miserables.