Starlit Ruins (BL | MLM)

Ch.1 | A Break

Yakutia, Siberia | June 2060

     "You can't even see through it.." Dr. Johann Vehar mutters, staring into a cloudy, sky blue puddle amidst melted permafrost.

The doctor beside him goes to reach his hand in the small exposed puddle, but Johann smacks his hand away.

"Are you mad, Ken? This has been untouched for hundreds of thousands of years!" Johann exclaims. "This isn't a puddle to play with on the side of the street."

Dr. Ken Tsai takes two crouched steps back, casting an apologetic glance toward Johann.

"Apologies, force of habit," whispers Ken.

Johann sighs in response, eyes never leaving the puddle.

"Fetch an empty vial from the bag. This will make for astonishing samples, whatever inhabits this body of water," Johann says breathlessly.

Ken carefully extracts a glass vial from a bag behind the both of them. After unscrewing the cap, he hands it to Johann.

Johann nods in thanks and swallows a lump in his throat, followed by a long sigh. He carefully lowers the vial and fills it about three quarters full, hand never touching the water.

"Cap," Johann asserts.

Ken hands Johann the cap, which finds itself carefully screwed onto the vial by Johann.

Ken sighs in relief. "The lab can't come soon enough," he whispers.

Johann gives a half smile, equally excited by the prospect of unearthed potential in the untouched waters of Siberian permafrost.

"We're gonna make sure we have plenty of variables to choose from. Let's fill the rest of the vials," Johann says.

"Time for a big break... or a regular break. I'll take any break at this point," Ken says, sighing.

"Don't worry Doctor Tsai. We're gonna change the world, one way or another. I can feel it," Johann suggests.

Seattle, Washington | August 2060

     "I need a break," Rahim says, exasperated.

Rahim's father, Soni, speaks up almost immediately.

"You just had a two and a half month break. You don't see my boss giving me a summer break. Finish the report," his father retorts from the kitchen. "He's already flying me to Silicon Valley again to help with a project tomorrow. YOU have to make a report. Get over it. You're not sixteen anymore, you're twenty two."

Rahim grinds his teeth agitatedly and looks back at the screen in front of him. The seemingly endless rows of sentences stare back.

"Two pages left." Rahim thinks to himself. He runs his hands down his face and prepares himself to type the rest of his report on the neuroscience of Crows. Correction, corvus brachyrhyncos. Rahim's zoology professor would never accept the "vapid descriptor" that the general population uses.

As Rahim continues to type on his keyboard, a bowl is set beside him. Rahim looks at the bowl and then up to his father.

"Eat up. This will fuel the rest of your report," his father says. As he walks away, the smell of Biryani floods Rahim's nose. His stomach gurgles with immediate anticipation.