Andromeda

XV.

 I'm not sure when Andromeda transported us, but at some point during the night we ended up outside in a warm area. The air was thick and the humidity felt heavy, yet oddly relaxing.

We were in a forest. A small waterfall fell from a small ledge, creating a little creek of cool, fresh water. The boys and Andromeda had gone back to their usual playful manner. They were laughing and talking in a small circle on a patch of grass, and I started to understand something as I watched them. I wanted to ask Andromeda if my assumption was correct, but it did not seem like the proper time to start asking questions. Not when all the tension was finally gone from the air.

Jeongguk was sitting right at Andromeda's side and never looked away from her. He had a dreamy smile on his face, one that showed nothing but complete love. It did not surprise me that he wanted to go with her when she left. I had only been in Andromeda's orbit for a few days and I felt a complex attachment to her that I still cannot explain. He had known her for years, probably longer than any other human had known her. But he couldn't. Maybe he didn't know that yet. Maybe he thought Andromeda's quiet announcement was her saying that he could go. To this day, I do not know what he was thinking, despite how many times I have asked him.

"Where are we?" I asked eventually, gesturing to the surrounding forest.

She laughed. "The Arabah desert. Or the Aravah, if you're Hebrew. The Arabic people call it the Arabah desert. We're south of the Dead Sea basin, which separates the countries of Israel and Jordan."

"It doesn't seem very desert-like," Namjoon said. "Why are we here?"

Andromeda hummed and raised a hand. A small bird flew down and rested on her thumb for just a few seconds before it chirped a tune and flew away. "I like it here. It's an excellent reminder of human ingenuity. You see, this is a desert for a reason. In fact, the names literally mean 'dry and desolate area'." She put down her hand, and a cool breeze rustled the trees.

"Human beings turned this area of the desert into a forest to help with climate change. Of course, they didn't create the waterfall and all of the other things besides planting the trees. They had a little help with that." Andromeda had a mischievous grin on her face.

"They made this into a forest?" Taehyung asked.

"A decade ago, this was just sand and dust and rocks."

"Why did you bring us here?" Yoongi asked, even though I think we all knew the true, deeper answer. Andromeda's time on Earth was running out, and she wanted to see all the things that she enjoyed about the planet before she left.

But she didn't want to give the true, deeper answer. She thought about that for a very long minute. "I've seen every moment of humankind so far. I remember a time that seems long ago for humans, but it wasn't long at all in the history of the world, when homo sapiens prized nature and the natural order above everything else." I noticed the strange use of the technical term for humans, rather than the more common term.

"While I enjoy science and people learning from it, I hated when people created machines that made it so the destruction of nature meant some people could have more money than others. Money, something that is not natural is not a part of the natural order. I hated it when scientists denounced religion and called beliefs myths. I hated when they looked at stars and said that instead of those stars being something special or something that people could believe in, they were just random balls of elements suspended in the sky." She scoffed. "I was a god once. Now I'm just nothing but a fairy tale for children to believe in and then give up when they are told they need to act older."

I had a sudden memory of when I was a small child. I was with my parents on a camping trip, and I was sitting on top of the family camper looking at the sky. I remember I wished on a shooting star. I forgot what the wish had been, probably something immature and childish. But I still remember making that wish and feeling sure that some sort of magic would happen so that my wish could come true.

As I had gotten older, I stopped believing that there was anyone on the other side of the atmosphere that could grant wishes. After all, shooting stars are just comets. Spheres of space rock hurtling through the air, stuck in the orbit of some larger entity.

My child self knew better, of course. I've come to that realization quite easily. I have found that when it comes to matters of belief, children are often more correct than adults.

"Still," Andromeda continued, "there have always been humans that continue to believe in nature, and believe in the connection we share. To see these people working to preserve and be one with nature..." she took in a deep breath of the heavy air, "it gives me hope for your kind."

It sounded so final.

"Why are you so sure you want to leave?" Jimin asked. "You could stay for longer."

She shook her head. "I can't risk hurting everyone here. I'm unstable now. The longer I stay here, the more I'll lose control of my abilities and the more likely I become to hurting everyone on the planet."

"Why do you care so much about Earth?" I asked. "Or at least the people on it. You said you have seen many species in your lifetime, and not just here. Why are we special?"

She stared at me like she hadn't asked herself that question at all. Maybe she hadn't. After a few seconds, she slowly rose to her feet.

Now that she wasn't hiding her light, she was able to illuminate the entire valley with white starlight. It was beautiful. She walked away from the group in the direction of the waterfall, literally walking on water for a few seconds.

"What are you doing?" Jeongguk asked as she stood at the foot of the waterfall.

She smiled at him. "Getting ready to prove a point," she said, then walked through the waterfall, disappearing from our sight.

We all glanced uncertainly at each other, wondering what was going on. Before any of us could call out, though, a tall figure walked back through the waterfall.

I yelled, a little in surprise and more than a little in fear. The figure appeared to be something straight out of a horror movie.

Her limbs and fingers were long and thin, with arms that easily reached past her knees. Her eyes were huge, taking over much of her face. She had long dark hair that was thinly laid across her skinny body. She was easily seven feet tall.

The creature gave me an expectant look, and I took a deep breath as I realized it was just Andromeda, shapeshifted with none of the natural starlight.

"What are you?" Seokjin asked.

"Is that your natural form?" Namjoon asked a quarter of a second later.

Andromeda laughed, the sound a wheezy high-pitched noise. "No. My natural form is a giant star made out of highly explosive gases that formed the world as you know it."

"Then what are you?" Taehyung asked. His voice carried a hint of disgust in it, which was understandable. The creature in front of us was... eerie.

"I'm you," she said, as if it was the most obvious thing ever. "This is a human." Some of the starlight returned to the strange body.

"For a self-proclaimed expert on humans, you don't know much about them," I said. "There has never been a human that looked like that."

"That's true," she said. "But there will be. This is an example of Homo Faenaligenesis, the last species of the Homo genus."