Last Girl Alive | Bangtan

117: Path

Taehyung lifts his pen from the page.

"Wow it's been a while but, I'm fairly confident." He holds up the sheet of paper. He'd drawn seven dots, linking them together like a connect the dots game. It looked much more complicated the previous one he had drawn that consisted of just three dots. "This is Ursa Major also called The Big Dipper. It looks kind of like a JCB scoop and it's illuminated by really bright stars. It's one of the easy ones."

"There are millions of stars, how will we know which one is for which," Jimin laughs a little disheartedly. You lean forward interestedly as Taehyung begins his third drawing.

"There's Ursa Minor too. It look pretty much the same as the Major. Then there's Cassiopeia." He proceeds to dot the page with an M shaped drawing.

"I've heard of her," you smile at once. "In Greek mythology she was this vain queen who always boasted about her beauty."

"So...Jin hyung," Yoongi concludes. You snort, Jimin dissolving in laughter with Hoseok. Jin hyung looks around the room unimpressed that such a jolly reaction had been prompted from a joke made by Yoongi.

"Okay," Namjoon holds up the four drawings. "These are the final ones right? The common ones that everyone can see?"

"Well there are the constellations from the zodiac," Taehyung wonders out loud, playing with his pen. "Like Scorpius, Gemini, Taurus...but they're composed of many stars."

"Like in a cluster?"

"Similar," he hesitates and then shakes his head. "Let's just stick to these for now. Orion, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Cassiopeia. We should be able to spot at least one of these. I mean..." pointing out to the endless universe outside he adds, "this isn't much different from our ordinary night sky."

"Alright, let's do it," Namjoon claps his hands together in finality. "I hope it works."

"It will," Taehyung clicks his pen shut, nodding. "If we look properly." He looks around the group with a confident expression of motivation. He hands out the drawings but you've already memorized them. You move up ahead of the others to one of the viewing areas. There weren't many on this spacecraft as it wasn't some sort of touristic vehicle, in fact you weren't really sure what sort of purpose this spacecraft had. It seemed to be built at the bare minimum for eight people with hardly enough storage space for everyone to survive a couple of months. Or perhaps you guys had just fixed it up wrongly. Either way, the only windows to space where through the cockpit and the open area at the back just above the rocket boosters.

You move up front to the cockpit as most people have already crowded around the more spacey back area. You lower yourself into a seat, rubbing the glass in front of you as if to wipe away imaginary dust and clear the vision. Beside you, you can see the lights of the universe reflect in Jin's eyes.

Seeing him so focused inspires you to start looking yourself. You look out at the sight that's been encompassing you for so many days now. That thick, black, blanket of the universe illuminated by little headlights of all sizes. It was that starry night view that you climbed mountains to see. Yet to you it was nothing new. If anything, you longed to see mountains, roads, buildings, trees....color. Some color in this empty canvas. Anything.

You try to stay concentrated and focus on one star but there were so many all crowded together it was hard to tell if you were looking at the same one from the second before. They were so identical it was almost a mockery. Giving up on solo patterns you try to patch up formations of lights already close together. It was extremely challenging for both the eye and the brain to coordinate and you had to switch position a couple of times or look back at the drawings. The longer you stared the more messed up your vision got. It felt like an impossible game of word sleuth but you couldn't link together any letters or make any sense out of them. At a point in your restless waiting they seemed to be linking up like an illusion. You were seeing only what you wanted to see but in reality those lines didn't exist.