Fantastic Journeys Through The Stars 4 How To Ruin A Nostalgic Momen

When it was nearing evening, Arthur was finished. No, there was still the bas.e.m.e.nt to check, but he'd do it after resting up.

He sat down on the living room couch with the cat, stretching his tired joints. He exhausted from all the work, both mentally and physically. So, he was going to reward himself with a short break and a quick meal.

Luckily the pantry still had a lot of canned foodstuffs, ready-meals, and a few big cartons of 'never expire' brand fruit juices remaining. Modern technology was truly a marvel. Scientists invented ways to grow mangoes and bananas that stayed fresh for centuries without hurting the yield. This never really hurt the economy either, since humanity was still recovering from the war of unification.

Arthur quickly finished his meal. It was a simple gla.s.s of orange juice, and a microwaved bento.

'Can cats drink orange juice?' He wondered, as he watched the cat giving the juice box some hostile glances.

In the quiet of the living room, and in the company of a stray cat, Arthur contemplated. His eyes kept moving from one corner of the room to the other. There were a bunch of sofas arranged around a big kotatsu, which was a type of j.a.panese table sitting upon thick blankets. Underneath it was s.p.a.ce connected to a brazier or heat source to warm up your legs.

There were also a few shelves to one side, and a giant crystal tv on the other. The quite hum of the Roombas coming from the corridor could also be heard.

It was peaceful. It always was. But it wasn't always so quiet.

After observing the cat nibble on some dried fish for a while, Arthur turned his gaze towards the photos framed all over the walls. He then looked at one photo in particular.

It was a picture of Arthur's whole family. His aging grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, their enigmatic housekeeper, and of course, Arthur himself. He was still attending middle-school. His grandparents were still alive. His parents weren't missing.

Arthur sighed.

He picked his tired body up, wanting to wipe away the dust layering the picture. There was also a feeling of nostalgia he didn't want to let pa.s.s. The place used to be such a den of noise, but now it was empty. Except for the occasional invasion of cats.

As he was wiping the muted gla.s.s frame, he noticed something odd. His younger self in the picture was wearing a pendant necklace, with an eye-catching green gem inlaid in it. It was a gift from his mother. He couldn't remember exactly when she gave it to him, but it was probably when he was still in grade school.

He didn't like wearing it so conspicuously back then, as he felt it was too girly for his tastes. However, after his parents went missing, he made a habit of always wearing it. Even now.

Arthur touched the pendant. He was so used to seeing it, that he didn't even notice how the pendant wasn't the same colour as in the photo.

The gem inlaid was now a greenish blue. More specifically, it had tiny blue spots all over the gem. Like small speck-sized sapphires inlaid within a larger emerald frame.

"Did someone switch it? But then, why didn't I notice?" Arthur compared the real thing with the photo once again. The difference was still ma.s.sive, he concluded. If the pendant really did get swapped, he would've, should've noticed immediately.

'Weird.'

Arthur knew the gem wasn't as expensive as a real emerald. A lab made product, his mother told him. It wasn't considered a luxurious commodity. Definitely not worth someone making a replica of the it to replace the real article.

Besides, the current gem looked more expensive in Arthur's eyes than the plain green one from before.

Arthur quickly took out his phone. He was always wearing this pendant, so he wanted to check some of the recent photos he took. There were outings with his brief co-workers, some random selfies with acquaintances and friends, photos of foods, his graduation party from half a year ago.

Arthur was wearing the pendant in most of them.

The oldest picture of the pendant Arthur could find was when he graduated high-school. The gem was green, but after squinting hard, he noticed it already had some tiny bluish spots.

Arthur put the phone away, and hung the photo back on the wall.

No one swapped it. The gem itself gradually changed. With small specs appearing one at a time.

That's why Arthur never noticed it. His subconscious mind got used to the gradual change.

'what the h.e.l.l did mum get for him...' He wondered. He would need to take the pendant to get examined somewhere. It was a memento of his parents yes, but what if it was also some strange radioactive rock!

Better to be safe than sorry.

Despite his doubts, Arthur trusted his mother. He believed she would not to give him something that would harm him. Besides, he had been wearing this pendant for years now. No cancer yet, and he had rarely gotten sick in recent years other than some just deserved food poisoning.

On the contrary, he was healthier than most people he knew.

Well, whatever he was going to do, it would have to wait until tomorrow. It was already evening, and he still had a bas.e.m.e.nt to check.

***

When Arthur's great grandparents first built this place, they built the bas.e.m.e.nt with the standards of a military grade emergency bunker. People back then were very skeptical of the safety standards on moon after a series of unfortunate accident which caused parts of the domes to malfunction in some new completed moontowns.

The worst of them even cost human lives.

So, the bas.e.m.e.nt bunker came equipped with various life support systems, and even extra cold storage for food. After his great grandparents pa.s.sed away, Arthur's grandparents reconstructed the whole place. The emergency systems were still there, but now the bas.e.m.e.nt was mostly used as a second storehouse.

It was the last place to check on Arthur's list before he called it a day.

The ventilation system of the bas.e.m.e.nt was more robust than the main house's, so the air wasn't stale. The place wasn't covered in layers of dust either, contrary to Arthur's expectations.

No hissing cats either.

Meoooow!!!

Scratch that, there was one hissing cat. It was the grey stray. The moment Arthur entered the bas.e.m.e.nt, it puffed up its tail with a hiss, backs straight like a predator. It was spooked!

Arthur didn't expect the cat to suddenly get so agitated. Before he could find out why, the cat made a dash into the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"Hey, wait up! Leave those auto-cleaners alone!" Arthur chased after the cat, lest it broke something important. Or worse, got stuck somewhere dangerous. The emergency equipment here was one of the few things Arthur's parents warned him not to mess with when he was a kid.

After trekking through a mountain of stacked cardboard boxes, Arthur finally caught up with the cat.

It still had its tail fluffed up, noticeably restless. It was standing at the edge of a round hole in the ground, peering inside.

"Dumb cat, don't lean in so much. You'll fall." Of course, the cat couldn't possibly understand what Arthur had said. It continued to make threatening yowls at the hole.

'Wait, hole?' Arthur finally came to. Why the h.e.l.l was there a hole in his bas.e.m.e.nt? Did someone try to sneak in?

"Careful now." He tried to calm the cat down. It, however, refused to calm down or budge from its spot. Its sapphire eyes still watching the unknown pit of darkness.

Arthur squatted beside the cat and carefully examined the anomaly. The hole looked like it was melted, not dug. So he could discard the possibility of cartoon thieves trying to dig their way into the house.

'Strange.' Arthur had seen holes like this in fictions though. Melted concrete, metal and wood, the plates and shafts being bent outwards, a large tunnel that lead deep into the crust of the moon. It positively looked like a scene straight out of a 21st century alien flick.
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"Whatever the case, I should call the cops. This day just keeps getting stranger and stranger."

There was also the case of the security system failing. It had didn't even detect this strange breach, not to mention automatically notifying the nearest police station. Arthur wasn't a fan of suing, but he checked, the warranty on their security system was still active.

" Meoooow!!!"

"Uwah!" Arthur was caught off guard by the cat's loud screech. The hole in the floor made the echo was extra deafening. Before he could check what happened, he saw a blur of grey jumping straight at his shadow. A split second later, there was a pat on his shoulder.

"h.e.l.lo again, sir. Could you please ask your pet to release my robe? It's the only set I have." It was the strange monk!

"Whoa! Thief!" Arthur shook the hand off and hastily turned around. He saw the cat was biting and scratching at the monk's robe.

Why was this lunatic in his house? Who let him in? And (most importantly) why was he coming out of Arthur's shadow?!

"Calm down, sir! I am no thief. My name is Liu Feng. I am an honest citizen." The monk calmly explained himself.

"Calm down? You calm down! What are you doing here? Good citizen? Then be a good citizen and wait for the cops!" Arthur was getting more fl.u.s.tered. But this was a normal reaction. Suddenly having an unknown freak coming out of one's shadow, in a bas.e.m.e.nt with a mysterious unknown hole would doubtlessly make anyone hysterical.

Arthur warily took a few steps back. Then he remembered the hole directly behind him.

Fudge almighty! Nowhere to run!

"Sir, you should step away from the hole. I feel a strange aura coming from there. It is not something you should have contact with." The monk took a step forward. The cat was still biting his robe. And Arthur wanted to take a step backward. But there was the hole!

The entire situation painted a strange picture.

But before Arthur could come up with a reply, he noticed the cat's eyes going wide.

The monk who named himself Liu Feng looked like he wanted to continue saying something, but his face also turned unnaturally pale.

Both of them were staring behind Arthur, with dread visible on their faces.

Arthur knew what was happening. It was a common plot point in alien movies.

"There's… something behind me, isn't there?"

The monk nodded.

The cat purred.

Arthur slowly turned around.

He came face to face with a long, greenish blue, jellylike transparent, but somewhat insectoid tentacle rising from the mysterious hole.

"Aaaaaaalien!!!" he screamed like a little girl. The tentacle didn't care. It flew in straight for Arthur.

"Watch out!" The monk shouted, lunging at Arthur as fast as he could. But he knew wouldn't make it in time. So he yelled, "Safeguard!".

The monk's body was instantly covered in a dense white aura, with tangible power radiating from his person. A pulse went off, and a semi-transparent barrier appeared in front of them.

It proved a useless effort. The shield failed to stop the tentacle for even a second. It went right through the moment it b.u.mped against the ethereal defense.

"I-Impossible!" the monk stuttered, his voice dripping with disbelief. It was the first time Arthur saw him so broken out of his nonchalance.

But Arthur had bigger things to worry about.

The tip of the tentacle, now un.o.bstructed, expanded rapidly. It then became hazy like a spreading mist, as it covered Arthur and the cat, which had somehow made its way between the human and the hole.

The tentacle paused for a split second, then pulled them right into the tunnel. The tunnel which was definitely too narrow for human beings to pa.s.s through.

"I'm gonna dieeeeeeeeeeee!!" Arthur screamed once again, like a little girl.

"Tsk!" After clicking his tongue, the monk hesitated for a split of a split second and quickly grabbed onto the cat's tail.

"Meoooow!!!"

The cat screeched, now with tears in its eyes. The monk ignored the indignant feline, yelling, "Make way, O Vast one!"

As his chant ended, the tunnel started to expand right before Arthur was completely pulled in and crushed by the kidnapping tentacle.

Thus, Arthur, the cat, and the monk were sucked helplessly into the depths of the moon by the bluish green monstrosity. The monk was busy keeping his magic spell running so they wouldn't be crushed by the narrow tunnel, and the cat was busy crying out in distress, not knowing why the uncouth human was crushing its treasured tail in a death grip.

Arthur didn't notice any of this. He had already blanked out at that point.

By the time he came to, the abductor tentacle was already retreating into a vast lake of greenish blue water, leaving the three of them stranded in a ma.s.sive underground cavern.