Even Heather—who was usually uninterested in space—got into character. She looked at Matthias, and he answered, “This is more interesting than I thought.”
She nodded in assent. I seem to have underestimated modern tech. I totally didn’t expect simulations to be so realistic now.
“Pardon me for my rude behavior earlier, dear guests. Do you have any questions for me?” the captain asked politely, unlike how he acted earlier.
Matthias stared at the screen and asked, “Will we be landing on Kepler-452b?” That was the question he wanted answered the most.
The serious captain finally cracked a smile. “Yes, we shall be landing on Kepler-452b.”
Matthias looked at the captain up close. Since they were just simulated humans, they should be different from real humans. If he can smile, that means he has a real-life model somewhere. There were a lot of simulated humans around the deck, but most of them had a deadpan look on their face. The details were lacking, but obviously the creator had poured a lot of soul into the captain. It must have been hard to make even one character like that, so Matthias didn’t nitpick.
A moment later, a timer appeared on the screen, much to Matthias’ confusion. Then, the captain answered, “We’ll be landing in three minutes. Please remain seated and buckled up.” The captain started going back to the helm to get ready for a bumpy landing.
Heather was keeping her silence, since everything that was happening was already beyond her. She was hoping Matthias would explain the science behind it, but the most important thing at the moment was the landing.
Every second felt like an eternity, and a minute felt like infinity. The timer on the screen was accurate to milliseconds, and the tension was growing in the spaceship; even the deadpan crew members were starting to look serious. “This is the longest three minutes I’ve ever experienced,” Heather blurted. Only a minute and a half had passed, but it already felt like forever.
“Patience. It’ll be over in a minute,” he calmed her down.
As if stopped by something, the crew put down their work and stood at their stations, staring at the screen. The robot started creaking, and Heather looked at it. Is it getting rusty? Why’d it creak?
“System error. Rebooting.” The robot malfunctioned right before they landed, and it was just beside Heather.
Heather thought it was weird, then the spaceship shook violently, as if it had crashed into something. The screen blacked out, and the lights kept flashing. Heather arched her eyebrow, while Matthias held his forehead. An inevitable crisis was descending upon them.
Obviously, a landing was impossible. So much for that, Matthias thought. Time to get back to reality, I guess. Modern tech was still insufficient to simulate a landing on another planet, so they threw in a crisis at the last moment.
They started getting nervous; even though they had seen the trope countless times in movies, getting plunged right into the chaos was still heart pounding for them.
“Captain! We crashed into an unidentified object. The ship sustained heavy damage,” a crew member said shrilly. That was not good news.
However, the captain was still calm and collected. “Activate the backup plan.” He was too calm, as if the crisis was nothing to be scared off.
Heather and Matthias were slowly getting into the feel of it. The plot was smooth, and the suspense was thrown in at the right time. They thought they were in a Hollywood set, but they were just in a museum. The crisis was enough to make them nervous and fill them with adrenaline though.
The whole crew had descended into chaos, but the captain was still as calm as ever. Matthias and Heather were also starting to feel the despair surrounding everyone. As the story went on, the ship was sucked into a black hole, which gobbled it up, making it disappear into nothingness.
Everyone was trying to escape the black hole, though Matthias was still holding Heather’s hand tightly. It was a good thing none of them were claustrophobic, or they would have had a panic attack right there and then. Even though they were in a crisis, they were still calm.
The crew was starting to spit out jargon, and they listened closely. Simply put, the ship was badly damaged, and the black hole would destroy it. Some of the crew members were starting to write down their last will and testament, but it offered little comfort, since they had lost contact with Earth.
The robot had rebooted some time earlier, and he went up to Matthias and Heather. “The ship will be destroyed soon. If you have any last words, I can send it back to Earth.”
Even the robot was starting to get sentimental. Matthias and Heather looked at each other, but they could see nothing in the darkness. All that was left in the final moments was to come up with their ‘last words’.
“Dying with someone I love is one hell of a way to go. I have no regrets,” Matthias said.
For a moment there, Heather felt touched. Even though she knew it was all fake, it didn’t stop her from feeling the love in it though, and she got into character as well.
“What about you, Miss Langston?” the robot asked her.
Thanks to Matthias, Heather actually had something worthwhile to say. “My only regret is that I’ve never truly been myself. My life is nothing but a façade.”
She blurted it out. It was something she would only think about, but she never expected herself to say it out loud. Heather felt like she had gone overboard for a bit. For some reason, she thought that she wasn’t herself, then she realized it was because of Matthias.
Matthias’ mood was simply infectious, so she wanted to be herself that day. She would get tired of wearing the mask, so she needed to take a breather every now and then.
The darkness went on for a long, long time, threatening to devour the very souls of everything caught in it. Everything around them was spinning, and time went on for eternity. After what seemed like forever, a bright light broke through, and Heather covered her eyes.
For a moment, the light felt painful to look at, then they heard the captain heave a sigh of relief. The captain, with all his wisdom, had managed to lead the crew members across the black hole for a chance of survival. The guests, Matthias and Heather, had a chance at a new life. Everyone was enjoying the sunlight, breathing in the fresh air. It was a great feeling after going through the black hole with barely any air to breathe.
The experience was a challenge, and those with bad health should never attempt it. A large part of the ride demanded decent physical ability, which meant the guests should be healthy and disease-free at the very least. It was more like a life-and-death simulation than a super realistic ride, but a meaningful ride nonetheless; one that made its guests honest to themselves.
Once they came out of the spaceship, Heather smirked. “Happy ending, huh?” She sounded sad though when she said that.
“Yeah, it’s a happy ending. Don’t you like it?” Matthias asked.
She shook her head. “Life is always cruel. It’s always better to have multiple endings.” She got out of character because everyone survived in the end.
“Oh, I should have chosen the bad ending if I had known about it.” He looked at her and grinned.
“I see, so you can choose the endings.” Realization struck her when she heard that. Looks like he knows more than I thought.
“The voucher mentioned it.” He then took out a voucher. Heather looked at it, but she didn’t pay much attention to it, though she suspected he might have more vouchers in store. “We can experience it again if you don’t like the ending,” he suggested.
“No. The ending’s the only thing different, not the plot. I don’t want to go through the same thing twice,” she said in refusal. Since they chose the happy ending at first, there was no need for a second trip, even if the ending was a bad one. It would be pointless.
“But business is usually repetitive and boring. How do you go through it then?” Matthias asked in reflex. Whenever he was with her, he’d always try to debate.
She gave him a weird look, wondering why he would always try to argue with her. Why can’t he just talk like a normal guy? Is debating with me that fun? “It’s my job. Not like I can choose what I like, unlike my personal life,” she answered him, though she was annoyed about how he could ruin the atmosphere so easily.
Because of his question, she felt like ignoring him again. However, she was also frustrated that she couldn’t talk to him normally. Every time she was with him, they’d end up arguing, and both sides would refuse to back off. That was especially true for Matthias, who could ruin the atmosphere single-handedly. She didn’t know how she should handle him.
Matthias held back the urge to argue, since Evan had told him to change that habit no matter what. Matthias had been paying attention to that the whole time, but he’d still unconsciously argue with her. He couldn’t do anything about his reflex, which was really frustrating. A moment later, Matthias started some small talk. “Are you hungry?”
Heather nodded. Thanks to Matthias, she didn’t eat much that morning, and after that whole ride, she needed to refuel, so she needed to eat.
“This place is nice. Let’s go.” Matthias wanted to please her by showing her some good place to eat.
In response, she narrowed her eyes. Matthias was being too out of character, so she wasn’t used to it. Since she was used to their constant arguments, it was hard to adapt to a nice Matthias. “I don’t want local food.” Heather started being unreasonable to see how Matthias would react to it.
“There’s a Southeast Asian place there. It’s great, and I think you’d like it.” Matthias was still gentle toward her, but it wasn’t like him. Usually he was sharp, snarky, and annoying.
“I don’t like sweet stuff.” Heather went a step further, obviously having a little plan going on in her head.
