Chapter 1: Crash Landing

Loneliness, was what kept surrounding Jogrin, despite him being sound asleep. The scrawny, dark haired, long-tailed juvenile, who had outlived every single one of his kind and lived for 900 years already, having witnessed the horrifying incident that had taken place at his home planet, knew, in his heart, that the Darkian planet is no more, and that he would be the only Darkian left alive. Even so, he was still in denial. Having one's home obliterated in a blink of an eye and not possessing any ability to prevent that from taking place was of course one of the most traumatizing experiences anyone could ever imagine. During his space voyage at the speed of light, all he dreamed about was the daunting screams of others who could do nothing but attempt to flee. Jogrin's eyeballs restlesslyrolled around in the eye socket, as if they craved to have Jogrin's eyelids opened so he could be released from the nightmare. A nightmare that was actually caught by his very eyes.

The number of planets and suns the shuttle, which held Jogrin in, flew by was uncountable. As it came close to the suns, Jogrin's right arm heated up, with the bones within radiating in a orange-red color, which eventually turned into a dark color. The strange dim light that seemed to resemble dark matter was then transmitted through the bones up to his shoulder, down the spine until it reached the tip of the tail, where the light vanished in one go.

It was fascinating that the shuttle had yet to crash land. Year by year, and decade by decade, Jogrin had been counting within this space of nothingness. And for 752 long years, the above were all that there was going on for our protagonist. Nothing could be seen, heard, or felt. Not even the radiating sun could be sensed as if he was destined to be held captive by the seemingly eternal slumber. Only silence and darkness prevailed and engulfed Jogrin.

The nightmare continuously haunted Jogrin as he remained in the realm of horror. Nothing appeared to be able to wake him up, until he felt a huge impact spreading throughout his debilitated body. At first, he writhed and scowled slightly as a reaction. But an abrupt feeling of electrifying pain coursed through his entire body, and Jogrin awoke with a gasp. With his eyes wide open, a scene of him lying immobile amid a huge crater came into view.

Wanting to get on his feet, Jogrin tried moving his stick-like limbs, but to no avail. He scowled and shut his eyes tight due to a stabbing pain in his right chest. He reopened his eyes only to find out that he's been pierced by a spike-shaped log, and gazed fearfully at his dismaying wound. Should he pull out the log from his chest? He yearned to be rid of the intense pain, but that very pain had rendered it impossible for him to exert any strength, let alone pulling out the log. 

'Why... how could this be happening...' Jogrin grouched incessantly and repeatedly about the situation he was experiencing before being engulfed by silence and darkness once again.

Complete darkness was all that was in Jogrin's vision. Agony overflowed his mind as pain coursed through his weakened, emaciated body. Jogrin couldn't care less about the tormenting ache nonetheless. All he craved, was to stand back on his feet and return where he had called home as soon as possible. Deep down, he was well aware of the high possibility that he would have no more place he could call "home", but he couldn't let go of the tiny hope that, maybe his people managed to survive through the massacre, and awaiting his return. But at the same time, something inside of him kept telling him his wish was nothing more than a pipe dream. Despite that...

"Home, where to... Father, please let me go back... I don't want this..." Jogrin's voice resounded endlessly in an abysmal void.

Albeit his desire, he hadn't the slightest idea where he should head off to, though that wouldn't be enough to halt him. He wandered around this area of nothingness, only to let out his desire to return home even more.

"Must go back no matter what... They're all under attack. I can't afford to flee like a coward," unaware of how much time had passed since the invasion, Jogrin solemnly vowed and vowed that his current wish could come true.

Without any warning, glowing spirit-like objects appeared out of nowhere and surrounded Jogrin.

"What? What could those things be?" Jogrin couldn't help but be perplexed by the sight. He steadily took a few steps backs, becoming cautious of the lights of various colors emerging all around him.

Though he wasn't able to tell what the illuminating objects were, he could somehow "read" them. To Jogrin, the lights were "confused", "worried", "disturbed", "revolted", to name but a few.

One of the glowing objects approached Jogrin in the seemingly endless dark void. It appeared to be "worried", but unlike other kinds of "worried" owing to an obscure object's crash landing, this kind of "worried" was directed at Jogrin himself.

'Huh? What does it want?' was the thought that flowed into Jogrin's mind. Having no idea what the approaching illumination which eventually halted beside him wanted, Jogrin attempted to stay back, but to no avail since he wasn't even able to move a finger after taking those few steps backwards. He panicked, and tried to push the approaching light away with his hands, but he felt that he was getting weaker and weaker. In the next moment, his knees dropped onto the invisible ground, finally stiffened up. He attempted to struggle, but of course, to no avail again. The illumination grew brighter and brighter, and like a coat keeping him from being attacked by unending blizzard, it spread out and surrounded him. It felt just like how he silence and drkness engulfed him, except it was emanating warmth, and somehow, a sense of security overflowed from Jogrin. "Father? Father is that you?!" With the last of his strength, Jogrin raised his voice toward the lukewarm light, and his consciousness faded into the bright radiance before he knew it.

The next thing he remembered, was him awakening on a bed. Facing upwards, Jogrin was shone by dim, lukewarm light emitted from the ceiling, albeit not as warm as the one from when he was in the "void". Surrounding him were yellowish-green curtains. The softness of the bed he was laying on was contrasting his stiffened expression.

Then, having recalling what had happened right after awaking from the tremor when he crashed landed, Jogrin spontaneously lifted up the blue blanket that was covering him and found out he was wearing a thin purple coat, and nothing else, but he couldn't care less about that. What he was trying to look for was the wound incurred by the log. His eyes only widened when no traces of him having been injured could be found.

At the same time, unbeknownst to Jogrin, the light on the ceiling suddenly brightened up, and coming through the curtains was a somewhat muscular man with blonde hair and a solemn look on his face. He was in some kind of uniform with camo green. Carefully, he was inspecting Jogrin while keeping some distance.

Having noticed the man's presence, Jogrin stared at him with his silvery-grey eyes. Before the man could introduce himself, Jogrin abruptly murmured.

"You... You are the "worried"..."

"Pardon?" Unable to process what Jogrin implied by his sentence, the man couldn't help but inclined his head and asked with a tone of bewilderment.

"You are that "worried" that came to me when I passed out... It is you," Jogrin somehow identified the man. as the illuminating presence that reached out to him.

"Hmm... You sure are an interesting fellow, with all those specs told by the doctors as well... And yes, you're right about that... By the way, name's Proxer Maladin. I'm the commander of Zuta's emergency deployment force. Oh and Zuta is this planet's name. We found you crashing into our training ground and I carried you to this hospital, and..." Proxer kept on explaining as if there was no tomorrow.

"Planet? Am I... on another planet? What about my home planet?" queried Jogrin as he urged Proxer to give him an answer.

"Well.. even if you ask me about it... I'm sorry, I have no idea, but yes, I suppose this is "another planet" for you." Scratching his head, Proxer replied to Jogrin with a somewhat concerned look on his face. "Um, so... are you alright? Are you hurting anywhere? Especially around your chest..."

"... No, not at all..." To the question of worry Jogrin simply provided a brief answer. It appeared that he was a reticent person that wasn't used to having lengthy conversion, according to the assumption of Proxer, or maybe he just wasn't the type to get chummy with someone he'd just met. Either way, getting him to open up would require a slow approach. For starters, Proxer needed to divulge what had occurred after Jogrin blacked out.

According to Proxer, when he came by Jogrin while he was unconscious, Proxer's mind became bemused, that was because of something peculiar about that wound - no a single drop of blood was oozing out at all. Still, it was necessary to send Jogrin to hospital as he could kick the bucket at any moment.

At first, the rescue team attempted to carry Jogrin through a portal which was created by a specialized device to an emergency treatment room in the hospital. But to their dismay, it was futile since only Jogrin couldn't go through the portal. As soon as Jogrin came into contact with the portal, his body repelled the portal as if they were magnets of the same pole, which caused Jogrin to slipped off of the board that was made as a contingency stretcher, which ended up in him dropping head-first on the ground, resulting in his body convulsing in pain. All witnesses' eyes almost popped out in unison from that spectacle. The rescue team had no choice but to use a carriage drone to transfer the heavily wounded Jogrin.

By the way, as Proxer proceeded with his monologue, he gradually became more and more exhilarated, and that solemn atmosphere he had given off at the beginning was devoured by that of exuberance. Jogrin could sense "curious" and "in awe" from Proxer.

'What's wrong with this person?' A rude remark almost slipped out of Jogrin's lips, but fortunately he was able to refrain from doing so.

Back to the main topic. After arriving at the hospital, Jogrin was surrounded by a few doctors who were somewhat clueless as nothing was known about the Darkian anatomy, due to the fact that this species had never been encountered before, let alone the fact that there wasn't any blood despite the huge wound. However, they couldn't just leave Jogrin to die just because of some uncertainty.

They all nodded at each other, implying that they were willing to risk it so that they could save Jogrin. It's no brainer that their resolve as doctors was absolutely admirable.

The doctors first checked Jogrin's vitality, only to become exasperated when they found out his heart beat and breathing had ceased there was no blood flow, but there was one anomaly: his brain activity showed no deterioration. Is he still alive? The doctors were nothing but dubious, overlooking the fact that their patient had a long, backbone-shaped tail with a cone-shaped tip that resembled a stinger.

Though on the edge of their seats, the doctors had to extract the log, which was about 8 cm in diameter, that pierced through Jogrin's left chest. One of them reduced the log's toughness by utilizing a machine with a shape similar to a game controller. Controlling another device with four thin spider-like legs, it grabbed onto one end of the log and steadily tenderized it in less than four minutes. During the tenderizing, translucent gel-like liquid was spread around the almost perfectly circular wound on both sides. Soon after the tenderized log was removed, the gel immediately enclosed the exposed wound. If not for the advanced medical equipment, things could've got arduous.

The operation was a success... that was if Jogrin wasn't deceased to begin with. There was no way to check his vital signs, as he didn't have any to begin with. Nonetheless, notwithstanding the brain waves detected, it was clear that Jogrin was still alive as he was holding his fists tightly while scowling from the pain. The doctors couldn't help but be worrisome, as expressed on their faces, but soon after, dumbfounded expressions could only be seen from them. The reason being the tip of Jogrin's tail's abrupt black glow. However, the doctors' jaws even dropped en masse after witnessing the glow travelling from the tip of the tail, through the tail, backbone, and eventually broken rib bones as if a black snake was slithering around Jogrin's body while engulfing the bones.

The shape of the slowly healing rib bones could be seen due to the faint black glow. Afterwards, the massive wound covered in the solidified gel was cloaked in black, a clear crack was heard and the solid gel was pushed out from both sides. Then, the glow slithered back to the tip of Jogrin's tail, and not a single trace of injury could be found. If one were told that the young boy had just had a huge log removed from his chest, he would only laugh that off as a joke., because there was no way something as supernatural as that could've happened, except that it actually did...

Some doctors felt dizzy after watching the rapid healing right in front of them, and decided to take a stroll outside to get some fresh air.

The doctors that remained in the operation room ordered the nurses to give Jogrin who was still unconscious a checkup. Truthfully, checking his vitals gave the staff a harder time than the surgery itself. They gave coming up with a way to know whether Jogrin was still alive or not their all and eventually knowing that he was put them at ease... But wait, what did they do to find out? They... tickled Jogrin and he reacted... A dumb idea, but the fact that it worked out in their favor was what counted.

Soon after, Jogrin was sent to the ward he was currently in.

There was one thing Proxer kept secret on purpose so that Jogin's feelings wouldn't be hurt: the fact that the doctors and nurses involved in the operation to keep quiet about everything that took place in the operation after he'd heard the details from them. The reason was that, it would obviously imply that he was wary of Jogrin. Other than not hurting his feeling, telling him that would potentially impair the bonding between the both of them. Proxer did think ahead of time and look at the bigger picture before giving his explanations. Perhaps this would be one of the features of a leader in an army.

But at the same time, he was displaying behavior unbecoming of a commander.

Awkward silence pervaded the room as Jogrin stared blandly at Proxer who was showing an exhilarated smile brimmed with curiosity. One may wonder why Proxer didn't become a scientist or researcher with his level of curiosity. Then he promptly realized that he wasn't acting as he should as a commander.

"Ahem," by clearing his throat, Proxer shattered the awkwardness while trying to put out his flame of excitement and composed himself, "so that's what happened... um... ah, I still haven't asked for your name..."

"Jogrin," answered Jogrin as he peeked through the gap between the curtains behind Proxer.

"I see, Jogrin... no last name?" Inquired Proxer.

Jogrin's gaze shifted back to Proxer and scowled with bewilderment. "Last... name?"

It seemed that Jogrin didn't have a last name and only a first name. Understanding that, Proxer nodded lightly. The conversation proceeded.