Episode 5: Luminous Nebula

I wasn’t sure how long I had slept. It felt like I had been asleep for a long time, but also like barely any time had passed at all.

I woke up to the sound of wet, padding footsteps outside. My tension spiked instantly. I held my breath and listened to the situation. It was probably a pseudo-croc; one was prowling around. It messed with the rocks blocking my entrance once, but when they didn’t move, it seemed to give up and leave.

Relieved, I finally exhaled. That woke me up completely. Judging by the lack of light coming in from outside, the fire must have gone out, and it wasn’t morning yet. Fortunately, I hadn’t been eaten alive by mosquitoes or mites.

I tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn’t. I fell into a mental loop, wondering where I was and who I was. It was pointless to think about, but the thoughts kept crossing my mind. Just the futile struggles of an old man.

I switched gears to plan my next moves. Once dawn broke, I’d eat and head into the forest. Before that, I wanted to make a bag to hold my stone knife and pebbles.

I had a spear, but I wanted a weapon that was easier to handle. However, I wanted to avoid melee combat if possible, relying on stone throwing and “finger flicks” for ranged attacks. Old men are cowardly, after all.

Also, I wanted to verify the phenomenon where the stones changed trajectory when I willed them to Hit!—I wasn’t sure if I should call it Telekinesis yet. If I can manipulate Telekinesis at will, it should change how I fight.

I saw a faint light through the gaps in the rocks. I sharpened my senses to check outside. Sensing no movement or presence of living things, I cautiously moved the rocks and peeked out. The pseudo-croc was gone.

I stepped outside, but dawn hadn’t actually broken yet. Stars still shone overhead, and the Milky Way was faintly visible. What I had mistaken for dawn was a luminous cloud spreading across the eastern sky. It took up about a quarter of the sky, creating complex patterns in various colors.

Looking closer, it wasn’t a cloud, but a nebula. A luminous nebula shining alongside the stars in the night sky. A spread of faint light, like the Orion Nebula seen in astrophotography, was rising from the horizon, with stars twinkling behind it.

The expanse of faintly glowing gas created shades of various colors, with bands of light running through it like emission lines in every direction. The scene, occupying most of my field of vision, was truly like a painting of light drawn on the canvas of the night sky. I was so captivated by its beauty that I stood there in a daze for a while.

There are several types of nebulae—distant galaxies or gas expanding after a star explosion—but you can count on one hand the ones visible to the naked eye. With an amateur telescope, they just look like faint, blurry smudges.

Back when Halley’s Comet came around, there was a bit of an astronomy boom. I bought a cheap telescope, but I remember being disappointed that I couldn’t see much. You often see photos of spiral galaxies or red gas nebulae, but I learned from astronomy magazines—and experienced firsthand—that those only look that way because of long-exposure photography, not through a telescope lens.

Yet, the nebula spreading before my eyes now clearly showed complex patterns glowing in red, green, and yellow. Did a nearby star explode? Or is there a massive gas cloud reflecting starlight? Either way, I don’t think I could see this unless it was incredibly close.

From this, the fact seems to be that this is definitely not the Earth I know. Because you simply can’t see a giant nebula like this with the naked eye from Earth.

Also, looking at the positions of the stars, there are no familiar constellations. They say the arrangement of constellations doesn’t change that drastically even after a thousand, two thousand, or even ten thousand years.

Even if this were the Southern Hemisphere, while there would be unfamiliar constellations, the ones near the ecliptic should be the same as those seen from the Northern Hemisphere, just upside down. It seems I really have come to a world that isn’t Earth. Naturally, I have no way of knowing why such a thing happened.

Hahaha… I can only laugh now.

Wait, wait. What if I’m being run through a virtual world? Maybe my real body is under treatment, and I’m being made to experience this in the meantime… Nope, that’s just an old man clutching at straws.

First of all, there’s no point in making me experience this, and I don’t think they could create a world this realistic. Sight and sound are one thing, but reproducing smell, texture, and pain is impossible.

Sigh…

I guess I have no choice but to give up and accept reality. I died and came to another planet—that seems to be it. Is this the afterlife? Or did I undergo reincarnation? Though, it feels more like my consciousness transferred into a young body rather than being reborn.

Anyway, since I seem to be alive in another body, I have no choice but to keep living in this world. Good grief…

I stared at the night sky, filled with various thoughts. This irritatingly, sorrowfully beautiful luminous nebula spread further over time, eventually taking up about a third of the night sky.

It showed shapes and colors even more complex and brilliant than the Milky Way, but as the twilight heralding dawn began, it was gradually swallowed by the brightness.

When the blinding sun peeked out, it wiped away all traces of the night world as if to assert its dominance. As if the nebula had never existed from the start.

Suddenly, I remembered Greek mythology. Appearing before dawn and vanishing with the sunrise—that luminous nebula is just like Eos, the goddess of the dawn. I believe the name changed to Aurora in Roman mythology, but that beauty is truly worthy of a goddess.

Well, it’s bright now. Time to prepare for departure. I don’t know what’s waiting in the forest, but I will cut through it and find civilization no matter what!

I don’t know if I’ll find humans or aliens. But if my consciousness transferred into this body, there should be other humans with the same body type out there. No, I hope there are.

I turned my back to the sun and started walking.