SPACE PANDY..SHE'S A PANDY..IN SPACE




BEGIN LOG 42 11:21PM

Today's morning started out rough. Engine failed to start thus stalling my leave from Atebus. Found a mechanic in Ziara and took a shuttle to Pina Park to waste time. Strolled past old, bearded man rummaging through trash can while mumbling about Coda Caves. "Stay away from..away from the..the CAVES!" He paused with fistfuls of trash and gazed at me with a frozen look as I walked past. It felt like he was staring right through me. His eyes were completely pale blue. No pupils or anything. I recognized this as a common side effect of rift matter exposure which is strange because we aren't even directly subjected to it here. Somehow these type of folks are common in the park.

The "deekanox" came into sight not long after and I waited in line to pick my random test fruit of the day. I hurriedly reached my paw up and picked one I hadn't seen before. It was light blue and had eyes that practically covered half of its entire being. I felt slightly grossed out the way this thing blinked at me. Are these really eaten? What do they look like inside? Needless to say, space fruit is still a new subject for me. I packed it into my bag and took the shuttle back to Ziara to pick up my ship. Costs for general ship repairs sure have gone up. They were only 5 million sP back in my days of early exploration. Inflation will do that to the economy I guess!

I unpacked my bag and took the fruit to my examination table. This thing was still blinking at me with its' dead fish eyes. One at a time they'd close and open with a disturbing sticky sound. Is it sentient? Does it feel pain when it's cut into? I took out my handheld laser and decided I would slowly make an incision. If I cut slowly then I could watch for a response. I took a deep breath and began. Slowly making my way down from the stem. No response. I got all the way through and it split in two. Milky white on the inside with occasional tiny, black seeds similar to a watermelon. The experience was rather anticlimactic, but I was also relieved. I separated it into a few more pieces and placed it in the freezer. I'll taste a piece some other day. Engine started and I made my way out of Atebus.

The fruit was a good distraction, but the old man's words still echoed in my head. Many have heard whispered rumors of dangerous, uncharted regions in the Coda Caves. There have been several reports of missing people and pets that came to Atebus on vacation who never returned to their loved ones. The reports are few and far between because SAI most likely does a great job at hushing people up and keeping it under wraps. News coverage is limited and missing person flyers disappear from streetlight posts. Conspiracy theorists say SAI is not to be trusted, that the war for Atebus was staged, and that they're working with Calvin Blackmoon in deep cave labs. Forcing wanderers to be part of their experiments then tossing them out once they're done. Blackmoon builds the machines and SAI does the testing. You'd think that Atebus would take a revenue hit with all of the gossip, but instead it made the place even more of an attraction. It's been said that SAI started these experiments very early in its development and that was what led to Darkheart Phantom's mental spiral. I don't completely sport the tin foil hat myself, but I do believe there are a suspicious amount of coincidences in these accusations.

As I turned the ship around to fly west over Atebus I spotted a quick, sharp light reflect off my dashboard. I jumped in my seat and glanced down at the caves. I barely caught a glimpse of what seemed to be hot pink sparks shooting out of a tiny cave entrance. They were gone as quick as they came. I felt dizzy all of a sudden and looked away to keep my eyes focused on the vast, starry road. There's something going on down there, but it's too risky and I only had a few hours left in the day to travel. Am now at a hotel for the night. Hoping I don't see that damn fruit in my dreams.

END LOG 42 11:34PM




Please note that the subeta events within this story are not official and are strictly fan made incidents.

8-bit art (floating and sitting pandy) by antler
this pandy pixel by Lexx
Pandy with space cat by Toushiro
remaining art/story by me
background space image by lyshastra
AHHMAZING profile designed and coded by pizza