Flat on my back, my arms and legs were sprawled out across the carpeted floor of the bedroom as I stared at the ceiling. A few days had passed since we’d found out about my home planet, but once again, things seemed as if they’d reached a standstill. Gav had been working to recreate the memories in a way I could experience them. We’d been creating new ‘diary entries–as we called them, anyway–every night. Gav needed as large of a data set as possible, so any time I had new experiences or felt different emotions, he wanted a map of it.

  Letting out a long, mentally exhausted sigh, I turned my head toward the window, looking at the light streaming down onto the ground. It was a bright, sunny day and the weather was starting to get warm again. My ears gave a soft twitch as the birds softly sang outside. It was nice to hear them. They reminded me of my treehouse, playing instruments alongside them. When I did it exactly right, it sounded like we were making music together.

  I’d been thinking about my treehouse lately, a lot. The longer I spent at Gav’s house, the more I missed it there. I knew what I’d be doing every day; I knew how my days would end. It was nice.

  When I thought about my life before this adventure, I thought about John, of course. He probably didn’t know anything about the others…whoever else had landed on earth. It also meant, too, it was unlikely he knew about the people searching for me, and exactly how dangerous it was for me to be around him. It was ironic: he had spent my entire life keeping Emily’s curiosity under control, trying to stop me from being a science experiment…yet, it turned out, I was one the entire time.

  While I thought about John, I could feel that fear from the nightmarish memory creeping back into me again. The hair on my body slowly began to stand on end as I imagined him in the room with me…judging me…blaming me for what happened to him. I closed my eyes, trying to push the thoughts out of my mind, my hearts racing and hands trembling. A shiver racked my body as I heard a knock at the door. Despite the feeling, the distraction was welcome, even if I didn’t bother moving.

  “Come in.” I called, my gaze drifting back to the ceiling before my eyes slid shut.

  The gentle creak of the door flowed through the room, followed by the equally soft sound of Oliver’s wheelchair rolling into the room.

  “Hey, Tess, are you doing okay? We haven’t heard from you all day.”

  “I’m…fine, yeah. Just thinking about stuff, I guess.” I answered.

  “But you’re doing okay, right? If you ever want to talk about something, I’m always here.” He said, wheeling himself next to me.

  “Thanks, I…” Thinking of what I should say, or even what I wanted to say, I simply couldn’t find an answer. “...I don’t really know what to say. Everything was happening so fast, I didn’t really have much time to think about it until the last few days, you know? I feel like I should be doing something, but there’s not much for me to do right now. Do you ever feel like that?”

  “Yeah.” Oliver said knowingly. “With everything that’s been going on, it’s pretty hard to imagine life going back to normal after this.”

  “I don’t even know what that word means anymore.” Came my airy response, thoughts still on my treehouse.

  I hoped it was still there, in one piece.

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, actually.” Oliver said.

  It took him a few moments, but he carefully managed to pull himself out of the wheelchair, laying down on the carpet next to me. We stared up at the ceiling together. It was something we’d never done until now, but it was nice to have someone by my side.

  “I’m…not going to be able to stay here much longer.” He quietly admitted.

  “Mmm.” I figured he might say something akin to that confession.

  “I wish I could stay, but I have to get back to work and start doing my regular routine again. Emily will be here though, and Gav too, of course.”

  “Right…yeah, that makes sense.” I knew he couldn’t stay here forever, but I’d been afraid to ask him about it.

  Both of us rested on the ground, nothing but our thoughts filling the room. It was one of the things I liked about Oliver: he didn’t mind sitting together in silence. I wished I could stay with him–wished we could just leave Emily and Gav to do their work, and hopefully not get into too many fights. Sadly, I knew that was a fantasy. I had to stay with them. Gav needed me to add more memories to his collection, and the last thing I wanted to do was something to jeopardize that research.

  “So, it exploded…the whole thing…” I finally said.

  I’d been thinking about it over and over in my head ever since I’d seen the photo.

  “Looks like it…” Oliver agreed. “I’m glad they were able to make it out, at least. I mean, they knew it was going to go supernova, right? So at least there was time for them to escape.”

  The two of us had that conversation a few times, but it still kept running through my head. It was impossible to imagine everything they’d all gone through, having to build whatever these ships were, having to escape their star system…having to hope they could find somewhere out there to make a new home. They didn’t even have an idea of how long it would take to find a home.

  “Do you think Gav is getting any closer?” I asked Oliver.

  He gave a small sigh. “Well, he keeps saying he is. He thinks he knows where the ship should be–the one that sent you here, anyway. Still, he hadn’t found it in any of the sky surveys. Could mean it’s not there at all, but I’m trying to stay positive and say either his calculations are wrong or it’s too dark to see.”

  “What do you think their music is like?” Sure, I was changing the subject, but it was something constantly on my mind.

  “Hm? Their music…I don’t know. It could be similar to ours, maybe. I just hope we get to hear it soon.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Hey, do you remember the first song you ever played for me?” Oliver asked, turning to face me.

  My face scrunched a bit, brow furrowed as I tried to remember. It felt like a lifetime ago.

  Giving up, I shook my head. “No, I don’t.”

  Grinning, he lifted his top half off the ground. “So, you came into our group because you couldn’t figure out how to get that old synthesizer to come through your computer. It was something to do with the adapter…you couldn’t get the driver to work, and you found us. Remember that?”

  I sat up as well. “Yeah, I remember. I tried fixing it for hours with no luck, but you guys helped me out. I don’t remember what I played, though.”

  “It was that Numa Numa song, the one from that old meme.” He beamed, excitement in his voice.

  “Oh! Right! Yeah, I used to do a lot of covers of stuff like that. Everyone I’d play for would always be excited when I’d do something they were familiar with. That’s not even the actual name of the song, though.” I chuckled.

  “Yeah, I remember you telling me that, too! You played it so differently, though. I always thought about that version and I was sad I never got to hear it again.” Giving a sheepish grin, Oliver couldn’t help but ask. “Do you think you could play it for me again before I go?” He was trying to keep himself composed, but the excitement in his voice was pretty clear.

  “Uh, I could try, but that was done with my old synthesizer. That thing broke ages ago and I never went back to get it. I really loved that thing, but it took up a lot of space. It barely even fit in my treehouse.” I shrugged. “I always meant to get another one, but I never got around to…what?”

  Oliver had a big smile spreading across his face. He pulled himself back into his chair.

  “Come downstairs in like…thirty seconds.”

  “What?” I asked again, but he was already on his way out the door, leaving me flopped on the bedroom floor.

  The door closed a moment later, the silence returning to the room. I took a deep breath, closing my eyes and waiting for the allotted time before I stood to my full height, heading after Oliver. Just as I rounded the staircase, however, I heard a loud bang from the living room.

  “Can you try to be more careful?!” I could hear Gav chastising.

  “I’m…trying…” Emily responded.

  Seeing them both, I instantly noticed her struggling to carry a large, wooden box through the front door. As Emily tried stepping through the entrance, her foot caught on the threshold. I was at the bottom of the stairs in an instant, catching the box before it crashed into the ground.

  “Got it!” I said, Emily still stumbling next to me.

  “Sorry!” She yelled–mostly at Gav–as she stood to her full height again. “It didn’t want to get through the damn door!”

  “You know, if you wanted my help, you could have asked!” Gav crossed his arms, looking at her, unimpressed.

  “I didn’t think I needed to!” She yelled right back at him.

  “Sorry, I didn’t want to ‘butt in’ where I wasn’t wanted, not after last time with that set screw that you–”

  “Are you still going on about that screw?! Gav, that was a week ago! And you didn’t have the right screwdriver, either!”

  It was pretty clear both of them had completely forgotten about the box I was now holding, lost in their bickering. Admittedly, it was pretty heavy. I was about to gently place it on the ground, but as I turned, I saw Oliver on the elevator. He quickly gestured toward the basement as the elevator he was on continued in that direction. With one last look at Gav and Emily yelling at each other, I quietly opened the door to the basement, continuing down the stairs and away from the noise.

  One corner of the basement had been cleaned to leave a small clearing. The random, abandoned projects had been replaced with a large, L-shaped table with short legs. Walking toward it, I set the box onto the table with a loud thud.

  Oliver approached behind me, still excited. “Go ahead! Open it!”

  I looked at him. “Uh, shouldn’t we wait for–”

  Before I could finish my sentence, the volume of Gav and Emily increased dramatically.

  “...you know what, nevermind.”

  “Yeahhh, they’ll be going for at least a few more minutes. Here, let me get you something to open the box.”

  While he went looking, I inspected the box itself. It appeared to be held together with small nails. As long as I pulled it upward, the lid should come off relatively easily. Moving to one side of the crate, I dug my claws between the box and the lid, giving it a strong pull. A loud creak screamed through the basement as the nails gave way. With a smile, I simply lifted the lid and set it to the side.

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  “Oh…” Oliver said as he returned, crowbar in hand.

  After a quick chuckle, I reached into the box, eyes widening as I felt the shape of the object. “Is this…” Pulling the item out, a large panel filled with buttons, knobs, switches, and audio ports was now resting in my hand. “...is this a synthesizer?”

  I already knew it was; it was unmistakable. This one was much larger than the one I’d used when I was younger. I hadn’t seen one in ages. Setting that piece to the side, I rummaged around through the box, pulling out pieces one by one. By the time I’d finished looking through the container, I’d found three stacks, a keyboard as the main controller, and a massive pile of cables and connectors.

  “This is incredible…” I breathed in awe. “Where did you find this?”

  “I found it.” Gav said, now standing on the stairs and watching the two of us.

  The sound of Emily clearing her throat behind him made Gav continue.

  “Okay, it was a team effort, but I did most of the work.”

  “Most?!” Emily interjected. “I’m sorry, who’s the one–”

  “–it’s really great!” I finished, hoping to stop any resurfacing argument. “Like, really great! I’ve never seen a synthesizer this big before. It’s nothing like the one I had when I was a kid.” I set the module on the table, looking over the entire thing. “Yeah…this is perfect. Thank you guys…I don’t really know what to say.” Moving the pieces around, I mulled over the best way to organize everything.

  “It’s not just for fun.” Gav said, heading to his computer chair. “Olive mentioned you used to have one, so I felt like we should have something sufficiently complex for what we’ll be doing.”

  My head tilted to the side. “And…what are we doing?”

  As she walked up to me, Emily answered. “So that’s what we’ve been working on the past few days.”

  Scooping up a small panel from the table, she held it out for me to inspect. It was about two feet tall and four feet wide, red LEDs stretching from one end to the other. There must have been thousands of LEDs on it.

  Oliver took one look at it and groaned. “This is what he made me put together over the past couple of days. It took forever.”

  “It’s true! And he wouldn’t stop crying the entire time!” Gav’s mocking voice responded.

  “Gav, I swear, if you say that one more time–”

  Emily didn’t let Oliver finish that threat. “So!” She yelled to the room. “We’ve run into a few roadblocks. Gav and I have been brainstorming how to get through those obstacles. Basically, these blocks of code seem to point to neurological pathways, ending with an emotion, right?”

  She gestured toward me and I nodded, still putting the synthesizer together.

  Continuing, Emily let her voice drop to a normal volume. “Now, sometimes we’re able to play those emotion bits back to you and we can find a pathway in your brain which leads to that emotion. If we can put together enough links, we should be able to play the memory back from the memory stored on the crystal.”

  “But, we ran into problems,” Gav jumped in, “like all the times we’d play back an emotion to you and get nothing. You’d see nothing and we’d get no response. It could mean you’ve never experienced that emotion before, or it could mean it might be more complex. It could also mean it’s random. Heck, it could even be an emotion you don’t often feel, and your brain wasn’t primed to find that emotion without a specific pathway to it. Honestly, we’re kind of throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks.”

  Emily leaned against Gav’s table, arms crossed. “The biggest issue is that final memory. There’s almost nothing in there that seems to match any of the other memories. Whatever emotion we’re missing, there’s a lot of it. Of the emotions we can pin down in it, none of them look too good. We saw a lot of fear, horror, doubt, frustration…and for some reason, a lot of fire.”

  “A lot of fire…” Gav repeated quietly.

  I frowned. “How exactly were you able to tell that?”

  Gav turned in his chair, pulling up a file on his computer. It was similar to the ones he’d been pulling earlier.

  “This is the memory you created when you went into this trance for the first time, while you were down here. The part where you remembered the house being on fire brought out the same emotion as the one in that final file. Actually, a lot of what happened in that memory has seeded emotions in that final file.” He paused. “But, like we said, it’s surrounded by a much larger emotion we haven’t been able to pin down. When we tried playing it back to you, we didn’t get anything.”

  “Without being able to connect all these parts, we can’t put that last file together in a way we can play it back for you.” Emily looked at me. “So, that’s where we ran into the problem. There are too many unknowns.”

  I nodded, doing my best to follow along.

  “But we also think we’ve found a way around it!” Gav beamed. “If we can’t work backward, maybe we can work our way forward! Playing unknown emotions back to you doesn’t always work, but if we try to piece together what we think it should be, we can have you experience the same emotional response and see if we get the result we’re looking for! Well, that’s the idea, at least.”

  Emily smiled. “And that’s where the word search comes in.”

  “The…word search?” I blinked, confused.

  Emily held up the LED board again. “The word search!”

  Gav stood, beaming. “This is what we’ve put together. There are certain emotional responses that seem to point to words. It sounds strange, I know. We’ve been calling them ‘emotions’, but really, it’s just pointing to some part of your brain. Sometimes it’s an emotion, sometimes a thought, sometimes a specific word…how you define it, at least. None of it is concrete, of course, but we did notice certain paths lighting up when certain words were said. So, we’ve created a collection of seemingly important words we need to put this final memory together.”

  Curious, I motioned for Gav to continue. It would be nice to start making some bigger leaps in progress again.

  “Obviously some of them will be duds, but some will be important, and some will turn out to be completely unrelated. Either way, we have a collection of the most likely candidates for important words, and we’ve assigned them each an LED. We might have to change a bunch or add some as we go, but it’s a start. If we find a word, that LED will turn green.”

  “How would we even know if it’s working, though?” Oliver pointed out.

  “Oh! Yes, that’s a good point! We need a control, right? We have to have a word that’s currently red, one that we know is the answer, but didn’t get found automatically when we played it back for Tess, for one reason or another.” Gav answered.

  Oliver paused for a moment. “...and it sounds like you have an idea for that control?”

  “Yep!” Gav practically jumped in place.

  “And…that word is…?”

  “Olive!” Gav gave an annoyed groan. “Come on, I can’t just say it in front of Tess. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a control, would it? She has to figure out what the word is.”

  I waved my hand. “Hello, I’m, uh…still here…”

  Gav turned and grabbed the crystal from the desk. Something was attached to it…it looked like two plastic cables connecting the crystal to the box.

  “Here, hold this for me.” Gav requested, holding out the crystal as I took it.

  As expected, it lit up with the same light blue glow the second I was holding it. I looked at the panel, seeing a few of the lights turning green.

  “Oh! That’s good!” I said, excited.

  Emily shook her head. “The ones that are green right now are controls. So, when you’re holding that, it seems to upload whatever is in your recent memories or whatever you’re thinking about at the time. Basically, you have a long-term and short-term memory. Anything in short-term memory–anywhere from a few seconds to a few days–gets turned into a file. If you’re holding it, it also creates new sections of the file it’s creating at the time…sort of like we’re streaming your consciousness into it.”

  All of us looked at the green LEDs as Emily continued.

  “The green LEDs here are the things we expected. They point to things in this room, like a table–” she pointed to one light, “–or a person, like me.” Emily now pointed to herself. “But, right now–” she pointed to a red LED, “–I can tell you’re not thinking about your treehouse.”

  As she finished that sentence, the light suddenly changed from red to green, causing Emily and Gav to get big, childlike grins on their faces.

  “Aha!” They both yelled.

  “Oh, wow…” I was a bit surprised to see it respond instantly.

  “Okay, okay, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. That wasn’t the word Gav mentioned earlier.” Emily said, pointing to a different red light. “This is the one we’re looking for.”

  I nodded. “Alright, so…what do you need me to do?”

  Gav walked over to the table, sitting on his knees. “We need you to think. That word always seems to be referenced in the file alongside the number seven. It seems to refer to the name of the ship you were on. Every time the person who left these messages thinks of where they are, it’s been referenced. The memory itself doesn’t look like its a specific name. It points to a word…a word that has a lot of emotional weight to it.”

  “Okay…” I nodded slowly, unsure of how effective this idea was, now that I was hearing what I needed to do.

  “In order to get that word to light up, we need you to find the same word in English. Obviously, it won’t be exactly the same word, but it needs to evoke the same emotional response as the person thinking of it in that memory.” Gav finished.

  “And you think you know what that word is?”

  He nodded. “I think I do, but I need you to come to the same realization. If I just say it, we may not get the same emotional response. You have to think of it in the same way as the person that created this memory.”

  I nodded back. “Okay, but…what am I supposed to think about?”

  “Alright, so, in our testing, we’ve tried things like ‘ship’ and ‘boat’ and ‘vessel’, but nothing seems to pull up the same emotional response. Whatever it is, it’s that word, along with the number seven.”

  Gav stopped, looking down at the table. “Is the synthesizer set up yet?” He asked.

  “Um, mostly…yeah, I think it should be good to go.” I reached around the device, pulling out a power cable. “Everything else is set up.”

  Taking the cable from me, Gav plugged it into the wall. The lights on the panel sprang to life. I plugged a few cables into the switchboards on the top of the synthesizer, then assigned the keys to basic syn waves. I played a basic C chord, smiling warmly as I heard the instrument playing the C into the basement through its tiny speakers.

  “Yeah, this is perfect…” I beamed. “...and, um, yeah, it seems to work. So, what do you need me to do?” I asked, my attention almost entirely on the synthesizer.

  There was nothing like getting a new instrument.

  “I think this is where I come in.” Oliver said, wheeling himself next to me and clearing his throat. “Tess, I want you to close your eyes and play this instrument in whatever feels right while I describe a scene to you, okay?”

  Emily nodded in agreement. “You get a stronger emotional response when you’re playing music.”

  I placed the crystal onto the table, closing my eyes as I waited for Oliver to begin.

  “I want you to imagine you’re on your home planet, whatever that may look like.”

  I nodded, imagining an alien-looking world, like what I’d seen in science fiction movies. Bright colors and strange looking colors surrounded me, with splashes of odd colored clouds gracing the sky. I couldn’t quite settle on the colors, but I imagined trees and landscapes like I’d seen in some books I’d read as a kid, full of wild and unnatural hues. As the thoughts flooded through me, I let my hands guide the tune. I wasn’t paying much attention to the sound, simply playing what felt right as I felt myself in that place.

  “Now, imagine the sun getting bigger, redder. Your family, town, whatever government runs your planet…all of them are talking about the end coming soon.”

  I paused, looking up at Oliver.

  “W–” I began to ask, but the question was caught in my throat.

  “Just…go along with me here. We don’t really know what happened, but we’re going off our best guess.”

  With a single nod, I closed my eyes again, continuing to play.

  “They’ve built these ships to take you off your planet, to find a new home for everyone somewhere in the cosmos. With the limited amount of time, they were able to create all these ships to save your people. You’re not doing it because you want to explore. You have no other option. If you stay there, your species will be decimated along with your planet when the star goes supernova. There’s nothing you can do to stop it. Your only option is to escape.”

  I frowned, trying to imagine myself in that situation. I remembered what happened at my house. I remembered watching it burn, all the despair, all the fear of not knowing where to go, what to do. Even if it wasn’t a place I wanted to go in my mind, I stayed focused, following along as Oliver described the scene. The song had started so upbeat, full of life and wonder, and now it had flowed into one of sadness, fear, regret. A tear gently slid down my cheek as I listened to the story.

  “When you escaped your planet, you looked back and watched the only home you ever knew get swallowed by the explosion of a dying star. Nothing of your past was left behind…you were stranded in the emptiness of space, searching for a new place to live. You don’t call this place a ship, because you don’t want it to mean you’re on an adventure. You didn’t choose this journey, you were forced into it when your star system met its end. This vessel wasn’t built for exploring. It was built for escaping.”

  A hand gently grabbed mine. I opened my eyes, seeing Oliver place the crystal back into my hand through the tears.

  “This thing you’re on…it’s not a ship, is it?” He asked, softly.

  I shook my head.

  “What is it?” I could barely even hear him.

  “It’s…a lifeboat…” I responded.

  Oliver leaned in, wrapping me in a warm hug. I heard the nearly silent excitement from Gav and Emily. Out of the corner of my eye, through my blurry, teary vision, I could see the LED Gav was pointing to, lit up with a green glow.