Home seemed far away for Matt. Some might even say inaccessible. Impossible? It felt that way at least.

He was in another world, universe, or something. Maybe this wasn’t another universe at all but just very far, in which case going home maybe wasn’t out of the window.

Thinking about windows, he turned away from the one he had been looking through. The emptiness of space really was something. It scared him in truth. The endless emptiness.

But it was also a wonderful sight. Like most kids he had dreamed about being an astronaut when he was a kid, to explore and discover space. The truth however was that he liked the idea. Now? In front of it? It was daunting.

As he turned around he spotted the crew of the ship. They were all in the main room. The big shark-man was the one who moved towards him, hesitating.

“Hey kid.” He simply said.

“Hey.” He responded.

“Well, I wanted to introduce the crew.” He said, turning to look at his team.

“I’m sorry, could we do it later?” Matt said.

“I, uh, yeah of course.” Matt thought he looked a bit disappointed, but he wasn’t sure he was reading the shark man’s expressions correctly. It wasn’t exactly the same as a human face.

“I think I’m going to sleep a bit.” He lied, as he went back towards the room he had woken up in.

“Of course, we’ll talk later, kid. No worries.” Krovukk tried to sound reassuring.

“Uh, thanks Krovukk.” Matt said and it really came from the heart. It was stupid, but the fact that they were walking on eggshells around him felt nice. Like he was respected in a sense.

He reached his room, closed the door behind himself and fell on the bed. Of course there was no way he was going to sleep. So much had happened. But he felt oh so lost. So alone right now.

Yeah, the crew or whatever wanted to help him out, but he didn’t know them. He was a stranger in a magic space world, all by himself.

What the hell was he supposed to do?

Tears started to flow down his cheeks as he recalled his mothers eyes as he disappeared. He didn’t know what would happen even if he came back, would she remember him then?

How was it even possible she had forgotten him? It had all been so… strange, unreal. It still felt like he was in a dream. A very real dream, but a dream all the same.

He couldn't, didn’t want to, accept this reality as it was. Matt almost chuckled as a thought struck him. He was in denial, he’d heard about the 5 stages of… uh something. First was denial, that he knew at least.

Still, he knew that it ended in acceptance, but he didn’t want that. He didn’t want any of this. So he lay down and closed his eyes. The tears from earlier drying on his cheeks. A few more joined their salty brothers as he tried to sleep, leaking from his eyes against his will.

The comfortable embrace of sleep never took him, and he was haunted by vivid images of this most horrible of days, tossing and turning in the very comfortable bed.

****************************************

Krovukk had been following the kid with his eyes. He knew how it must have felt, even if they seemed to have different temperaments. He had hated moving around as a kid. Coming to a new place where you didn’t know anyone, again and again.

Of course this was different. But there was an analogy there. Only the kid’s situation was ten times worse. Still, Kro knew the feeling.

Before realizing it, he stood in front of the kid’s door, hesitating. From inside he heard a sob and stopped himself from knocking. He waited there for a few minutes, unsure. What would he have liked? Would he have liked being all alone in his room? Would he have prefered to be left alone?

It’s probably what he would have said, but in truth he would have been happy had someone come. So Krovukk made his decision and knocked on the door. The kid stammered a reply, asking him to wait two seconds.

So he did. He waited for two breaths and entered the room. Of course he knew that wasn’t what the kid had meant, but in his experience it helped to be pushed around a bit to get you back to better days. It was a difficult game of pushing a little, but never too much.

“Hey kid, you alright?” He asked.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” The kid said back.

“Look, I know it can’t be easy, but it’s better to let it out and feel it now than to bury it deep inside.” Krovukk said with a sigh.

Almost instantly the kid had tears welling up in his eyes that he tried to stop.

“What if I don’t want to feel? What if I just want, just want to, to…” He trailed off.

“Nobody wants to feel the bad kid, but it’s a mistake.” Krovukk said as he sat down on the ground, eyes almost on the same level as the kid in front of him. So small, so frail, in both body and soul right now.

“When you suppress emotions like that, you will start to suppress all emotions, both good and bad. That means you won’t feel it as much when you are happy, when you triumph. Feel the bad now, so you can truly enjoy and bask in the good moments.” He remembered his own uncle telling him the same, with that knowing smile, having faced life for far longer than himself.

“Plus, it’s the only way to make it go away for good. Suppress it now, and you’ll suppress it for the rest of your life. Feel it now, weep and despair, but tomorrow, or the day after, you’ll be free.” He added, repeating advice that had helped him.

When he had been young, Krovukk hadn’t understood the value of those words. Karkaris were a proud people, and he had thought that meant he shouldn’t show weakness.

But he had had it all wrong. There was a power to honesty. And he himself had suppressed some of his feelings for a long time, until one day, the dam broke. He had never felt so alive as the day after.

Also he had never felt so bad as that day it broke, but in the end, he never regretted it. On the contrary. That day he had discovered a truth. A man is only as free as he is honest. That included towards oneself, which was the hardest part.

Krovukk looked at the kid trying to hold it together in front of him, seeing a smaller, weaker version of himself.

“Come here, let it all out.” He said as he hugged the small teen in his huge arms.

“I want to go home…” The kid sobbed in his arms.

“I know, kid.” He said in a low rumbling voice. Matt almost thought it was soothing.

They stayed there for a minute at first, Matt, letting his despair flow out of him, Krovukk, holding him. Simply being there and truly understanding.

The minute soon turned to two, then five. Matt couldn’t stop the dam. He just felt like all his pent up emotions were welling up, even deep ones he had completely forgotten about.

They stayed like that for a long time, until Matt’s tears were few and far between, the sobs, a memory, the pain, a lesser ache.

Of course, he still wanted to go home, he was still afraid of what was going to happen to him and everything else, only now, he slowly started being ready to face it, to do something about it.

They parted slowly and Matt looked at the face of a shark filled with emotions, so unlike what a shark should look like. But he wasn’t a shark, he reminded himself. He was a person.

“Sorry.” Matt started, and the Karkaris looked at him in confusion.

“For?” He finally asked.

“Crying all over you? Being annoying?” Matt asked, unsure of what he actually was apologizing for.

“Never apologize for being honest with yourself and others young man.” The big blue man with too many teeth said as a smile formed on his face.

“Thanks.” He said as he looked down on the ground, unused to praise. Especially in such a vulnerable moment.

“Uh… I…” Matt started, but the questions didn’t come out.

It was so embarrassing to ask! Somehow the first thing most people learned in any language, but something nobody actually used, most of the time.

The big shark man just looked at him, waiting patiently, and it almost made it worse. He just got even more nervous.

“Uhhhh… I wanted to ask you… that, what, uh…” He tried while the sharkman just sat there, looking straight at him. It made it worse. He stammered even worse until he just decided to shut up.

“Sorry.” He whispered at the end. It was so embarrassing asking for his name now…

The sharkman exploded with a booming laugh. Matt’s eyes were wide, unsure what was funny, or how he was supposed to react.

“It is a great compliment in Karkaris culture when someone stutters when speaking to you. Do you know why?” He said with a huge grin, showing rows of pointy and dangerous teeth.

“Why?” Matt asked, curious despite himself.

“It means you are so impressive that they lose their composure!” The Karkaris laughed again, a deep booming laugh.

“But beware young man, flattery will only get you so far with me.” He said in a jokingly serious tone, which made Matt smile.

“Come now, let me introduce you.” The huge shark man said as he got up.

They got out of his small cabin and the crew soon found themself in the main room. Matt stood on one side, the Karkaris in the middle, and the three others in front of him.

“First off, I’m Krovukk, but you can call me Kro. I’m the gunner when we have the misfortune of doing any ship battles, and frontline when we have the pleasure of adventuring.” He said, smiling.

“H-Hello.” Matt waved. Krovukk stayed silent and waited for a bit. Suddenly Matt understood.

“My name is Matt Collins, I’m from Ohio, and I uh…” He wanted to add something too, like Krovukk, but he didn’t know what. Krovukk simply waited for him, patiently, until Matt finally decided he had found something good enough to share.

“And I’m bad at math.” He suddenly blurted out, trying to catch up to the silence.

“Well met Matt.” Krovukk said. He turned and pointed at a blonde man with piercing blue eyes, cleanly shaved and holding himself straight, but not in a stiff way. He felt relaxed despite his good posture.

“That’s our captain, ship captain and team captain. His name is Stan, but just call him captain. We trust him with our lives, but not our food. Some things simply are too sacred, you see.” The huge blue shark-man said with a mischievous grin on his face, and the captain rolled his eyes behind him.

Krovukk turned to point at the next person. It was a blonde man too, but with a full beard and blue eyes, not quite as piercing though. He was roughly the same height as the captain, and was average in that area, he guessed. Matt wasn’t completely sure of this assessment as they stood close to the huge Karkaris.

“This here is the captain’s brother. Levy. Do not under any circumstances fuck with him. Any excuse will do for one of his vicious pranks, and he won’t hesitate to deploy his evil ideas on your ass. Plus, he is the only one who knows some healing magic on the ship.” Matt took the warning to heart. He wasn’t sure how serious Krovukk was with the warning, but the last sentence convinced him it sounded like a good idea to be on good terms.

Krovukk turned to the last, and smallest person here. Matt hadn’t seen him at first. He was, like Krovukk, not human. A small rat that came up to his midsection at most. Of course he was very different from a rat. He stood on two legs, had an amused face, and looked smarter than the other two blondies.

Just as Krovukk was about to introduce him, Xar cut him off.

“Hello, I’m Xar, the only one with a brain on the ship. I’m small, but I like big explosions. These simple life forms cannot comprehend my genius and run every decision by me. For I am the brain of the operations.” He said, and the three other adventurers all rolled their eyes.

“Should I remind you how your genius got us in trouble just one hour ago?” The captain said, with a grin on his face.

The captain turned to him and added.

“His love of explosions overrides all intelligence he claims, as he constantly puts us in danger of blowing up. Miscalculating the explosion's strength time and time again. Honestly it’s a miracle we are still standing.” The captain said with an overdramatic voice.

“What he means is that I’m a miracle worker, doing amazing explosions that never kill us because I’m smart.” Xar said with exaggerated pride, and a suppressed smile.

Matt just looked around at the crew joking around as they continued to poke fun at each other. He smiled, but a slightly bitter smile. He envied their familiarity and how relaxed they were with each other.

Something he had seen many times in other groups, but never experienced himself. He had always been the awkward addition no one wanted but didn’t have the heart to speak up.

The captain’s piercing eyes surprised him when he saw them, it felt like he could see right through him.

“We are the Dust In Pieces” He said, motioning for their group as a whole.

“Silver Rank adventurers, at your service young man.” He added as he bowed exaggeratedly with a teasing smile on his face.

“Dust in Pieces. Get it?” Xar said excitedly. Matt had gotten it the first time, he just didn’t think the pun was… good. Dusting Pieces. Why would they even be doing that? But he shrugged it off as he smiled back to the excited Skraa.

“I-I get it.” He shyly said back.

“I’m pretty sure you don’t, kid, or you would be amazed at the multi layered pun!” Xar shot back jokingly.

“Xar, stop bullying the kid, he probably doesn’t even know what a Piece is.” Krovukk said.

Before Matt could confirm Krovukk’s suspicion, he launched into an explanation.

“When the old world exploded, broke, whatever you want to call it, it sent its Pieces hurtling across space. There are still a lot of Pieces left where the planet was originally, but a lot of Pieces are scattered in this star system.” Krovukk stopped the explanation, because he could see the confusion on Matt’s face.

Right, he didn’t know anything about history. He paused for a second thinking how to best summarize their history in a few sentences. But before he could continue, someone else took up the mantle of being a history teacher.

“Old world is what we call our planet of origin, its real name has been lost like many things when it exploded. And before you ask, no one knows what happened exactly, even if there are a ton of theories out there.” The captain interjected before continuing.

“We survived because at the time we had already colonized Dust. A planet that was already in the process of being terraformed slowly. Millions were already living on Dust when tragedy struck, and a lot of people in the old world evacuated to Dust.” The rest of the crew were silent for once, and no one joked, mood a bit more somber as their captain retold the darkest age their civilization had faced.

“Anyway, the important part is that Pieces are significant for two main reasons. Firstly, because unlike other asteroids and rocks out here in space, they actually contain and generate Mana. Secondly, because they can contain old structures and riches from the old world, some even contain dungeons.” He finished with a hint of mystery.

Matt on the other hand didn’t understand why it was important that these ‘Pieces’ had mana in them. Why did that matter, wasn’t mana everywhere?

“I get the riches part, but why is it significant that there is Mana in them?” The whole crew looked at each other for a second before bursting out laughing.

Matt felt like he had asked the most stupid question and frowned. They didn’t have to laugh at him did they? It wasn’t his fault he didn’t know.

“Sorry kid.” Xar finally said after a long wheeze.

“I know you don’t know this stuff but it’s like asking why breathing is important.” He said with a knowing smile.

“Let me put it like this, how do you think this ship is flying through space?” He added.

“Um, I don’t know? Electricity and power and stuff? Like a spaceship?” Matt responded, unsure.

“No. First off I don’t even know what electricity is, but we fly using mana. Every piece of technology uses mana. The water you drink and shower with? Purified with mana. Thrusters pushing us forwards? Mana. Gyroscope spinning? Uses mana.” Xar said before he paused.

“Mana is the basis of our technology, but there is no mana in space. So every Piece that is found in space is either dangerous for various reasons, or a potential refilling station for ships to refuel, meaning they let us expand further into the solar system.” The small rat-man was explaining everything with patience, understanding of Matt’s ignorance.

“That’s… so cool!” Matt finally said after a pause to digest what he had heard. He wasn’t sure he really understood all the implications, if he was honest, but it sounded very cool.

From what he gathered, mana was basically like their electricity. But from what he understood of mana from fantasy tropes, it was so much more than just that. Wasn’t mana also used to cast fireballs, or other magical spells?

Just as he was about to ask about it, the ship trembled as something whirred down, like something shutting down. The Dust In Pieces adventurers quickly scrambled away to their respective stations to figure out what the problem was.

“Left thruster malfunctioned. Second time this month.” Xar shouted for the others to hear him.

“It’s not normal, we had it looked at. Twice, and we have had other systems malfunction for no reason recently.” Levy called out of the cockpit.

The hum of the thruster soon came to life again and they continued their journey forwards, but as they slowly trickled back to the room where he was, the crew was looking at him seriously.

“W-what? It’s not me! I didn’t do anything.” Matt said.

“No, you had no hand in it, I simply fear that you are another consequence of something much graver going on.” The captain said, his eyes piercing him.

The crew looked at their captain with a worried expression. It was either terrible luck, and incompetent [Mechanics] or something else. But what? There were only rumors, and none of them were pleasant.