Without a second thought by the driver, the matte black pod in its straight course through the cosmos makes an abrupt U-turn away from the distant gleaming supersun and changes directions down–with its speed maintained perfectly despite the sharp turn–towards one of the blue and green globes in the distance, which it had initially passed like the others, but now is forced to make a temporary visit due to the insufferable antics of the passengers.

It races down towards the Earth’s bright surface, and in seconds after the diverging maneuver it reaches into the atmosphere, bolting straight through without burning up on entry, yet it slows down dramatically as its shell plunges through the blanket of pure white clouds, swarming the vehicle for a second before it's passed.

Past the clouds at first are huge green triangular plots of land with black borders, covering the surface below the clouds which is rapidly approached by the casually decelerating pod. Upon reaching closer towards the surface, various gray shapes of squares and beans can be seen within the plots, and connecting them all is a complex network of black lines, marks of buildings and roads. The shapes aren’t too invasive of the green land however, indicating that the region being approached is suburban rather than a heavily centralized city.

As the pod reaches the surface, still decelerating gradually as its speed drops below quadruple digits and continues hastily declining, above the roads moving entities become vaguely visible, like fish swimming down the system of rivers sparsely.

Suddenly then the pod tilts slightly upright relative to the planet’s surface, no longer in a straight plummet but instead leveling with the new space. It gradually makes this shift as it descends down over one of the black roads, and from the perspective of the pod those fish become larger and more distinguished as full pods of their own, many of which are larger with shapes of an SUV and others have flat beds on the back like pickup trucks. The traffic is nearly nonexistent luckily, for there were only a few horizontal lanes used and only two vertical lanes total, a sharp contrast from the bustling atmosphere of the metropolis city.

Leveling perfectly several feet and nudging into the top vertical lane, the matte black pod amalgamates with the traffic and follows down the road with speeds now reduced to double digits, as it now cruises down the street of the green world filled with trees along the roads and complexes of small buildings at the most two stories tall sparsely spread across the landscape. It flies over a few other pods as the road approaches an intersection, but the few pods ahead all slow down to a halt before it.

Upon approaching the intersection, the matte black pod leans into the rightmost lane and then dips down through an opening in the bottom lane with a soft hum as it hovers only about a story above the black road. While most of the other pods come to a halt, pods from the other side of the intersection continue driving the opposite direction to the left of the forward lane with some taking turns, expertly remaining on their own side without any visible markers.

Instead of stopping however, the matte black pod slows down and turns to the right on the intersection, moving into a more narrow street which curves to the left before broadening out into an enormous flat parking lot where a collection of pods are parked in intimate rows. At the end of the parking lot is a wide building about one and a half stories tall which several bald people walk inside, and along the front face of the building is a huge red holographic sign reading: ‘BIG.’

The matte black pod continues to slow down as it glides down the parking lot to the very end through one of the few completely open lanes between parked pods which people approach while accompanied with hovering metal gridded boxes–which emit a blue light in between every square– filled with stacks of variously colored and shaped boxes.

Reaching the very end of the parking lot, the pod takes a left turn and drives along the edge of the shore between the lot and the building, where it descends to a few feet above the surface and approaches an open door that people walk in and out of with their own gridded boxes.

At last the pod comes to a complete halt, stopping after the entry and lowering its body down against the low curb between the black road and peach surface leading to the building. The pod’s engine calms into a whispering hum, stationary while observing the casually clothed people of all ages walking out with their own boxes filled with goods.

On the side of the matte black pod, two apertures open from dematerialized sections in the wall, revealing the interior of the pod where the group of four are seated inside. Both Ekitai and Dana, who are on the side facing the passages, face the openings as they hear chatter outside from families and friends of the locals.

While Ekitai climbs out of the pod, accompanied then by Kokei soon after, Dana faces the driver with a serene smile before anticipating, “So, I take it that you’re going to go park somewhere and come in?”

Instead, the driver shakes his head and corrects in a formal, emotionless tone, “No, I’m just going to wait in the pod until you text me that you’re done.”

“Like that’s going to happen!” exclaims Dana before she suddenly pinches Meditat’s ear, to which his eyes shoot wide and his hand is thrown to sway hers away, only to meet an iron wrist that doesn’t budge.

“So, you’re going to go park somewhere and come in, right Medit?”

Held at metaphorical gunpoint, a leader made the hostage of his own group, Meditat sighs disappointedly at himself and with closed eyes he surrenders, “Fine…I will.”

Once again using the whips that made a thousand scars, Dana lets go of Meditat’s ear with a bright–but now more menacing–smile before slipping out of the pod herself and standing up. She then faces Meditat and waves once cheerfully while exclaiming, “I’ll text you where I am!” before turning around and approaching Kokei and Ekitai, who are waiting at the curb.

A disgruntled groan emits from Meditat as he faces forward with a reddened ear made greatly apparent on his otherwise pale face, and the apertures beside him are filled by the materialization of the walls, closing the doors but retaining windows to allow view of the three as they make their way towards the entrance.

The matte black car begins to drive forth again, leaving the shore lane and turning into the parking lot while the three others walk through the doors initially without him.

In first strides, the trio of Dana, Kokei, and Ekitai step in through the door, entering a warehouse-esc building with white floors and ceiling where they’re immediately greeted by the materialization of a gridded box just like the other consumers exiting the premise had, which hovers to the perfect height of Dana’s waist, completely empty at first.

Beyond the box, the warehouse is full of people in casual clothing with their own storages, walking past display tables filled with various bright fruits and shelves showcasing vibrant green vegetables that continue down the right end, some of which are contained in transparent boxes, but filling most of the building is a network of lanes of racks from one end to another which most of the people walk up and down, grabbing boxes off the racks and placing them over their boxes.

To the left of the entrance are multiple lanes of more bald people with their own filled boxes walking past small booths not being monitored by any apparent employees but rather operating independently, seeming to be the checkout lanes as every booth has a hologram projecting at the top with a number. Most of the consumers however don’t actually stop nor is there any manual scanning, but rather the blue lights illuminating their box flashes green. Then those consumers make it to the end of the lane, where they continue into another opening in the store, an exitway, leading them outside with their purchase.

Taking another step forward, Dana follows deeper into the grocery store as the box glides forward with her, accompanying her already without requiring push. She glances around at the section of fruits which emit an inviting natural breeze, and then forward, humming meditatively for a few moments.

She then commands, “Ekitai, take control of the cart, let’s first get some fruits while we try to figure out what we need.”

Then Dana begins walking towards the display tables of fruits, no longer followed by the cart, but instead as Ekitai begins to follow her the cart moves with him. Kokei remains free, walking beside the cart behind Dana, also glancing around the grocery store intriguely.

As the three enter the produce section and Dana begins inspecting a section of a table filled with a pile of bananas, behind her Ekitai faces the aisles in the distance and petitions casually, “Why don’t we get something good, like Stands or Hyrox?”

Dana moves further down the table to notice rows of boxes housing bright red strawberries, and she picks up one of them to further study it while Kokei argues back, “Ekitai, we can’t just get snacks! Seriously, how have you lived all this time without being food conscious?”

Ignoring the debate, Dana rummages through the row of strawberry boxes before picking another out bringing it up to her face, intimately examining it during Ekitai’s rebuttal: “I don’t need these disgusting ‘veggies’ or whatever, I already have a concoction that provides all the nutrients my body needs! Honestly, food is just more of a pleasure. Primitive beings like you however wouldn’t understand, still going on about your ‘diets’ you get from Chirper or wherever, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a diet of just injecting electricity into your body!”

“That’s…an oversimplification of the E-Lyte diet…,” Kokei protests back, although her voice tapers in clear shame as her head lowers with the point taken.

“Hah, that’s what I thought! Look Kokei, just the food you eat alone isn’t going to make you any less of a cow,” formally insights Ekitai with a finger pointed up and a smug face.

Dana turns around and begins walking with the box of strawberries she had picked up, returning to the cart as Kokei clings onto Ekitai’s collar and pulls him towards her, bashing his forehead with her own with an aggressive expression while ragefully shouting, “Excuse me you spineless fece-,”

“I look away for two seconds,” boldly reprimands Dana as she places the box of strawberries over the cart, but before placing it on the surface she instead lets go, to which the box momentarily levitates in place before then drifting down into the far left corner where it’s placed automatically by the cart itself.

She then faces Kokei, who has let go of Ekitai after disengaging from the battle, and Dana orders authoritatively, “Kokei, come help me, we’re going to need to stock up on ingredients and then get something to eat for now. Let’s move faster, keep up Ekitai.”

Across the trio, a few other hairless customers take glances at the three with apprehensive expressions displayed on their black pupils over orange sclera, seemingly by their public display of immaturity while among the customers are small children some of whom may not even be past the age of ten. A few of the customers shake their heads disapprovingly before going on about their day, some of them ignoring the altercation while others cast occasional glimpses back.

Order forced back into the group, the trio move through the produce aisle, picking up various other fruits such as boxes holding blueberries and bags of lettuce, placing each of them over the cart to allow the cart to expertly organize them in the most space-efficient manner.

Kokei and Dana take the lead on choosing the food while Ekitai guides the cart, and the three make quicker work through the section, not filling the cart too much but still getting a decent load. They eventually reach the end, where they turn and approach one of the long lanes composing the row of aisles that most of the store features.

Now traversing the long aisles of the grocery store, the three only station themselves occasionally to pick food off of the tall racks, and with every addition the cart grows more and more full. Ekitai remains mostly to guide the cart, not taking much initiative to grab food while Kokei and Dana serve that purpose.

In one aisle, Dana grabs two sliced loaves of bread, placing them over the cart to be organized.

At another aisle, Kokei picks up a jar of white sauce, and after holding it to Dana and receiving a nod, she places it over the cart to be stored.

In a different aisle, Ekitai grabs a slim blue box with an image of a black circular cookie decaled on the top and tries to place it over the cart, only for Dana to speedily grab Ekitai’s wrist, to which he reluctantly places the box back in the shelf it was originally in.

At the front of the store, through the entrance steps the man in the leather jacket, his hands pocketed with his hood over his head. His back is hunched forth shadily, keeping a minimal profile while his dull blue irises scram around to observe his surroundings.

After stepping inside the building, he’s greeted by the materialization of a cart, to which he glances down and reveals his right hand to make a subtle waving gesture. Upon the wave, the cart suddenly dematerializes, vanishing just as fast as it manifested in the first place.

Relinquishing the cart due to not needing one himself, he leans straighter to get a better view of the shop, his eyes trailing towards the left side primarily with a keen expression, his mouth remaining shut.

Target locked, the shady decrepit man makes his way down the store, walking past a few customers who exchange peculiar glances at him with wrinkled foreheads uncovered, although none of them are reciprocated. Instead, he just walks into one of the aisles, and continues to glide with silent steps like a phantom, his face more pale than anyone else’s in the store like a ghost. A few of the parents cling onto their child’s hands as if trying to protect them from the ominous presence, holding them back as the being walks past them, trailed by their blatantly trailing faces which have a black dot on their forehead as they exhaled through their noseless nostrils.

On the other side of the ventured aisle, the decrepit man in the leather jacket passes a young child accompanying her perturbed mother who holds her back, stalking the man as he enters another open space where there are more tables in a long row in front of shelves that display great quantities of fresh meat in transparent casing.

Among the tables displaying the various meats ranging from huge pieces of steak to multiple layered chicken breasts, one being in particular inspecting a box of pork belly with soft hands, observing them keenly through green eyes below amber hair.

Behind her is the bald senile man, who glances back to meet the incoming man’s presence with a wave attended with an excited: “Hey Medit!”

“Don’t call me that,” coldly rebukes Meditat as Dana turns around beside Kokei, who also pivots, having been studying the meat in the aisle, both in front of the hovering cart nearly filled with various groceries.

Meditat lifts his head up to gaze at Dana before then observing the cart, where his eyebrows scrunch in hesitance. He quietly considers, “Do we really need that much?”

Smiling brightly now that the final member had joined, Dana places the box of pork belly over the cart to let it organize the storage, to which several other items already in the cart are also moved, being dragged around and reordered given the addition.

As the cart reorders the items inside, with bags of bagels flying over boxes of croissants, Dana nods her head and explains proudly, “Well, we don’t know how long we’re going to be out anyways, so I figured we should get as much food as we can now!”

A disgruntled sigh vents from Meditat as he lowers his head and closes his eyes, to which he is struck by the revelation he verbalizes: “I should’ve just went to a flash food place.”

While Ekitai studies the cart, watching as it places down the final box of blueberries and completes its reorganization, Dana shakes her head before assuring, “Nonsense, it was a great idea taking us here! At least now we’ll be well fed for potentially weeks! It’s a shame though that we were so fast, we just need a couple more things and then we’re done. Oh well, off to the diary section then, at least you can help with that! Let’s go!”

She then marches further down the grocery store, followed intimately by Kokei. Ekitai follows too then, guiding the cart that remains right in front of him. Finally, Meditat raises his head with another sigh before too following along, keeping his hands pocketed.

Down to the very end white wall of the store, Dana guides the group to a turn down the final aisle, where rather than walking between racks they instead walk between wardrobe-sized containers with faint blue translucent front faces, and through the faces are shelves containing boxes that seem to be kept in colder temperatures.

Beside Dana walks Kokei, and behind both of them trail Ekitai and Meditat who pass families of consumers that cast stern glances at them with black and orange eyes, but unaware Ekitai observes the contents behind the refrigerated shelves.

Past the translucent wall are shelves of bottles with yellow liquid and white jugs with images of smooth yogurt. Further down, there are shelves full of jugs filled to the top with white milk, and each of the jugs have a differently colored label over their bodies, the labels being green, yellow, blue, white, red, purple, orange, and many others.

Some of them even have a stripe or more along the edge of the label with more different colors, for it seems that even given something as simple as milk there was complex organization.

Upon making it to the milk, Dana stops and faces the milk, raising her head up with keen eyes. The other three also come to a stop after her pause, and watch as she then glances around the aisle, turning behind herself to see that on the refrigerator behind her were racks filled with stacks of eggs in array boxes, many of which had variously labeled strips similar to the milk with colors of yellow, green, blue, pink, and others.

She hums quietly to herself after assessing the situation, and then pivots her view to the three with a face of a determined hero, ready to ride into a battle of impossible odds. Her fiery eyes stare with a steel will, prepared to face what lies ahead with full confidence in not only her abilities but those of the comrades whom she trusts her life with.

“Kokei, can you get some Parmalian white eggs? Medit, help me with getting milk,” she orders assertively.

Taking her orders, Kokei nods her head and pivots around, marching several steps to the other side of the aisle where she begins to inspect the eggs, taking on the mission bestowed upon her with full attention and strength.

Next to the commander, Meditat casts a fatigued expression before then shaking his head and facing the jugs of milk in front of her.

While staring at the unnecessarily complicated variety of milk, Meditat is told by Dana the following command: “Get two organic 15% Heudrian milk, specifically one with the transprout certificate.”

Another sigh of the mundane agony being forced upon him is released before Meditat follows the orders of the one following his mission, to which he holds his hand over the cart, and then balls it into a fist.

Kept balled up, he moves his fist straight through the translucent wall, which seems to be a nonsolid if even a wall at all. He reaches his closed hand towards the milk jugs with a purple label attended with a green, blue, and gold strip, and places his fist against one of them firmly before then placing it on another one right beside it.

He then opens his hand and returns it out of the inner refrigerator, letting it pass through the translucent wall containing the cold temperature. Following his hand, the two jugs suddenly begin to levitate on their own and hover out through the wall as well.

Returning his hand inside his pocket, Meditat cautiously whispers beside Dana, “You should be careful about yelling my name by the way, at least in public places just use Rohan.” He then watches both jugs of milk glide over the cart before then descending down and being placed in a corner tightly, not needing to be moved manually like the rest of the group was doing.

A soft pout comes from Dana before hunching forward and whining, “Aw, what’s wrong with Medit? I quite like that nickname.”

“Dana, please,” reinforces Meditat, who casts a stern glance at her, clearly not following along with her joke.

While Kokei places a box of eggs over the cart with her own hands and allows the cart to order it for her, Dana sighs in discontent before conceding, “Fine…but I’m sure there are kids out there named Meditat nowadays anyways so it isn’t that abnormal.”

Once the eggs are positioned in the cart, Meditat tilts his head with an uncomfortable face before reminding, “Well, for one, nobody would look at me and figure that I could’ve been born in that phase. Two, that’s…I don’t know how I feel about that. I mean…there’s a reason I’ve kept it as only an alias…it’s just not a normal sounding name to use in public, even if it’s supposedly my real birth name. I feel bad for those kids.”

He then glances back at the cart and leans back, concluding the conversation himself and examining the surplus of goods obtained as the cart was so filled that the eggs were sitting above the cart’s casing due to the quantity of items jammed together.

Softly sighing after taking note of the bulk of items already planned to purchase, Meditat apprehensively inquires, “We’re done now…right?”

Dana perks her head up and studies the cart too, gazing at it keenly for a few seconds as her irises become gold, further analyzing the inventory beyond the scope of an ordinary person. She stares for a few seconds, and finally her eyes return to green.

She nods her head and answers, “Yep, that’s everything! Let’s get going!” She then turns around and continues marching down the aisle, humming to herself proudly and swinging her arms like a commander, leading the other three towards the front of the store.

At the front of the aisle, Dana emerges while still swinging her arms with a hum, grinning cheerfully and turning her head to gaze at the lanes of customers passing through the booths to complete their purchase. She aims her destination to the closest lane and continues her march, and behind her follows Kokei and Ekitai, the latter of whom guides the cart.

Behind all three of them tails Meditat, his hands pocketed and his head still partly covered by the black hood, only making himself the most standout of the group despite his intentions to remain hidden.

All four of the group make their way down the store, passing several aisles one of which contains the blue boxes with cookies, acquiring Ekitai’s attention immediately. However, upon attempting to veer in the direction of the delights, his body is held back by Kokei’s stretched arm, to which he glances at her fiery glare that causes him to recoil.

After the daring adventure through heaven and hell the group finally conclude their most dangerous mission yet, and at last they arrive at the back of one of the lines making their way through the register.

Dana steps to the side, allowing Ekitai to stand in the center of the line with the cart before him. To his other side stands Kokei too, her hands by her side as she gazes ahead at the line of customers waiting to reach the unmanned booth, and without being able clearly hear what they are saying their content expressions and calm voices provide the adequate reasoning to define them as peaceful, to which she smiles softly too.

Next to the front of the cart stands Meditat, ahead of the group and monitoring the line with stern eyes. His hands remain in his pockets with his hood up, remaining low but still sticking his head out to judge the situation as the group takes a few steps forward every couple of seconds after another customer’s purchase is verified.

In front of the four is a family with their own cart guided by a mature woman next to a young girl not even half her size. She has a wide, innocent smile, and is accompanied by a bald burly man, standing to the right of his cart filled with groceries.

Waiting patiently in line like everyone else, the burly father bald like the rest of the customers glances around, including behind himself, where he catches a glimpse of the man behind him. He then begins to move his black and orange eyes up off him, until he suddenly returns it back, as though something specifically had captivated him. His expression falls from casual to tense, his eyebrows scrunching and his eyes sharpening above the black dot on his forehead. He glares at Meditat for a few silent seconds, to which Meditat takes a slow step back, uneasy about the intentful stare.

After glaring at the man, the large man nudges his wife’s shoulder, to which she glances at him and seeks, “What?” before noticing his cold stare, to which she glances at the man too in intrigue with the same eyes and a black dot on her forehead. She stares at it casually for a few seconds until her eyes widen in shock, and even the daughter between them raises her toes to peer over at the man with concern.

Perplexed now by the sudden attention that was also becoming discomforting as suspicions were starting to arise that perhaps somehow his identity may have been compromised, Meditat steps once towards the family and calmly inquires, “Anything wrong?”

Referred to, the burly father takes a few steps towards Meditat, who tries to back up again but is quickly advanced. The two stop only a foot apart, and Meditat leans back with a discomforted expression, staring right back at the father who glares down.

Up close, Meditat notices that the man’s skin seems oddly unique, not perfectly smooth but rather with ridges and indents that form a pattern resembling scales, seeming to be some odd skin condition. He also noticeably lacked a defining nose, for instead his two nostrils were present without jutting out.

Behind Meditat, Dana interrupts her own sentence which she was speaking to Kokei before turning to notice the tense situation, and with a peculiar stare she steps forward to try interacting, only for her wrist to be suddenly grabbed from beside her.

Her eyes shoot wide in further confusion and she faces the direction of the grab to find that it was Ekitai, whose arm is extended forward. He stares at her with a hesitant expression, for it seems he was being weary of the situation too. Next to him, Kokei steps back, also nervous about the random hostility being displayed. Behind her, the other customers who have joined the line also raise their attention to the altercation, intrigued.

Standing in front of the large man, Meditat leans back with his face right in front of the man’s, his large black eyes like voids staring into his own. Past the father, even the line ahead has come to a stop, for everyone in line is staring back at Meditat.

Agitated by the disturbing situation with more eyes on him than what felt comfortable, Meditat calmly states, “Sir, you’re too close.”

Not moving away, the father glares into Meditat’s eyes before he declares spitefully, “We don’t like your kind.”

Only more disoriented as the answer didn’t clarify anything, Meditat tilts his head and scrunches his eyebrows, his expression becoming more stern faced with this sudden and seemingly unwarranted hostility.

Before he can speak however, behind him Ekitai oddly inquires, “Uh, wait, what Earth are we on?”

Speaking cautiously, Meditat hesitantly answers, “Earth 39…why?”

Right in front of Meditat’s face, the brawny man opens his mouth and extends his tongue out, revealing that it has a split end. The tongue waves and extends towards Meditat, and the man makes a strange, inhuman hiss.