Between Earth and Edmund, a Space tunnel was built by human technology across time. Humans’ life span has reached 150 years, long enough for the journey that allows them to travel through space to find a new, acceptable home, far away from deteriorated Earth.

Cold metal and cold heart—what K observed of the conditions in the tunnel. No one talks to each other and they all look tired and serious. K looks through the space travel guidebook his grandmother had brought home decades ago; there used to be more windows for the travelers so that they could see outer Space. He is not a scientist, though interested in the mysterious outside. Frustrated and stuck in the middle, the Space crossing bracelet tells him, after a surprising ding, that “one percent of your interstellar journey is done.”

He has no idea what is out there in Space, nor does he really want to know, since a day’s walk is too much pressure. Over decades of cutting-edge Space traveling program, humans have fallen into an uncanny circle. They have become migratory.

“Well, after all, we are animals,” K talks to himself, packing a bag, “encountering

the void with all other life.” The universe is the general term for time, space and all matter. In the Space capsule, time and space have been neglected. The world outside the narrow capsule is like a calm monster. Human beings are groping for its principles. It beholds the past and future of mankind.

Sometimes, he dreams to see the nebula. They are sandy pink, fog floating among the indifferent planets and scattering light from stars on cosmic gas and dust.

He is clutching the beads in hand. It is always totally dark outside and he does not know where he is. The light in the tunnel is unusually dazzling. “Maybe it’s time to go to bed,” he said.

Picking up the odds and ends that had been laid out on the ground, he drags himself to the nearest sleeping area.

The light of the capsule suddenly starts to flicker, and after a while it turns off. But he does not fall asleep, as he usually does at this point in the “night.” Without wondering what the reason is, he leans against the wall, trying to recall the beautiful nebula that once appeared in his dream.

Dong, dong, dong… The sound of footsteps come closer. K is nearly half-awake, he opens his eyes slightly and drooping, a pair of black boots stops in front of him, about two feet away.

“Seems like he is totally asleep, finally. It is now 10 o’clock and it has been one

hour after turning off the lights” a man says. “Well, he is the first man I have ever seen to not have fallen asleep immediately after the lights went off.” This was said in a woman’s voice, which raises in the air and animates the atmosphere.

Hearing this, K grins a little, but quickly stops. He realizes that he is the person who is now, or may have always been, under surveillance.

“Good observation.”

He is the one. After the two go away, he slowly opens his eyes and looks at his surroundings. It is not completely dark now, for a small beam of light leads a secret door he has never noticed before. There is a slit between the door and the wall that allows the extremely bright light to come outside.

       And now he is extremely curious, even apprehensive. “What is that light? What is the room inside the door? Who are the two strangers?” he thought.

       Walking towards the door on his tiptoes, he approaches the light. Inside, he discovers two men in dark blue uniforms who are operating a machine while a woman sits at a desk. “Is she keeping a tally?” Scratching his head, he keeps his eyes glued on them. It was just like the Spacecraft his grandmother described in the guidebook now lying in his pocket --- several seats and an advanced control panel. Here, though, people are not wearing Space suits.

       “Time to turn on the lights, it is 12 o’clock,” the woman says. “Are we going to reduce the time for sleep? It has been one year for them to adapt to the new mechanism.” “But gradually,” a man adds, “one year was divided into four parts for

them to get used to the sleeping cycle.” “But human extremes!” the woman said in defiance. “Don’t, I repeat, do not keep that doctrine in mind, or they one day would figure out that this is an experiment,” the man replied in low voice with rage.

Shock. All the years he has been in the tunnel are simply for an experiment! Then where is the tunnel leading him to? To nowhere? No answer.

       In a flash, he suddenly realizes that his name is just code: K, citizen No. 82. He is one of the pioneers for earthers to reclaim a new land. He suddenly wants more memories, the ones when he was still on earth, or, had he have ever been on earth? It becomes messy in his head and he gets a headache. He never considered these things before.

       Lights are beginning to be bright, but they are more like glint in his eyes. K tells himself that he is not insane and drags himself to the wall and sleeps. In the dream, he faintly feels that he is lifted up into a bed. The unfamiliar word comes into his mind. To avoid being hurt by the light, he only opens his eyes a little, he finds out lying a folding sofa with his head fixed with some equipment.

       When he finally wakes up, it seems like nothing had happened, and all he could remember was fragmentary.

       Lying in the same place, with his bag aside, he starts wondering about the truth of the room inside the wall and the truth of the journey. Secretly moving towards the wall, he keeps touching and looking for a mysterious lock—anything to indicate that he has been trapped or tricked.

Amachine reports that it is 16 o’clock. Just at that moment, he touches something that is rotating, in a smooth and faint way.

       “Hey, you want a coffee?” the woman says, which sounds muted and faraway from the inside.

       While he presses the rotating knob, the door opens rapidly but silently. No one is in the room and the light is as bright as it was K first saw it. He steps in.   

       “It looks like it is going to rain.”

       “Maybe, just look at those clouds.”

       Two persons in blue uniforms walk in with coffee in hand, they are talking about the weather. K hides under the desk and stretches his neck to have a look at the sky.

       It is blue, or grey blue? And there are white clouds, and some birds flying low.

       Wait, isn’t he in the void universe? Where are the nebula and stars?

       He strains to see more but his head bumps the desk corner which draws the attention of the uniforms.

       He feels dizzy, but before he falls into unconsciousness, he knows that the two men with coffee walk to him, and one makes a phone call.

       As soon as he wakes up, there are doctors and nurses around him and he is lying in bed, in was seems like a hospital. “Is that all a dream,” he wonders. His head still hurts.

He has a slight smile and reaches into his pants pocket …

He feels the creased cover of his grandmother’s Space travel guidebook.