Chapter Text
Astral Sea
12025-01-08 @422.34
Oliver's first sensation was that he was underwater. Fortunately, it was not the frigid cold of a normal ocean, more like plunging into a lukewarm bathtub the size of an ocean with your clothes still on. Fortunately, that seemed to include a pair of goggles which remained airtight over his eyes.
The boy looked around for sunlight, but found only the soft glow of some sort of luminescence. He knew there should be a Sun, but instead it was like an infinite blue sky filled with liquid. Panicking, he struggled as he tried not to let the water in.
"Don't be afraid. It's time to let yourself drown. Just let it flow into you." a voice rumbled through the sound of rushing liquid. It reminded Oliver of hearing a child in a movie speak, the voice sounded young yet it echoed like speakers. Except clearer, like it had not been filtered through a digital projector's audio output.
Of course, hearing that didn't make it easier at all. Oliver tried to scream for help, causing the last air to rush from his lungs. He could barely hold that breath out two seconds before he realized he could only hope the voice was right.
To his surprise, the liquid that flooded his lungs didn't seem to be actual water. It was liquid, but as he felt his lungs fill with it he recognized it was breathable. Somehow, the moment the liquid hit his bloodstream, it did not matter that he was underwater. As if the breath out was meant for something that couldn't breathe here to be left behind, and a new beginning as it was reborn for this... world?
What is this place? Oliver thought to himself. I know my name was Oliver, but I don't remember anything else.
At that moment, a bright light shone from "above" his head. He looked towards it, a newsboy cap shielding his eyes from being blinded, to see a large entity the size of an Orca. The "being" was no killer nor whale, however, but a large vehicle of some sort. The machine looked like a perfectly capsule-shaped vessel, with four mobile robotic arms on a ring track located 1/3 of the vehicle's length from the rear.
It was close enough that one of the arms reached out to Oliver, and before he could react it had grabbed him. He was quickly swung over and pulled to the rear of the craft and placed into a small alcove, which then closed. Then the liquid in the room suddenly changed state unexpectedly. Oliver had to try and control an urge to vomit as the breathable liquid in his lungs became gaseous air.
"There we go. Now you're ready." a voice said, rumbling through the walls around him. Oliver looked for the source of the sound but all he could see was the blast doors he was shoved through and the small, elevator-like size of the room he was in. Opposite the blast doors was a set of smaller, steampunk-looking doors that were surprisingly decorative for an airlock. Oliver noticed the doors had no handles or other surfaces to grab. He was trapped.
"First task, let's register you into my system..."