Valerio was slouched in his pod, his head hanging low. His eyes slowly opened as his vision cleared. He looked down at his hands that had been squeezed into a fist the whole time. As soon as he realised how much strength he'd spent squeezing his knuckles, the strength seemed to vanish as his fingers loosened.
A bloody palm with nail marks revealed itself to him.
The stark red seemed to whirr Valerio's consciousness alive, and with it came the panic he hadn't been able to feel as he flew away from home.
He quickly pushed the glass panel in front of him, prompting the pod to open the hatch. The glass panel raised vertically, an influx of air came rushing at him as he stumbled outside.
'Where am I?'
Valerio inhaled, a dreadful feeling crept into his being, as if he was inhaling the worst emotions the world had to offer. His breathing quickened as he took one breath after another, on the verge of hyperventilating. As if that hadn't been enough for his psyche, the air around him was hundreds of times inferior to his home planet, Fluxara. Breathing in the lesser planar Lu and such a low concentration made it feel like his lungs were on fire.
As Valerio's sense of dread faded, he slowly straightened, his breathing still ragged but steadying. He blinked a couple of times, taking in his surroundings—a vast, desolate landscape enveloped in darkness. Jagged mountains loomed against the sky, their shadows stretching out like claws across the barren ground, the soft reflection of the moon of this planet shining down onto the world. Enormous trees dotted the landscape, beautiful yet twisted as though warped by centuries of hardship.
"..."
It was quiet.
So so quiet.
The silence was deafening, a stark contrast to the chaos of the last of his memories before he had passed out—no signs of his home, no sounds of battle and no familiar voices. Valerio's mind raced, trying to piece together his memories.
What felt like the last hour flashed by his mind. The Orion, his dad's anger as he flew away, the alarms in his pod, yet despite all the memories that seemed to indicate a singular ending. He held on to hope, hoping that it was just the immediate surroundings that he couldn't notice, hoping that the air was from somewhere inferior in Fluxara.
It was truly unfortunate though, sometimes hope would be the greatest of virtues, providing strength in times of despair, alas, when hope wasn't the source of strength it could be; it would be the worst of all evils for it would only prolong torment, transforming from the greatest of strengths to the most vile of poisons.
Valerio immediately looked up at the stars—a glimmer of hope in his eyes—he searched for a familiar constellation, his eyes darted across the beautiful stars of the sky, flying from star to star, drawing imaginary lines in an attempt to reform a familiar constellation, or at least parts of it.
'Nothing.'
The thought flew past his mind, disappearing as quickly as it had appeared, as another one took its place. He took another look around him, searching for the pods of the rest of the group.
He wanted to yell, to shout and scream their names in the hopes that they would hear it, but a sliver of rationality held him back; if this wasn't Fluxara anymore, he couldn't attract attention.
'If this isn't Fluxara anymore…'
Suddenly, it all came crashing down upon him.
'I'm alone.'
His knees lost their strength as he fell.
It was exactly at this moment in time that Valeiro's hope had transformed to its other form, its perverted form. The antithesis of what hope had supposed to be, despair and anguish.
A rush of tears threatened to fall from his eyes, an unfathomable sense of loneliness and helplessness invading his very being.
'FUCK!' he screamed at himself as his anguish overflowed into anger.
His fist flew towards the ground, as if in protest of the very ground he was kneeling on.
Valerio froze mid-swing, his hand hovering over the ground.
"Aurora's bracelet," he muttered to himself as he chuckled with a hint of derision in his tone.
The thought broke through his spiralling despair, reigniting the vestige of hope that he had just lost. He glanced at the fist he had almost slammed into the ground; on it was a gorgeous bracelet of a white phoenix. She had gifted him the bracelet only hours ago; it was the only method of communication he had.
'Come on, please please please, just the slightest connection.'
Slowly, he unclenched his fist, breathing heavily as he raised his trembling hand to his wrist where the white phoenix bracelet rested. He closed his eyes, trying to calm his mind.
Valerio poured his Lu into his white phoenix bracelet, yet nothing happened. The realisation hit him hard.
'I don't have Spiritual Lu,' he spoke in defeat as his hands slumped to his sides.
Though they didn't stay there for too long, not a second later, he was pummelling the ground as if it had been the one to take his family and friends away.
'Fuck. Fuck. FUCK! I need Spiritual Lu.'
With what felt like his last hope being useless, the tears that he had been holding back descended. He couldn't stop them, an anger towards himself, towards his weakness, brewing inside of him as his heart plunged into hatred. His pleas were unheard by the rest of the world, his curses disappearing into the uncaring wind.
As he thought about home, another surge of emotions overwhelmed him; this time, it was sadness and self-pity. Valerio dropped onto the ground, his back against his pod.
He twisted his phoenix bracelet around his wrist, his dirtied black hair covering his face. He couldn't help but think about home.
Was everyone okay?
Were the invaders killed?
How was Aurora? Was she safe?
Lucious, Oliver, Felix, Lucy, where were they?
He had no way to know. Valerio chuckled in defeat, amused at his patheticness.
He let his thoughts drift, slowly moving his head towards the sky.
In comparison to the vast, all-encompassing sky, he seemed so... insignificant.
Perhaps he had never felt as insignificant as now.
'A mere speck in the vast universe.'