Uppsala Archive, Oxford Division, Earth

File No. M4734

Filing Date: 04/08/2180 Stamp Here

Content Description:

Voice message received 04/01/2180, original version print kept in Uppsala Archive Berlin Department.

The letter was sent from Asteroid 141113, unknown sender.

Remarks:

Add in 04/12–An explosion caused by an unknown reason happened to Asteroid 141113. No survivor was found.

Add in 04/18–This letter was the last message received from Asteroid 141113.

Letter Translation:

My Dearest Child of Stars,

How have you been, and how is your star? It is a hard thing to write in your language… but I guess this is a step that I must take for you. My star is fine, everything is on track. I’m fine, too. My trip back home went smoothly, although I know you will make fun of my “spaceship-sick” for the next whole year. And those sleeping pills from Earth you gave me—they actually worked! I slept for almost the last half travel, the technology from Earth is just amazing—whoa, remind me, how many times I have said that?

…Ha.

I’m sorry for pretending that I am happy in the last few lines. Did I say “I’m fine?” Well, if I said that, I need to take it back. It’s better for me to not lie to you. I’m not “fine,” dear friend, I’m forty million light years away from being “fine”... Also, I hope you won’t mind if I call you “friend.” (Because, as you know, there is no such word as “friend” in our language—what a pity.) That is also something I am about to tell you now.

As you know, there are lots of resources, creatures, and mankind on our planet. We have all the things needed for an ethnicity to live in this universe, or at least I thought that in the past. Our people won’t get “sick” like you humans do on Earth. There is no such thing as “illness” on our planet... I also used to think, is there anything else that could keep us from being as strong of a planet as Earth? I have traveled to many places in the universe, seen lots of different events that happened before my eyes. I’ve been to Stample, a planet with the worst environment and the least resources. Their people had to build cities underground because even if you spend one minute outside, your skin will get blisters. I’ve also been to Rhodilas, which is a planet that is covered in ninety percent water. Their people built cities underwater; their transportation are the things called “submarines” in English. Hey, they even had a city named after me! I mean, although they did it to prove peace existed between our two planets. Of course, there is something more. If I could have stayed on Earth for a few more days, I would love to tell you everything I’ve seen. I really want to show you how the stars would whisper in the lonely nights, or more secrets about the black holes—I know people on Earth are really interested in investigating the mystery of them. But I don’t have any more time now. Maybe I will get to tell you these stories, in the future that would never arrive for us.

Surprisingly, although I have visited so many places, I never felt like there was something missing from our planet. Resources, creatures and technology, diplomatic and political systems… Everything is well organized by our president, which is Mr. Tradias in your language. Oh, my Zelotos! My thoughts are so odorless right now, how could I be so agitated! My voice is shaking when I’m speaking this sentence... Our country is so organized, everybody follows the rule and command. There is no such thing as “emotion” like you have on Earth in our strict system. People will keep their distance from others, and the combination of men and women is only to produce babies. No “Friend,” no “Emotion,” and no “Love.” If something like that exists in our system, it’ll be just like a crack on a high magnification microscope that will cause the collapse of all the accurate data.

As you can see, my dearest Child of Stars—this is how the world I lived in looks. I never told you how dangerous were the things you explained to me. Last month, after I went back to my planet, for the first time I finally felt that something was missing from my life. 141113 is a good place, I love my country, we have everything here: resources, creatures, technologies… but, there’s no you. Perhaps, this is what you call “missing” in your language. (Please correct me if I made a mistake.) Our people never get to know those things: not in the past, not now, and I believe also not in the future, if we have one. This is a world with no colour in it, just like the middle of the black hole… our whole system is like a black hole, it swallows everything. Every individual is a solitary planet. But “there’s no such thing as love” doesn’t mean “we can’t learn about it.” I am already a perfect example.

Because of you, my friend, I can finally understand the meaning behind those words.

There are so many things we haven’t discovered in this solitary universe. I feel myself like a planet, sitting in an unknown corner of the universe with my exhausted core. People in my planet have been secretly infected by an illness called “ALONE.” They can’t realize who their irreplaceable ones are. They numbly live, follow those laws that they must follow, prolonging their lives when there is actually no point to continue it. So, on this day, I’ve finally become alone living solely on this star. Thoughts like these are really dangerous because I know that with this transmission, I will be erased by [THEM]. Those people won’t let me leave just one trace. That’s why there’s something I need to tell you before I disappear. My dearest Child of Stars, my friend, my benefactor—I don’t want to see those things you taught me just disappear in this world; so, in the last moment of my life, I must let you know, the effort and the love that you put on me were not wasted. You saved me, you gave me new birth, and now I must pay with my life. But you don’t need to feel sorry.

Because I love you. And I believe that this time I used the word in the right place.

This universe is too spacious for us. I never realized how far is the distance between us. I still have countless feelings I couldn’t express, some thousand, some millions of I love you’s I didn’t say. I want to repeat these three words till it’s trivial to count the numbers said, till the end of time, till you want me to stop. But I guess, I will never get a chance to do that anymore.

Don’t weep for me, my dearest child of stars. At least I found the meaning of life in the last moment of it, and at least you’ll never feel alone among your people. Please remember, it is the honor of my life to get to know you.

Now, I would like to say “good night.”

N.W Sent From Asteroid 141113