Jay's Log

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26th day of Hunting, Y12.

My name is Jay R------- S----, codename Jherrus. Right now, I'm recording this missive from a sealed-off cavern deep in some crevice of the moon rock mines of Kreludor. I have with me four hours of air in my oxygen tank, and a few days' worth more in the tanks carried by my faithful automaton companions. Two litres of water. No food. No tools - my capture gun, pickaxe, and the rest of my kit were lost in the scuffle that landed me in this predicament.

I've imagined my own death many times - disintegrated in a lab ray accident, lasgunned down by the Defenders of Neopia, falling at the point of Jeran's blade - but I had never conceived of an ending so banal. But the grim inevitability presses more heavily on my shoulders each minute. I can't escape this. It's over. I'm done.

At least Qarix and Shyzes will outlast me. I'm sure my robot comerades have outlasted dynasties. They can survive in this cavern without food, water, or air for however long it takes until some Grundo miners dig their way to this cavern and discover them. By then my body will by long have been mummified by the heat.

I feel calmer than I have any right to feel.

But why shouldn't I be calm? I knew my calling was a dangerous one. I've sacrificed so much in the pursuit of my one distant and beautiful dream. I've squandered the ripest years of my youth in underground bunkers no less stark and featureless than this airless cave. I threw away a promising career in mechanical engineering, abandoned my loving family, and betrayed my one true friend for his archrival. Perhaps, somewhere within me, I realized it would end in this.

No... perhaps, somewhere within me, I realize the torturous, gasping death that awaits me now is no less cruel than what I did for Jaycek. We were one soul in two bodies. Inseparable. Until I turned on him. I deserve every agony, every torture that the universe feels fitting to inflict in recompense for --

Argh, what is this, ritual flagellation? Look, I'm not that horrible a person, okay? Whoever finds this audio recorder, please don't think too badly of me. I'm not some overemotional basket case this tape makes me sound like, and I'm not the vacant-headed Doctor Sloth groupie that my enemies would like you to think I am.

I don't want to die now. Not like this, not while people still scorn my glorious aspirations! Nobody ever understood my dream, not even Qarix and Straphe. Well, nobody except Jaycek understood. And I doubt he'd ever tell. I suppose he's washed his claws of the whole affair by now, trying his hardest to forget I ever existed.

But... maybe I could tell you my story. How I lived. How I died. How I dreamed.

Let me explain it all to you, from the start.

I've always wanted to rule the world.

27th day of Hunting, Y12

From somewhere nearby, the noise of metal scratching against stone.

Let me elaborate on that statement. I was born under a syzygy - a rare alignment of the stars and planets, in which Kreludor and the innermost star of the Wave hung in the sky directly above our house, the former blocking out the latter. My mother, a woman of Altadoran descent who was well versed in the superstitions of her ancient people, told me that this meant I was destined to be a kind and noble ruler.

Of course, I don't base my life ambitions on my horoscope. After all, it's just a story. But it was a story my mother seemed very invested in, so I figured, why not play along? And being the star-fated ruler of all Neopia makes for a pretty nice biography.

I was so sure of my destiny as an omnipotent leader that I managed to overlook the fact that I couldn't lead a harris out of a hedge maze.

See, I've never been too good at communicating with others. I don't talk straight, I pontificate in polysyllables. In my youth, my idea of conflict resolution was to skulk in my room and brood on my own superiority until I'd forgotten what the original argument was about. I was that nerd nobody talked to except when they wanted my homework to cheat off. I was bitter and friendless. I was always the last kid picked for Yooyuball.

But none of that mattered, because I was going to be king!

With this thought foremost in my mind, I enrolled in Neopia Central University - NCU - intending to earn a degree in Government. But after my first term, I switched to mechanical engineering. I may not be a good leader of men, but machines? Those are something I can control.

It helps that I have a natural knack with machinery. Something about smooth metal plating, snaking wires, and humming cooling fans really speaks to me. The petpets I built in my robotics class at NCU were the first creatures (other than my family members) I ever felt genuine love for. Perhaps my affection came from the fact they obeyed me absolutely --

No, that's not it. After all, Qarix is my favorite robot friend, and he's anything but obedient. Still, he's the finest machine I've ever encountered --

Stop. Talking.

Ah, that's Qarix now. Hey Qarix, you want to say anything for posterity?

I want to say that I'm tired of your morbid histrionics. All this drama is distracting me from my digging. And I'm no more a machine than you are a piece of meat.

Why are you still digging? That earthquake trapped us miles below the surface. You're more likely to hit a lava vein than you are a possible escape route.

If you're so convinced our doom is imminent, why should it matter if I accelerate it by a few days?

If we hit lava, they'll never find my mp3 recorder, and nobody will ever know - I, I'll die forgotten - and Ja-Jaycek will nuh-never know I'm sorry...

He starts sniffling intensely. Qarix lets out a scratchy, staticy noise of exasperation halfway between a screech and a sigh. Then the scratching noise stops. For a second, the only thing audible is Jherrus' sobbing. Then...

H-hey, Qarix... where's that light coming from?

From the hole I dug, imbecile hume. If you wish to die in this cavern, feel free to do so alone. But I plan to leave this place alive, and I would prefer it if you'd accompany me.

Oh, g-god, thank you... I knew I could rely on you...

Cease the sniveling and help me dig.

27th day of Hunting, Y12

Hello, recorder? Please excuse my... loss of composure yesterday. As you may be able to tell, I don't exactly shine under pressure.

Not that that matters, since the pressure is off. If I do meet my end down here, it won't be until my air supply runs out - that gives me nearly a week. As I speak, I'm sitting at the edge of an underground lake. The water here is pure and cool, and now that my dehydration-induced lightheadedness has been abated, I feel a new spark of hope within me.

Qarix and Shyzes are working on an escape route right now. We found the source of water for this lake. It's a long hole in the rock, barely two feet in diameter at its narrower points, but with Shyzes' brute strength and Qarix's diamond-tipped claws, hopefully we can widen it enough for all of us to squeeze through.

I suppose I'll continue my story while they work. Now, where was I... right, NCU. That's where I met Jaycek. He was a scrawny, excitable little Eyrie with pale blue feathers and thick plastic-framed specs. His wings were tiny and nonfunctional; although he never seemed bothered by his inability to fly, I can't help but draw a connection between his flightlessness and his obsession with space. An aerospace engineering major and an astronaut wannabe, Jaycek plastered glow-in-the-dark constellation appliques on his dorm room walls and slept cuddling a Space Faerie doll.

Jaycek and I met in Physics 101 and bonded through our mutual obsessions. I dreamed of having a world to rule; he dreamed of having a world to name. At lunchtime, he would lay out star charts on the dining hall table and point out planets that might be suitable for habitation. I would nod and smile and imagine my own interstellar dictatorship.

I was the only one who could put up with him, and he was the only one who would put up with me. That's true friendship.

We both graduated in Y10. That year the Virtupets Space Station had just rebuffed Sloth's army, so the Grundos needed all the engineers they could find to repair the extensive damage. I jumped at the chance to get down and dirty with the superior Grundo robotics, and Jaycek jumped at the chance to finally leave Neopian soil.

Ah, Qarix, is beckoning to me. I've got to go. Hopefully, by tomorrow we'll be back on the face of Kreludor.

1st day of Relaxing, Y12

Last night I dreamt of sky. The darkened cavern walls lit up with gleaming rhinestone stars. Hovering before me was Neopia, a sea-blue orb shimmering below wispy white clouds, like some massive jewel hung from an unseen chain. It seemed so near to me, yet it was so far, so far and so lonely. A single blue drop in black-and-white space.

I hadn't felt such wonder since the first days of my time on the Virtupets station. At the beginning, I would stare out of the window in my cabin every night, searching for the Wave in the sky. Its presence comforted me, like a bedtime story from the universe.

In those days, Jaycek shone with excitement. Maintaining turbines, repairing hull damage, mopping floors... no matter what task it was, he did it with a smile on his face and a spring in his step. While I marvelled at our new surroundings in quiet awe, he felt compared to share his amazement with the world.

But novelty runs its course quickly. After a few months stuck on the station, my enthusiasm had dropped considerably. It took Jaycek about a year to lose that sparkle in his eyes. As huge as it was, the space station was still basically a closed ship, and Jaycek and I were both getting cabin fever.

Luckily, I managed to broaden my social circle quite a bit on the station. The kind of people who found taking three years off life to repair machinery in space an attractive career move were generally the kind of people I enjoyed spending time with - single male nerds with no social life to speak of. My number of friends quickly quadrupled to a total of four. Rejnel, one of my first contacts on the station, was a plump, unkempt Gnorbu who spoke in a monotone and was disturbingly obsessed with giant robot anime. Then there was Kimmerly, a twitchy and overexcitable Shoyru who would regale us with stories of his romantic conquests, none of which were likely true. Last was Snoril, a mildly smart but painfully arrogant Jetsam mechanic. Together we had a weekly poker game on the lower deck.

Still, as fun as my newfound friends were to be around, I wanted out.

I wasn't alone in my restlessness. Although Rej and Kim were perfectly content waiting out their three-year contracts, Snoril was growing more dissatisfied with his job day by day. He had started picking fights with his supervisors and getting into yelling matches with co-workers nearly daily. He disdained the tedious grunt work on the station, claiming that his talent was wasted on such easy tasks.

Eventually, I had to confront him. I warned him that he was on the verge of getting fired, but he didn't seem to care. He said he had a new employer, a Doctor Emerson, who was willing to take him on at the same wage, with a signing bonus that would nearly make up for the pay he lost from skipping out on his contract. Apparently his new boss was scouring the solar system for scientists with space station experience.

I asked him to put in a good word for me and Jay. A week later, interviewers called our cell phones, and we quickly had a job.

How was I to know our new employer's name was short for Dr. Frank Emerson Sloth?

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