180
Millennium
It was 2 A.M. in my father’s Arizona house, and I was awake. I was worried out of my mind, afraid quite frankly. I was a robotics and computer science student, and in just a few days, I was preparing to be in a space capsule sent into the atmosphere of the earth. My mind raced with every opportunity and scenario that could go wrong, horribly wrong. What if I crashed? Asteroid belts? Who even knew! Space is said to be infinite.. It doesn’t end. It keeps going.. And going.. And going.. Thinking about it made me sick to my stomach. I had been interested in anything: space, astronomy, robotics, computers, and anything else technological for practically since I could remember, my entire childhood and decently short life. Now I was 22, approaching 23 extremely soon and I was awake, unable to sleep, sick to my stomach worrying about things that could happen during space exploration. My proudest creation, a robot, named DNA, sat in front of my bed on a night stand on a charging port. I considered talking to him; I talked to him about a lot of things despite him not being real. He was like my emotional support robot, instead of an emotional support animal. My dad was most likely not even home despite the time, he was a police officer and worked a night shift every other week. One week day shift, other week night shift. Back and forth for his 14 years of service. Out of all the weeks, the one night I actually was scared out of my mind, He wasn’t here. How wonderful.
I had school the next morning, however it was mostly online. My father would probably come home around 10 AM, but by the looks of it, I probably would already be up. I had now been laying here for.. An hour and a half. 3:30 am. Mise well just get up and start schoolwork.
I stood and sat at my black, metal desk and spun back and forth in the rolling chair that sat there, opening my laptop. I squinted at the screen, unable to see it.
“Right- glasses.” I muttered to myself, standing up. I grabbed my clear-framed glasses off my white dresser and slipped them on my face.
As I sat back down, my robot had apparently heard noise and powered on. Its dark visor suddenly had frost blue light emitting from it.
“Morning, DNA.” I said, starting to type on the silver keyboard of the laptop.
“Good Morning, Fae.” It said in its monotone voice. “It is 3:30 AM PST. Why are you awake and working?”
“Can’t sleep so why waste hours doing nothing when I could be doing something productive.” I shrugged, realizing I was reasoning with a little piece of metal I had made and programmed.. This was now odd.
“Oh. Well that is reasonable then as long as you get the accurate amount of sleep.” DNA’s legs started to stretch out as he got out of the charging station and looked around. It was fun to watch him wake up.
“What are the plans for today?” It asked.
“Schoolwork. Driving. Class. Learning. Eat. Sleep.”
“That’s not a very elaborate plan.. Nor does it account for any mishaps. Should we alter your plans for today; April 16th?” DNA questioned, deciding to sit on my desk.
“Nope! It’s good enough for me. I like a little bit of inaccuracy.” I winked at him.
“Okay then.. Would you like help with your schoolwork?”
“Nah, I got it. Physics is my jam.”
“Jam? You mean the usual sweetened fruit substance commonly found in the favors strawberry, raspberry, gr-”
“No..” I facepalmed. “Jam as in.. like ‘I’m good at this!’ You know?”
“Oh, No I didn't know. I will add the word ‘Jam’ to my database.” His visor went green for an instant.
I turned back to my laptop as he finished what he was doing, he started to play some music out of small speakers, which disabled him from speaking. He apparently found it helpful to make soft music while I was working on a laptop or any device- I never protested against it.
I grabbed my white and gold embroidered notebook from one of desk’s drawers, as well as a pencil and started to write down certain things that I found to be important for this particular topic. It was still dark outside, pitch black in fact. My room had a large window that faced the city, it was a nice view, especially at sunset or sunrise. My phone sat on the desk to the side, on top of the small, dimmed desk lamp I had sitting there as well. It started to buzz, making a soft ringtone as the screen lit up in gray. ‘Dad.’ the screen had on it, with his picture. I answered it and put it on speaker phone so that I could continue what I was doing while talking.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, Sweetie. What are you doing?”
“Physics at 4 am! It’s truly great, everything just connects.” I teased in sarcasm.
“Oh, I bet. Anyways, I just wanted to call to see what you were doing and if you were okay. I’m coming home in an hour or so. They are letting me off early due to the night not being busy.” He explained.
“Oh, good. Well, you know where I’ll be!”
“Alright then, love you Fae.”
“Love you too, Dad.” I said and hung up.
I continued working on various things as it quickly became 5:15 am. I had finished a decent amount in a little more than an hour so I was quite proud of myself. I hummed quietly to what DNA was playing currently as I finished up a calculus assignment. I heard the door then unlock downstairs and open, then close shut quite loudly. I knew it was my dad and he had probably used his foot to close the door.
“Fae?” He called.
“Coming, Dad!” I yelled back and picked up DNA, quickly going down the staircase leading to the kitchen.
“There you are, I missed you.” He said, smiling as I hugged him. “Why were you up so early?”
“Oh.. um. I couldn’t sleep.” I shrugged.
“Fae stated the following: “Can’t sleep so why waste hours doing nothing when I could be doing something productive.”” His audio played back of my voice.
“DNA- why-?”
“Because your father wanted to know why you had been awake since 2:30 AM PST.” He stated, turning his head to me with a thumbs up on the screen of his visor.
“Anyways.. How’d your shift go, Dad?” I turned to him.
“It went good, Sweetie.” He said, laughing at me and DNA’s conversation. “Not very busy tonight thankfully.”
“That’s good.” I nodded. “I finished about half my schoolwork for today.”
“Oh nice, if you would like to go finish you can.” He said.
“It’s alright, did you want me to do anything for you?” I shrugged, not knowing what else to do.
“No no, I can do it when I wake up. I’m kinda tired so I will be going to bed soon.” He smiled, starting to take off his vest.
“Alright, I’ll be in my room finishing schoolwork.” He hugged me again and we walked away, DNA waved to him slowly with his right arm.
I walked back into my room and sat back at my desk, some light had started to come through the window now. But it was only about 5:30 am according to my digital alarm clock on my dresser. I continued to work on what I was before; right where I left off. DNA resumed his music once I put him onto the desk in the back, behind my laptop, he would occasionally move his head to look at the screen and what I was writing.
“Question 2 is incorrect.” He stated, looking up at me.
“Ookay.. What’s the answer, Homework Superhero?” I arched an eyebrow at him.
“The answer is..” He displayed an image of the answer on his screen.
“Okay then, thanks Buddy.” I gave him a thumbs up and corrected that question.
DNA resumed his soft music as I finished that particular assignment, moving on to the paper I needed to turn in by tomorrow. Now I wasn’t much of a procrastinator, but on this? Yep. I didn’t have any desire within me to write six thousand words on software development and the history of technology.
I opened a blank sheet of digital paper, staring at it as the cursor mark blinked over and over. What was I supposed to do? I had no ideas. None. Nothing. The longer I sat there, the more I got distracted as my mind went back to the topic of being shot into space for over a year. I closed my laptop and planted my head onto it, letting my arms slide to my sides.
“Are you okay, Fae?” DNA piped up.
“I’m worried and confused at the moment, but I’m alright.” I gave him a thumbs up.
“Oh. Well then, maybe I could help.” He said.
“I have two problems. One is the six thousand word paper that needs to be turned in tomorrow. The second is the launch in a couple days.”
“Oh, well. Let us work on the first task so that your schoolwork is not late. Then we can work through the other problem.” He used his metal hand to pat my head.
“Alright.” I opened my laptop again.
It took about 3 hours, but me and DNA eventually finished the paper. Six thousand words of paraphrased information from notes, lessons and Google.. Harder than it seems. It was about 9:30 AM now, the day seemed to be going extremely slow but that was probably because of when I had been up.
“Now, Fae. What is the other problem?”
“Oh, DNA. It’s alright, I think I will keep it to myself.”
“If you insist.” His screen displayed a black thumbs-up image.
I then finished the last thing I had to do for the day and then sat on my bed. I took a random book off the shelf next to the bed and opened it, starting to read what was inside.
Astronomy; the study of space, has been studied for thousands of years.. Space: something explored to great extents, time and money invested in space exploration.. It seems as if humans have the tendency to wonder what is beyond what they can see, what are the topics and information they don’t know, what hasn’t been done yet?..
“Why do I even own this book-?” I muttered to myself and closed it, grabbing another.
‘The History of Computer Science’
Now this was something I wanted to read despite the fact I had read so much that certain pages were torn. I flipped through the pages, reading my head in one of my hands and using the other to turn the pages. I hummed to myself a song that randomly came to mind. I suddenly then heard the door downstairs open and close shut. Dad must have woken up.
Too lazy to look at the clock, I asked DNA what time it was.
“It is currently 11:30 AM PST April 16th.”
“That must be why he’s up.” I said, shrugging.
I walked downstairs after setting aside the book. I left DNA in my room, he would be fine for a couple of minutes. Dad was digging through the fridge with a pan on the stove. I could tell it was turned on by the red light on the knob.
“Morning, Dad. Whatcha’ doing?”
“Oh! Hey, Sweetheart. Just making some food. Are you hungry?”
“Err- not really. Thanks though.” I shrugged.
“Alright.” He said, cracking some eggs in the pan. “Have you practiced yet?”
“Oh- no. I uh- forgot.. Sorry, Dad. I’ll do that right now.” I quickly walked back into my room and opened a large chest in the corner of my room. Inside were two cases, one larger than the other. I pulled out the large one first.
“Are you going to practice your saxophone?” DNA asked.
“Yes, DNA.” I said, gently removing the gold saxophone out of its black home.
I placed my fingers in the correct places and walked over to my bed, standing in front of the dresser. I blew into the mouthpiece and started to play one of the songs I had memorized. It was quite calming actually, I didn’t think about anything for that moment, it all melted away.
Hello! Enjoy Chapter 1 of Millennium! Let me know if you have any feedback, questions or suggestions for me! A chapter of a story is posted everyday so thanks for any continuous support! <3
Chapter 2: https://www.planetminecraft.com/blog/millennium-chapter-2/
Chapter 3: https://www.planetminecraft.com/blog/millennium-chapter-3/
Chapter 4: https://www.planetminecraft.com/blog/millennium-chapter-4/
Chapter 5: https://www.planetminecraft.com/blog/millennium-chapter-5/
Chapter 6: https://www.planetminecraft.com/blog/millennium-chapter-6/
Chapter 7: https://www.planetminecraft.com/blog/millennium-chapter-7/
Chapter 8: https://www.planetminecraft.com/blog/millennium-chapter-8/
| Credit | Google for telling me about Saxophones- |
| Tags |
6145985
6
TravisaInc
SpellmakerTheHybrid
FIegaIkCz
CyborgVillager
Sul4ur
Des_
KEIKYU production
The Hatchet Legionnaires
craftianoshard
Create an account or sign in to comment.