The Floating World

Written by: Ethan Cheung

Edited by: Hairong Liu

I open my eyes and am greeted with the familiar sight of the paranormal. All around a variety of objects from the human world float as if in a body of water, stretching and distorting into alien forms before dissipating in a discoloured mist. Above, the glow of sunlight - if that is indeed what it is - filters through, though from where it came I cannot be sure. As one might expect, below is a bottomless abyss, into which everything will inevitably descend and nothing will return. I chuckle to myself, inexplicably finding humour in this dire situation. This is one of the ‘normal’ days here in the Floating World - sometimes the abyss would be above and the ‘sky’ below. Most days neither are present at all, or scattered throughout the ‘landscape’.

Would I do anything ‘today’? Such is the dilemma I face every time I wake up. Upon my arrival, every day was spent finding an escape: Interacting with those strange objects, exploring the gloom, or even praying to the gods. But in the end, all my efforts were in vain. Even now I am no closer to finding a way out than I was when I came here.

I grab a rapidly liquifying chair. There’s no need for it, but floating around all the time is tiring. If I could feel for just a moment that I was somewhere normal again…

It inevitably gets me caught up in the painful memories of my world. I can still remember it like it was yesterday…

I was only a soldier of the expeditionary force then. We had landed on the jungle planet Coillen and fought off the local guerilla forces before occupying a large town. Our code forbade us from mistreating civilians in an occupied area, one of the many to prevent soldiers from abusing them. But one day I noticed that my friend Julian, who was assigned patrol duty in the town, was demanding money and other goods from the civilians in a blatant breach of the code. I could have told him he was wrong. I could have told him that he shouldn’t be doing that, that he should remember that we had experienced the same thing when we were young. I should have threatened to report him if he did not stop.

But I didn’t. I didn’t want to ruin our relationship, so I kept quiet about his activities. During one night, a barrage of gunshots suddenly came from an area near the lookout post. By the time I and a contingent of soldiers arrived, it was already too late. Multiple soldiers and townspeople lay dead in a local pub, gunshot and stab wounds peppering their cold, lifeless bodies. I will never forget the moment I flipped over a table and saw Julian’s body lying there, the fire in his eyes forever extinguished. Years of friendship and the nearly unbreakable bond we had forged in our desert homeworld shattered and gone forever. The dead townspeople I also recognised. Julian had recently extorted quite a large sum of money from them. Perhaps they had had enough.

To this day, I have never been able to reconcile with the fact that my inaction killed my friend. Perhaps it was my divine punishment for being inactive. I will never know.

The chair behind me fully liquifies, dripping into the abyss below. I glance around for something else to sit on. A washing machine? A desk? A couch? All would suffice if they did not disappear or transform into something else every time I approached them. 

Instead, I grab a gun, looking quite out of place amongst the sea of household appliances. It reminds me too much of what happened back then, another defining experience of my life…

Our fleet was hovering over the planet Kijul II, occupied by enemy forces who planned to commit mass genocide. Intensive battle had left many of our ships damaged or destroyed entirely, though part of the fleet was still functional. Our admiral ordered us to charge in once more and fight. We had a chance of saving those people from dying.

But our fleet had been depleted, and going into battle once more was guaranteed to wipe out what was left of it. I could see the reactions of my men: On many faces, I could see fear plastered, clearly unwilling to sacrifice their lives for a planet they had never been to before. I’d heard talk of mutiny, and they all looked to me, second-in-command, for a decision. The fate of millions of lives rested on me, and one order could either preserve or extinguish them all. Perhaps I should have listened to the admiral. Perhaps I should have ordered that all ships go in and fight to the last man.

Instead, I shot the admiral, jettisoned his body from the ship, and turned the whole fleet around. I never saw what happened to the people of Kijul II, but when the planet was but a dot on my vast window it was smothered by red and yellow for just a moment. Then it was no more.

I was not blamed for the admiral’s death. I told the navy that he had attempted to board a transport craft to an unresponsive ship, but due to his old age mistook a porthole for the loading dock and jettisoned himself out into space.

I aim the gun at the light above and pull the trigger. Nothing happens. Of course, everything here is simply a construct of objects from the human world. They have no functionality. Perhaps it is the Floating World’s attempt to adapt to a foreign being. I do not want to imagine what it must have been like without me.

On a whim, I decide to ‘swim’ up, propelling myself off the crowd of spacefaring vehicles. From the gloom, a gargantuan Destroyer looms in the distance. I suddenly feel vulnerable, unconsciously hiding behind the transport craft and rovers as I make my way up. It didn’t matter. No matter how long or far I travelled towards either sky or abyss, neither seemed to get closer. The light shimmers, almost like what lies above me is the sea’s surface. Almost like I was back somewhere normal. The light is familiar, too familiar. It reminds me too much of my last memory before coming here.

The Research Division had invented some sort of technology that allowed us to travel to other universes. There was a girl there, Lianne, who I had recently taken a liking to. I knew many would not approve of our relationship, so I’d kept it secret, but I had a feeling that many already had an inkling of what was going on. She had volunteered to enter the portal as the first traveller to another universe. I remember the excitement and anticipation in her eyes as she prepared to go in. She was truly beautiful when she was like that.

I also remember how all that was swept away by fear when the portal malfunctioned and she was about to be jettisoned to god knows where. I don’t know what came over me at that moment. If I had been thinking rationally, I would have stayed put in the control room. But I rushed into the portal room and threw myself into it, trying to save Lianne. I don’t know if it worked. All I know is that I ended up here after that, cursed to rot forever in this world.

Those memories and many others have plagued me since I was thrust into this empty world. What should I have done? What if I had acted differently? Was it the right thing to do?

I suppose there is no point in contemplating these questions now that everything is long past. But humanity likes to dwell in that past, whether glorious, traumatic, or uneventful. The gods have meted out their punishment, and I must take it whether I like it or not.

What was the point in dwelling on all that anymore?

Suddenly, the light above shines ever so bright, driving the abyss below deeper into the ‘ground’ I sense something different about this light. Perhaps I can actually reach it this time, and when I do something new will be waiting on the other side. What can it be?

I swim up to find out.