Planet Proxima Centauri-B.
Terminator zone, Base camp.
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His long black royal fabric dangled in mid air, its edges flapping like flippers. Legs folded, hands tucked in lap, the prince's body levitated on the thin black plate of levitar, gently rocking him to and fro with the midnight air.

"I see that my lovesick boy has finally mastered riding Levitars." A deep voice broke the serene silence of the balcony.

Matthias's balance shook, yet he flung his arms and attained the zen mode back again, a wicked smile was stuck on his face. "I see that you haven't changed a bit after years of exile in this god forsaken wasteland."

"Well, I'm still your father's advisor and your friend. Logically speaking, I am the same." The advisor leaned on the ledge of balcony of the highest chamber in the camp. Even at the nightfall, the ground down below buzzed with droid workers carrying objects like fire ants.

Matthias held his fist out for a bump. "I'm not the same though, I took the oath. So..." Matthias shrugged pursing his lips, "and I am not a lovesick boy anymore. Gosh, stop saying that! You'll ruin my reputation among these centauran girls here."

"Truth be told Matt, you still are." The advisor  teased the boy, shaking him out of balance yet again.

"You see, I am more mature now. So I'm just gonna walk out with princely elegance pretending you never said that."

Just as Matthias hopped off the levitar and turned around towards the stairs, he heard exactly what he was avoiding to hear the most.

"Tell me you don't spill love puddles in that royal tab of yours. Yeah that one, that transparent slab in your pocket."

Matthias suddenly became aware of the tablet in his pocket, which he deemed useless on the surface of Proxima B planet except that it had hundreds of poetic scribblings and her photos. "I did a mistake. God, how I still weep every night for her. We were never meant to be together, never."

"But you could have, if you had tried. Instead you broke her heart."

"Thanks for the guilt trip, Butler. And for the insomnia tonight and some depression for a few weeks." Matthias smiled, gulping a lump of emotions down his throat.

"Alright, lover boy. I apologise. It came,  you know? She being my niece and all that."

The prince nodded, his face still sore with raw anger and guilt. "I'm starving. Do we get real food here? Or is everything a dehydrated piece of shit?"

"Come on, I'll treat you." Butler put his arm around the prince and took him to the stairs leading down to the hallway, which in turn led to a maze of mini metallic hallways. Then a vacuum capsule of some kind and they landed in the cafeteria cum bar.

A bunch of drunkards sat at a corner, their hands calloused and dirty red from the soil and wind. A group of women sat at another corner gossiping about everything and anything, their eyebrows raised once they noticed the charming Prince and the advisor walking into the bar.

There were loners, some drunk to death and yet some, sane and social. They nodded, raised their glasses to the royalty walking into the bar.

"Uh. My father would not...never approve of this, Butler." The prince whispered, trying to act graceful. "Oh boy, does he already know I'm here? He has his spy eyes everywhere."

"Matty, chill. You are not a kid anymore, you took the oath remember? Man up."

Matthias straightened his back. As Butler's iron fist jabbed a hard hit to his back, a gush of air whooshed out of his lungs. With that, Matthias blurted, "two shots of bad blood, please."

Although the bald bartender froze, shooting a judgemental stare, his skilled hands swooped up a couple of glasses and his cyborg spare arm jutting out of his shoulder poured a dirty red liquid from an extravagant bottle.

"Mmm bad blood. I say, a bold move for a beginner. Nevertheless, cheers for the new beginnings." The advisor unbuttoned his long coat and took a swig from the glass and immediately winced his face.

Matthias swallowed, he had never tasted bad blood. Hell, he had never tasted beer in his life. He had been educated quite a lot about the bad blood and other such addictive stuff, but being this close to it made him nauseous.

'Man up, Matty. Man up!' he thought. The next second, the whole bar was eyeballing him.

A collective voice started chanting unanimously, "Chug! Chug! Chug!"

Matthias felt his heart beat shooting into infinity, a weird ringing in his ears almost made all the noise fade away into nothingness.

The taste of it wasn't that bad, it was sour, had a dirty clinging odour to it that made him gag.

He saw a haze, a very beautiful haze. White and swirling, with echoing laughter. It must have been spring, because he felt warm and fuzzy. Her flushed ears, a small ear stud that she always wore - a shape of periwinkle. Red hair, fringes of them falling and lifting like a curtain, shadowing her face into obscurity. He almost spread his fingers to move those fringes away. He wanted to see those freckles, he missed feeling those lips. He missed her. He missed falling in love with her over and over again.

Before he realised that it was all a haze, he was limp and before he realised he wasn't able to move, his thoughts fogged into darkness. After that there was nothing.

The next time Matthias woke up, he reeked of puke and perfume of the gossiping women, all mixed together into a messy odour.

"Did you enjoy last night's company, kid?" Matthias heard the similar deep rumble in the room. The advisor standing at the end of his bed.

"My head hurts," Matthias pressed his temples, he was fully functional once he heard rhythmic trotting of metallic boots from behind the door.

"This is extremely unacceptable. I had better hopes from you Matthias." His father was at the door accompanied by his guards. "I see that you have failed the very basics of the oath. This act was immature, irresponsible and irrational."

Matthias sprung out of the bed and stood like a stick, his body still half naked. "I'm sorry father, I really am. I will never repeat that again."

"From here on, you have been demoted. You'll remain devoid of your princely privilege and serve in the batallion of guards to the base camp. I shall reconsider things when necessary," with that said, the king shot a demeaning look at the advisor and stormed off.

Matthias huffed and slumped onto the bed, face first. "I screwed it big this time."

"Oh you'll get around. Now cheer up. I've got the uniform made for you already. I hope it fits you perfectly." The advisor patted on his back.

"So... you were already aware of it, Butler?"

"Nah...I know your father all too well. Come on now, get up. So many things to do before it's nightfall again. It's not easy being a guard on this planet."

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Matthias felt out-of-breath inside the heavy military jacket he wore due to hooks, ropes and ammunition clinging on it and more so because of the oxygen concentrator mask wrapped around his face.

Drones buzzed around them, mapping and scanning things. He absolutely hated those annoying spheres. While growing up he never accepted a drone, not even when his father forced him to have one for security purposes.

"Lieutinent Matthias, you are slow by four minutes and twenty six seconds to the battalion. Please follow the co-ordinates. It's expected to be nightfall by seven minutes earth time." The drone sphere assigned to Matthias spoke beside him in a sweet feminine tone.

Matthias and two more officers were clearly lagging behind from the group ascending up the dune.

"What exactly are we doing now, lieutenant uh...To-jan?" Matthias asked to the tall lieutenant dragging his legs beside him. The name on his pocket read 'Lt. Tojan Budzon'.

"That thing brother, is the check post." The young man pointed to the watch point standing atall beyond the sandy heap. He spoke while he caught his breath in between, "basically, we gotta protect the camp from the night-crawlers."

"Night crawlers?" Matthias stopped, his boots sinking into the sand like his breath sinking into his lungs slowly.

"Yyup!" The other officer corrected his helmet and continued chomping on his gum. "What did you think? That's how your royal ass can sleep in peace in that highest chamber of yours. Huh."

"They said that the planet is un-inhabited because of extreme weather, unbreathable air and that it's being terraformed for us to live since centuries. This is impossible." Matthias half jogged to keep in pace with the other two men.

"Impossible, my ass. That's what they feed you. They concentrate young people like us promising us dreams and the next minute, bam! You are down here fighting your bloody ass off with these abominations." Tojan unfastened his mask and spat on the ground. He held his breath scrunching his face and readjusted his mask, the fog as intense as the rage in his eyes.

As the trio climbed uphill, the golden orange light of dusk from the twin suns glinted off the sandy dunes, each grain of sand a microscopic mirror.

One of the three drones following them turned its light red, "hostility detected. Check post number -3 under attack. Safety beacon has been activated by the batallion."

Three of them exchanged looks before sprinting off in the sand to the other side of the dune. An unheard screeching noise made Matthias fall to his knees and cover his ears before his drums would have bled.

But when he opened his eyes after the torture ended, what stood ahead of them made him week to his knees.