The Blue Fleet

The Blue Fleet

On the fringes of Seoul, rising abruptly from the worn, familiar landscape, stood a quaint new building at a street corner. Dusk had just begun to cast its dark curtain over the city. In the downtown area, where the lights of countless buildings whispered their own stories, only the sign 'Sia Obstetrics and Gynecology' shone brightly, as if announcing its sole presence. This place, the culmination of Yushia's long-held dreams and accumulated sweat, was finally set to open tomorrow morning.

It was nearing midnight. The building, which had buzzed with opening preparations and final checks during the day, was now steeped in a deep silence, bordering on stillness. The bustling staff had all gone home, leaving only the young director, Yushia, twenty-two years old, alone to inspect every corner of the hospital and add the finishing touches. The press had raved about her 'phenomenal talent' and 'the birth of a medical genius,' but for Yushia, medicine was as natural as breathing, as essential as drinking water, and above all, a source of deep enjoyment.

She had entered university early, graduated early, and mastered every step of her path with overwhelming academic results, becoming a specialist at a much younger age than her peers. And finally, she was on the cusp of opening the doors of the hospital she had dreamed of, bearing her own name.

A surge of elation and heart-pounding anticipation beat in her chest, but simultaneously, a sense of thrilling yet terrifying nervousness, the kind felt only by those stepping into an unknown world, enveloped her entire body.

Through the large glass windows, a panoramic view of Seoul as night deepened unfolded before her. The city lights, twinkling in the darkness with their myriad colors and forms, seemed like the blood vessels of a vast, living organism, constantly pumping energy and moving dynamically.

In the distance, the endless stream of car headlights crossing the huge bridge spanning the river flowed like the swift current of time.

And high in the sky, countless stars were scattered like jewels, adding a distant, transcendent beauty to this entire reality.

The hospital interior still carried the scent of newness and felt unfamiliar, but the view outside the window was a slice of utterly familiar reality – the place where Yushia was born, raised, and where she now stood.

Yushia gazed pensively at the city bathed in light. Beneath those countless lights, an immeasurable number of people lived their lives, with their joys and sorrows. They would rejoice and grieve, love and part, sometimes despair and sometimes hold hope. And some of them, indeed many, would one day find themselves here, in the maternity ward of Sia Obstetrics and Gynecology, at the world's most mysterious and magnificent moment: the birth of a new life.

The thought of this sent a wave of profound anticipation washing over her, but simultaneously, a small tremor of fear arose at the realization that she would stand alone at the center of it all, bearing this immense responsibility.

It wasn't merely the responsibility of practicing medicine, perhaps... It might have been a vague fear related to a latent ability within her, something she didn't yet fully understand, something she hadn't been able to fully tap into.

"Hmm... maybe this plant would get better sunlight over here?"

Breaking the chain of deep thought, Yushia let out a small exclamation and humming, picking up a Lucky Bamboo plant. She was about to carefully move it to a spot she thought might better nourish its leaves. The green leaves, welcoming their new home, held a faint shimmer.

It was at that moment.

A familiar sound, yet one she never wanted to grow accustomed to. Every cell in her body reacted sharply, standing on end.

Dragging... shuffling...

A dull, ominous friction sound, as if something wet and heavy was being dragged across a rough floor. And faintly mixed at the end of that noise, a sound like an unknowable sob, both human-like and utterly alien.

It was the very sound that had persistently haunted and tormented Yushia every night in her dreams for the past week.

At first, she had tried to dismiss it as mere auditory hallucination, a product of a brain exhausted and stressed from the hospital opening preparations, like simple tinnitus. But as time went on, the sound grew clearer, and even after waking, it lingered in her ears, leaving an unpleasant afterimage.

And now... that very sound, not from a dream but from this starkly real space, inside Sia Obstetrics and Gynecology, seemed to be echoing.

Yushia froze, holding the Lucky Bamboo plant. She remained in a slightly bent, awkward posture, every sense acutely heightened. The cold weight and hardness of the soil in the pot in her hands, the faint scent of the Lucky Bamboo drifting to her nose, the distant city noise coming from outside the window...

Her senses of reality were still sharp, but an eerie, chilling tension, overwhelming everything else, instantly dominated her entire being.

Hmm... Yushia grew tense.

She had been focusing all her senses on the sound coming from behind her when...

'...Is it auditory hallucination? No... it's too vivid. Too... physical.'

She desperately tried to deny it, to convince herself it was just a lingering echo of a dream, not reality, but the sound grew steadily louder, coming from outside, not inside her ears, and closer. Along with a cold, heavy presence that seemed to be slowly circling within the hospital, approaching her.

Dragging... shuffling...

"Could it be... the sound from my dream... really... here...?"

A relaxed but slightly tense murmur escaped her lips. To dismiss it as mere hallucination felt impossible; the sound was too distinct, carrying too real a weight. Yushia slowly straightened her stiff back and turned, facing the darkness within the hospital where the sound originated. At the end of the hallway's faint darkness, something stood, a form difficult to discern.

A Startling Presence

Gasp.

There... something stood that should not have been moving. A dead person, standing upright on two feet, gazing in her direction.

The form was that of an old woman who appeared to be five hundred years old.

But it was not the appearance of a living person. Her face, gray and deeply lined as if it hadn't seen light in ages, and her lips, dry and cracked like winter branches with no trace of blood, were hollow as a deep abyss with eyes devoid of any light. The clothing that wrapped her body was torn like rags in various places, as if it had endured the storms of countless years, and her feet were bare and skeletal. A cold, grotesque energy unique to a corpse permeated the space, freezing the air. A chilling terror, making it difficult to even breathe, stabbed at Yushia's lungs.

But... what was most shocking and surreal, even more than this horrifying appearance, was her form. Despite being clearly dead, a corpse that should have been cold and rigidly stiff... unbelievably, the old woman's body was swollen with a full-term pregnancy. The belly was abnormally large and seemed vibrantly alive, attached to her gaunt body.

Death and life, decay and vitality, a grotesque and horrifying clash of reality and unreality. The scene before her was a contradiction in itself, unexplainable by any human logic or scientific knowledge.

A dead old woman, with a full-term pregnancy, stood upright, her unmoving gaze fixed on Yushia. There was no emotion, no will to be read in those vacant eyes, but her very presence was like a scene from a horror movie. It was as if a messenger from the underworld had lost her way and wandered across the boundary into the world of the living.

'Who is she? Why is this old woman here? How...?'

And so, before the hospital's opening, Yushia found herself face to face with a strange entity in the hospital hallway.

Hmm, what should I do...? What should I do?

Yushia was somewhat bewildered. She had never encountered such a sight before.

Just then. In front of Yushia, with a dull thud, the old woman's body collapsed forward. Like an old scarecrow whose strings had been cut, the corpse, completely devoid of life force, fell straight onto the hard floor and lay motionless.

Gasp...

Yushia stood frozen, staring at the fallen old woman. Her eyes were closed, and her gaunt body was clearly a cold corpse, having completely lost all life force. Faced with this incomprehensible scene, Yushia wondered if she was dreaming, even pinching her arm to check.

But... unbelievably...

The pregnant belly of the fallen old woman, a clearly dead corpse... was twitching.

Upon the dead body, as if a being from another dimension, only that belly moved strangely, vividly. The belly twitched with gentle undulations...

"Haa... what... is this...!"

Yushia slowly exhaled. The scene before her was inexplicable by any scientific knowledge or medical common sense. A dead corpse's belly, with 'something' inside, moving as if alive. Was this a nightmare? Had she gone mad? Her sense of reality felt hazy.

However, at that very moment, unlike her confused reason, Yushia's professional instinct as a doctor, etched deep within her body, flashed like lightning. And simultaneously, her ability to sense the 'vitality' of a living creature and instinctively perceive the 'crisis' that life faced cried out powerfully from within.

What is inside... is alive. And... is in extreme crisis. There is no time. Bring it out...

Whatever is inside,

First,

I must get it out.

Urgent Decision and the Birth of a Strange Creature

There was no time for hesitation. The fear was still present, but a stronger instinct, no, a habit honed by her training as a skilled surgeon, propelled Yushia into action. She rushed, as if possessed, towards the hospital area where the surgical instruments were kept.

Quickly donning sterile surgical gloves on both hands, she picked up the sharpest surgical scalpel. Her heart was still racing like mad, threatening to burst, but her hands were surprisingly calm and precise. It was as if they had been trained for this very moment for a long time. Like a precision machine, she found the necessary tools without hesitation.

Kneeling beside the fallen old woman's body, Yushia took a trembling breath. Using a scalpel on a cold corpse, moreover a body inhabited by a strange entity, was an unthinkable act, breaking a horrifying taboo. It was something that defied reason. But the movement of the 'something' twitching inside, the intense urge to save whatever it was, arose in her heart. This unknowable life was separate from the old woman's death. This... must be brought out, identified, and only then could the next decision be made.

Despite the abnormal and horrifying situation, the work itself was abnormal.

"I'm sorry... Grandmother... rest in peace here..."

Murmuring softly, Yushia held the cold scalpel and began the incision on the old woman's bizarrely swollen belly. The act felt familiar, yet at the same time, horrifying. The hands of a skilled surgeon were steady. As she precisely and quickly cut through the skin and muscle layers, an unexpected sight was revealed. Instead of the body's red organs or blood vessels, a faint bluish light shone through, and a tough, opaque membrane, completely unlike human tissue, was visible. It had a strange color and texture, like something from a deep-sea creature.

A faint light glowed from the membrane, and there was 'something' inside the membrane. Something was writhing.

Carefully cutting through the strange, faintly bluish membrane, a powerful green light erupted. Along with the light, four small figures slowly emerged.

But unlike newborn creatures, they seemed somewhat composed.

Gasp.

They were... not human. They were completely alien beings, resembling no creature on Earth.

Compared to their small, slender bodies, their heads were large, and their large black eyes, which seemed to fill most of their faces and shone mysteriously even in the darkness, were striking. Their skin was a soft green, like moss, faintly shimmering and moving as if it were liquid. Their size was small and frail, like human three-year-olds. They were like visitors from another dimension, or from a very distant part of the universe.

They seemed to walk out slowly from where they were. And... they all stood upright at a distance from Yushia.

Their large, deep black eyes all turned towards Yushia. There was no human emotion in those eyes, but an inexplicable, primordial power was felt.

Yushia froze. The hand holding the scalpel did not move, and all her muscles tensed. She couldn't possibly comprehend the scene before her. How could this happen...? What are these beings...? What are these entities?

Then, one of the four green beings slowly lifted its face and looked at Yushia. And... it spoke. No, it communicated.

Clearly, the small mouth did not move, and no sound was heard. But the being's will, not a voice but some powerful, direct vibration, resonated directly in Yushia's mind. It was as if a thought (意念) was transmitted as a wave, conveyed not in a strange language but as pure information.

―― Yushia ――

'Gasp... my name... how...?'

Yushia was startled. This strange being, seemingly from another world, knew her name exactly. How do they know my name?

Yushia furrowed her brow slightly. It was Yushia's reaction to the strange situation.

The being's intent, cold and emotionless, yet carrying an undeniable force, continued to echo.

―― We have come from a very distant place. Difficult to explain with your concept of time... We are from the world before the Big Bang.

Gasp... Before the Big Bang???

What? Before the Big Bang? Was the Big Bang real?

Yushia was bewildered and taken aback. The voice echoing in her mind was cold and mechanical, but its content brought cosmic-scale astonishment. Before the Big Bang?

Before the Big Bang???

What in the world does this mean?

We call it Kalmeon's Rebellion, but you call it the Big Bang...

Kalmeon??What is Kalmeon? Kalmeon... what is it? If he caused a rebellion, he must be some kind of living being...

A dinosaur? A monstrous creature? Or a thinking, intelligent being? What in the world is it?

Yushia was confused.

Kalmeon was a tremendous being on our star. He was the greatest genius in the history of the universe, surpassing even the abilities of gods.

Gasp... Genius?? Surpassing gods??? What kind of ridiculous nonsense is this?

An intelligent being surpassing the abilities of gods? Is that even possible? Can that happen?

The four green beings came into view again. They were still small and frail, yet their eyes were so clear they seemed transparent, appearing pure and clear like a deep, unfathomable lake.

Yushia collected herself. She didn't know who they were, but they didn't seem hostile or dangerous, at least for now.

Yushia said, "Uh, wait... just a moment... let me collect myself..."

Phew~~ Yushia let out a deep sigh and regulated her breathing.

And then she looked around, wondering if this was really her hospital, if she hadn't somehow come to another world.

Gasp.

The old woman who had collapsed was nowhere to be seen.

Where did she go? She was here just a moment ago?

As Yushia looked around, the vibration from the green beings echoed in her mind.

That old woman was Leisa's mother. She came to transport us here. Now that her task is done, she has returned to our distant star...

Leisa??Who is Leisa? If she's that old woman's descendant, she must be an intelligent being...

Who is Kalmeon, and what is Leisa?