Once he had been happy. He had had friends. He had had a wife. A beautiful, intelligent, strong and loving wife. That they had been unable to have children had disturbed him little. In the end they had adopted a little girl and been happy. And time had gone on. Their friends had had families of their own. Their daughter grew up and went to college. And the others around him had grown old. Only he himself had remained young. His daughter married and founded a family of her own. They met up from time to time, but slowly she drifted away. As children often did.
And one by one his friends died. The first to go had been Street. A car-accident of all things. The doctors assured her husband and her friends that she hadn't suffered. The next to go had been Joshua Doors. He left a widow and two sons to carry on, but they weren't as close to him. Then his wife went. One day she simply didn't wake up anymore. It rained when they buried René. Finally Augur left him too. The hacker had left no children, only his computer-creations, who mourned his passing.
And slowly the world forgot about Liam Kincaid.
His existence became shadowed. Useless. And loneliness set in. It seemed like no time at all had passed, when he saw his daughter buried. And the world around him changed.
It took a long time for him to come to the conclusion that if he did not wish to be alone, he'd better find somebody to spend eternity with. As this was how long he was going to live.
The problem was that his only chance for company was buried under tons of Lava.
It took him another lifetime to gain the necessary funds and another ten years until his workers finally broke through to the buried chamber.
And there were six capsules, looking as they had two hundred years ago. Somewhere in there Da'an still rested. And hopefully he would not be alone anymore. He was so tired of it. So tired of loneliness. If the price was fighting with a Taelon until the end of eternity, then so be it. At least he'd know that there was somebody like him.
Somebody he could seek out when the loneliness became too much.
The disappointment tasted bitter.
One by one they capsules were opened. And they found nothing but brittle bones and dust. The Taelons were no more. Nor were the beings they had become. There was nothing.
And nothing in the last capsule. No bones, no dust, not even a mental imprint of the being that had been in the capsule.
He knew not who had rested here, only that they had left. Left a long time ago.
And he had not known. Never known.
From that day on he was searching. And even if sometimes he had the feeling that he'd search for eternity, it was something to keep him busy and filled with hope, from time to time. Another's aura brushed his own. As if the owner had just walked by.