The train slowly started moving along the tracks, with countless raindrops falling from the sky, striking the windows and splashing into droplets, turning into streams of water that blurred the view. The cold wind blew through the curtains, bringing the damp moisture from outside.
On the gray land, vehicles moved like tiny ants across the vast world. People, wearing raincoats and holding umbrellas, continuously loaded old items onto cargo trucks, while some stood in the rain, gazing blankly at the ruined city in the rain curtain, saying their final goodbyes.
The train continued forward, gaining speed, and everything in the view slowly became more distant and blurred, until it could no longer be seen.
Leaning against the window, Hestia quickly wrote black characters on the yellowed paper. These words described an ancient legend, a story of those ancient exiles who, after losing their homes, crossed the pitch-black and desolate universe and arrived at a new world. They came to seek refuge, eventually finding a place to settle on this remote land.
A small tower was built on a lonely hill, with no human settlements around, only desolate grasslands and plains. Occasionally, windfish would ride the northern cold currents and fly south, crossing the sky.
The silver windfish would reflect shimmering scales on clear days, and when meeting water vapor currents, droplets would condense on their surfaces, forming continuous rain curtains.
Windfish were extraordinary creatures fond of rain. During seasons like this, they played and swam in the rain, traveling through the sky like the underwater world.
Gradually, more people settled here, and the small tower transformed into tall buildings, expanding outward. Some of these buildings even soared into the clouds. Whenever it rained, people could sit by their windows and watch the silver-scaled windfish float by.
In mid-July, as the summer heat gradually faded, the city’s most lively festival arrived. Children, holding hands with adults, walked between palaces and towers, watching the street performances: generals dressed in colorful armor, dancers waving long sleeves, and poets playing the pipa to tell stories.
At night, the tall palaces and towers illuminated with layers of colorful lights, reflecting off the pitch-black sky. Spaceships flew between the ancient and advanced towers like thousands of flying birds, creating a bustling scene.
Though it was an era of technological advancement, people still cherished the traditions passed down through the generations, which continued from one to the next.
However, the tide of the times gradually reached even this remote corner of the star system.
The prolonged civil war began, the demand for military industry grew, and countless immigrants from across the Federation moved here. Giant corporations sent numerous technicians to this remote planet to help build underground cities. Mines were being dug, and the rumbling of massive machinery echoed day and night.
These industrial giants were like the steel backbone of the Federation. With their support, spaceships that could intimidate the galaxy launched, heading into the vast universe. Their blue tails, like rising stars, obscured the sky, no matter how many suns were above.
The pitch-black raindrops fell from the sky, birds drowned in the muddy water, and the windfish no longer visited the city. The tall buildings stood solitary in the rain curtain, and the streets were no longer filled with people.
Decades of brutal civil war finally ended, and reform was carried out across the Federation with unstoppable momentum. Many high-ranking officials were sent to the execution grounds, and once mighty corporations fell. After cleaning up these internal sores, the Federation slowly ushered in a new birth.
Gradually, the industrial giants on this planet began to slow down. The once-thriving industrial groups withdrew, and some buildings that couldn’t be moved or were left behind were exposed to the rain, slowly turning into ruins, a sad sight, yet inevitable.
In the ebb and flow of time, a city, a planet, even a country or a civilization, seemed so insignificant, leaving one feeling lost and helpless.
Everything from the past was gone. Grievances, confusion, doubts, pessimism—various emotions surfaced between the lines of the story. The remaining inhabitants clung to the increasingly cold high rises, watching as the abandoned ruins slowly spread, until the roof tiles collapsed, revealing the rotting beams beneath.
Far from the azure sky, they fell into the pitch-black underground ruins, where unwilling residents wandered between these ancient, stagnant towers. Their daily struggles began from there.
The corners of the yellowed paper were wet from the rain outside the window, and some of the writing became blurry, affecting the reading but adding a sense of sadness and the wear of time to the story.
As she wrote, the girl’s pace slowed down, and the pauses between words grew longer. She pondered how to end such a story.
Was it merely a sad tale of history? Was it just a nostalgic, heartbreaking legend of the past? Could there be a beautiful ending? Could it give people hope?
“In the end, they stood in the drenching rain, letting the cold water flow over their bodies, riding the bumpy, swaying vehicle, slowly leaving this place.”
“There was no tragic farewell, no release of relief—only this plain forgetting.”
“Not everything is worth remembering, nor does everything need to be beautified in memory. Forgetting may be the best comfort, and they would build a small tower on a new hill.”
“That tower would slowly grow taller, and their children would happily play inside, forgetting the painful past, not burdening them with heavy memories, letting them grow up joyfully and freely, no longer troubled by past worries.”
“May we all break free from the shadows of the past and start anew.” Her writing slowed to a stop. Hestia put down the pen, sat by the window, and gazed out at the world in the rain curtain. She could no longer see the distant small black dot of the city.
She closed the yellowed notebook, stared at the blank first page for a long time, and then wrote a line.
“Birds drowned in the black rain—The layers of towers from memories.”
This was her seven-colored picture book, a black past memory of her life.
Though her mother, sister, and father had once been part of her life, they all eventually turned into pitch-black sediment, buried deep in her memories. She would remember many words and scenes but would also forget the sadness and grief, no longer dwelling in the black rain.
From now on, she would no longer obsess over searching for past events and memories. Let these be deeply sealed in the distant past. Perhaps many years later, she would reopen this book, looking at the blurred and damp words.
Life is still long, and new pages will slowly turn.