Prologue: The Ending Is Always A New Beginning.
Prologue: The Ending Is Always A New Beginning.
The rumbling of the Xilum’s engines reverberates through the dirty, shattered glass as my gaunt fingers lie motionless against it. The rocket speeds towards the dark sky, trailing a fiery tail that carries away all that remains of my hope.
With a heavy sigh, I stumble to the tattered, moth-bitten chair and collapse into its worn embrace. This armchair, once belonging to mission control officers who guided soldiers during the Second Solar War, now serves as a relic of a bygone era.
I fumble around on the antique mission deck, flipping switches to send the cruising rocket a final farewell message to the rocket’s passenger. My finger shakes as I press the half-broken buttons.
“Hey, Lylla,” I begin, my voice barely above a whisper. A lump of intense feelings forms in my throat, making it hard to speak. “Rohan and Kaz are both safe, joining you on rockets of their own. Me and the other two stayed behind. I’m sorry for our betrayal... my betrayal. I broke my promises to you. But… but this was the only way.”
“Remember when Julia, Amari, and I scouted the warehouse? Was it seven or eight days ago? It’s hard to keep track of time now. Anyway, we thought we had cleared it out and removed our masks for a water break. Then, a child fell from the rafters above us, screaming and sobbing as she landed on top of us. We panicked and shot her three times... before... we came to our senses.”
I shift uncomfortably. “It’s heartbreaking to witness a life end so short—not that she had much time to live after catching the infection.”
“I hope you never have to witness a child on the verge of death from CORS. It’s terrifying. As you can guess, with our radiation-damaged immune systems, we had contracted the disease. That’s why I kept my distance from you, always wearing my mask, even as we split from the others. We were cowards, unable to tell you the truth.
“In our desperation, we made a plan. We always knew that out of the six of us, three would need to remain behind. Three Xilum rockets, three seats, six friends. Three of us, already infected and facing death, made the logical choice to remain behind.”
I remember the night we decided. The rotten air was thick with unspoken words as we stood around the broken and lifeless body of the child, realization and despair creeping in.
“Last night, as I made dinner, I snuck some sleeping tablets into your food to knock you out and drag you into the car, then onto the Xilum before preparing…” Another fit of painful and raw coughing brings mucus and blood into my mouth, forcing me to spit. The taste of iron lingers, a constant reminder of my own impending fate, urging me to wrap up quickly.
“I prepped the rocket for launch as quickly as my decaying body allowed. And that’s why you are currently unconscious and strapped into a chair on a rocket, heading into space.
“I don’t regret my actions. I’d do them all over again if it meant giving you a chance. But I regret not keeping my promises to you.”
Tears overwhelm me, burning a path down my cheeks. “I… I want you to know that the time I spent with you has been some of the best of my life, even if it took the world ending for you to notice me.”
A weak chuckle escapes my lips at the shared joke between us. “Don’t worry about me. I have a few sleeping tablets left, enough for one final, painless slumber.
“Oh, and please don’t judge me too harshly and give the rich pricks the middle finger when you see them. Mission control out.”
With that, I try to yank my finger off the button, but it has fallen asleep, unresponsive to my commands. Forcing me to use my other hand.
Swiftly, I swallow the pills I had ready and waiting beside me. Next, I pull out my memory drive from the nape of my neck and slot it into the transfer port.
Leaning into the chair, I watch as my journal, which I’ve maintained for the past two years, slowly uploads.
A bloody laugh escapes me as I read the opening and closing pages of my journal displayed side by side on the cracked screen, a glowing progress bar inching its way across. My whole life reduced to just over one hundred and twenty pages.
My eyelids grow heavy. I stop struggling, letting go of my pain and sinking into a long and never-ending slumber, where I can finally move on to my next story.
After all, in the end, we are all stories. Some are told and retold, etched into the annals of history. Others, like ours, are whispered in the winds, carried away into oblivion. But in every ending, there is a new beginning.
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The apocalypse always comes in three waves.
The first wave was the Earth’s magnetic field going out, flipping direction. It destroyed or disturbed all of humanity’s pride: technology. Satellites lost their orbits, planes fell out of the sky, and power grids collapsed catastrophically. The chaos that followed was instantaneous and merciless.
The second wave came when the sun’s radiation slammed directly into Earth, turning sizeable areas into nuclear wastelands. Those caught outside were burned, and the sky burned with an otherworldly hue. A vast expanse of land became uninhabitable because of radiation permeating everything: soil, water, and air.
The third wave comprises the horrific diseases breaking out in the refugee camps. Without technology to aid us, we were thrown back into a pre-industrial state, vulnerable to even the smallest infections. Dysentery, cholera, and other diseases we once thought vanquished returned with terrifying force. But they were not the worst. That prize goes to CORS.
Cerebral Overload Response Syndrome, or CORS, was a cruel joke of fate. It spread like wildfire through the camps, preying on those whose immune systems were already compromised by radiation. We had all witnessed its devastating effects—how it reduced once-healthy people to husks of their former selves in a matter of days.
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Six friends.
Three live.
Three die.
Once is unlucky; twice is a coincidence; but three times?
Three times is a pattern.
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