Kraken Orbital

by James J. Stubbs

  Chapter 23

  To The Bitter End

  I did it. I saved her. I can die in peace now and always be safe in the eternal knowledge that my life meant something. In that I gave it for someone else. But I wasn’t dead. Not just yet.

  I’m awoken from my deathly slumber by Lucy’s boots pounding along the floor beside me. She wastes no time in slumping to the floor and holding what must have seemed to her to be my limp and lifeless body in her arms. She lifts my torso clean off the floor and holds me tight as she cries bitter and desperate tears over my shoulder.

  ‘I did it.’ I whisper when I finally find the strength to say anything at all. ‘I ended it.’ I mumble behind a blood clot lodged in my throat. ‘I saved you.’ It just makes her cry harder. It makes her worse and I don’t know why. She is wailing beyond consoling so I just shut my eyes again and enjoy the rest against her shoulder.

  ‘I was supposed to save you.’ She wails once but finally stops crying. She slides my body back to the floor and lays down beside me. It’s cold. Cold like the world I had fought through. Maybe I would get to see Kolt again when this was over. When I finally die.

  ‘I should have told you.’ She whispers sweetly in my ear and takes hold of my hand. I have nothing but time to listen to her. There’s nothing more I can do. I’m okay to die. I’m almost, just almost, looking forward to it. What a way to go? I got to be a hero. But it’s meaningless. In the end.

  ‘I should have told you about my nightmare.’ She takes hold of my hand and clasps it firmly. ‘When I said imagine swapping the memory of a day with the memory of a nightmare?’ My tired and battered heart flutters one last time. Beating out it’s last beats as a drum solo to the horror I knew she was about to tell me.

  But I knew it. Another truth I had hidden away from my own mind. One she just had to confirm. That she was just like Kolt. That she was dead and had been for some time. Since before I met her in that desolate snowfield. I nod my head but shed my last tear with the motion.

  ‘I knew as soon as that flying dinosaur dragged at me, what was real and what was not.’ I can’t speak. For the pain, for the encroaching death and for the deep aching sadness inside of me. I’d give anything to change it. I’d give anything to see her climb into one of those ships and fly away. I’d kill again, I’d die again, to see her safe. But I should have known. I did know. I just didn’t want to.

  ‘When I broke off from my landing party, I was attacked,’ she sobs into her final thought. ‘…and eaten.’ She cries softly into my hair.

  ‘I… I tried so hard to save you.’ I complain to her softly. And I’d do it again. Dead or alive.

  ‘But now I’m just a ghost. Just like your friend. Forced to stay here and relive my death again and again, just like everyone else who dies here.’ I cry with her. Stroked her copper red hair and comforted her the best I could.

  This is better. Death is better. In life I was alone, scared and trodden on by everyone. In death, in the here and now, I’m a hero. I got the girl. That’s how it’s supposed to be isn’t it? The hero gets the girl right at the end.

  But this is better. Because now I get to be with her forever. And she with me. It doesn’t matter that we died. It doesn’t matter that this cruel world will reanimate us again and again to relive those deaths. Because at least we get to do it together, forever.

  This is better. I get to see Kolt again. As soon as I make it there. I’ll find him. I’m glad I didn’t stay in the mine. I’m glad and I’m happy that I came here. I got to see the lines between life and death blur. I got to see there was a happy ending waiting for me, just on the wrong side of life. And I have no regrets. This is my happy ending.

  I turn to kiss her. To say it’s okay, that I’m not mad. I knew she blamed herself for letting me “save” her and dying myself instead. And that I didn’t have to die as well as her. But I’m okay with it. Like Kolt was. Lost but in no way seeking rescue. But the Lucy I knew was gone. Replaced with a skeletal frame of tooth splintered bones. I smile. Even though it hurts me to see her as she was. Dead like me. Because this is better. I close my eyes. And wait to see them again.

  I don’t even remember hitting the ground. I remember the hyper drive cutting out and I remember the jet engines failing as I tried to land this old crate. But I don’t remember the damn thing hitting the surface of the planet. I suppose that’s what I get for stealing it in the first place. But I just couldn’t work for those jerks for another second.