by SJ Davis
“I love you, Hope. I will always love you.”
“Grayson, what are you doing? Please stop, I can’t be without you. I can’t.”
“You will never be without me, Hope, I will always be inside of you,” he said as he started up the fighter.
I cried out as he took his hand from the glass and the vibration from the fighter started to make me lose my footing. I almost fell, but caught myself as he looked down at me.
“Let me end this my way.”
I shook my head no, as he lifted up. I fell onto my back, reaching up towards him and knowing he was going home and taking death with him.
***
It took all of six months for the black ships to fall from the sky. Grayson had returned home and done as he had predicted. He ended the war. A war that his father had begun, and one that he’d felt he had to end. I spent my time alone. I had watched some descend from the sky and crash, even tried my best to get a few running after, but nothing would salvage them. It was almost as if, once the larger ships were gone, the smaller ones could not survive.
I stayed in the caverns, buried underground during the day and gathering food at night. I did that for three years. No ships came, no more war, and no more fighters overhead. The water supply was clean and clear. Grayson had shown me how to live without meat, and I knew that I would never have a taste for it again. Then, in the spring, I emerged, renewed and ready to return home. I was not sure if I would be welcomed, but I knew that I had to.
Grayson had been right. What he had done, had to be done, and it had secured our future on the planet. I also knew that he would be with me forever as I stepped up to the cliff’s edge and stared out at the countryside. I could see the base that I had once called home, only now it had windmills stationed on it. It had been converted into a city, one that I could hopefully rejoin.
I looked down and tightened my grip on the hand of my son, son of Grayson, and the only surviving male on our planet. He would be the true gift of life to the world, the one Grayson and I had made together. His small hand started to glow in mine, and his red eyes shined in the sunlight. He looked so much like Grayson, and it made me smile.
I knew I had to give him to the future, if there was to be one at all. So, I picked him up, and I kissed him on the cheek.
“Come on Gray, I have some people I want you to meet.”
He grinned and hugged my neck, and I closed my eyes and pictured Grayson smiling back at me. Me, Hope, and now my name truly belonged to me.
