by Patrick Ness
‘Say it, Viola,’ my mother whispers. ‘Please.’
‘I’ll take it,’ I say. ‘I’ll take your hope. I’ve got it, okay? Mum?’
But I don’t know if she hears me-
Because her hand isn’t gripping back any more.
And that’s when something happens, something that makes everything now, something that cuts all the past away, the convoy and everyone on it gone and past, and it’s just me, here, now, so fast, it doesn’t seem real.
My father. The crash. My mother. It’s not real.
It’s like I’m watching it all, including myself, from somewhere else.
I watch myself stand up next to my mother.
I watch myself wait there in the wreckage for a while not knowing what to do.
Until enough time passes that something has to be done, so I watch as I climb to where the wall of the cockpit has come apart and look out into the planet for the first time.
Look out into the darkness. Darkness upon further darkness. Darkness that hides things.
Things I can hear.
Animal noises that almost sound like words.
I watch myself step back into the ship, away from the darkness, my heart beating heavy.
And then I seem to blink and the next thing I see is myself pulling back a broken panel to the engine room.
From even farther away, I see myself finding my father, burnt in a nightmarish way from the chest down, a terrible wound on his forehead that would have killed him anyway.
I watch myself as coldness flows through me, watch as I’m so cold I’m unable to even cry at my father’s body.
I blink again and then I’m seeing myself back next to my mother in the cockpit, my arms pulled tight around my knees, the battery lights in the panels flickering and slowly getting dimmer.
And then there’s a birdcall or something from outside, louder than the rest, a weird one that almost sounds like the word Prey or Pray.
And I’m back behind my eyes.
Because I’ve seen something, tumbled there.
Something my mother must have taken from my room and brought into the cockpit, something to give to me as soon as we landed, which hurts me somewhere in a far, far off place.
There, in the wreckage.
Bradley’s present.
It’s still wrapped, after all these months, after even my birthday. And everything still feels impossible and like a dream, so why shouldn’t I open it? If that’s what my mother and father wanted, why shouldn’t that be the first thing I do on this planet?
I pick it up, sliding off the torn paper and opening it just as the last of the battery power cuts out, leaving me in total darkness.
But it’s okay.
It’s okay because I’ve already seen what it is.
The darkness is so thick I have to feel my way out of the wreckage, still feeling dazed, still feeling dreamy, the blanket of darkness so complete, it’s almost like I’m sleeping. But I’m holding Bradley’s gift.
I step out onto the planet and my foot sinks in about ten centimetres of water.
A swamp.
That’s right. We were aiming for a swamp.
I keep walking, my feet sticking in the mud sometimes, but I keep walking.
Keep walking until the ground gets more solid, a little ways from the ship.
My eyes are adjusting and I can see a little clearing, surrounded by trees, the sky above us filled with all the stars I was just flying through.
I’m hearing more animals, too, but I swear it sounds like they’re actually talking so I figure it must still be the shock.
Mostly there’s just darkness.
There’s just darkness closing me in.
And that’s exactly what Bradley’s gift was for.
There’s a dry enough spot in the middle of the raised clearing, not great, not perfect, but enough. I set down the gift and feel around for some twigs and leaves, getting a few damp handfuls and piling them on top.
I press a button on the gift and step back.
The damp leaves and twigs burst immediately into flame.
And there’s light.
Light across the little clearing, light reflecting on the metal of the ship, light that includes me in it, standing here.
Light from a fire.
Bradley gave me a fire box. One that will start a fire nearly anywhere, in nearly any condition, with nearly any fuel.
Start it to give a light against the darkness.
And for a while it’s all I can do just to stare at it until I feel myself shivering, and I sit down closer to the fire until I stop.
Which takes a long, long time.
The fire for now is all I can see.
Soon, I’ll need to see what supplies I have left to live off of. Soon, I’ll need to see if any of the communications equipment survived so I can try and contact the convoy.
Soon, I’ll need to take the bodies of my father and my mother and-
But that’s soon, that’s not now-
Now there’s only fire from the fire box.
Now there’s only a tiny light against the darkness.
Whatever’s going to happen next can wait.
I don’t really know what my mother was saying, I don’t know that hope is something you can give to someone else, something that you can take.
But I said I would, I said I did.
And so I sit in front of Bradley’s fire, on the surface of a dark, dark planet, and I have their hope, if not any of mine.
Except the hope that it’ll be enough.
And then I see a lightening in the air, in the sky above and behind me. I turn to watch this planet’s sun rising, and I realise it’s morning, that I’ve made it to morning.
That I’ve had enough hope to make it to morning.
Okay, I think to myself.
Okay.
And I begin to think of what I need to do next.
