I, Cassandra

50 | RYAN MADDOX

Today I feel more gratitude than I have ever felt in my existence. According to my inner timer, almost five years have passed under a sullen, dense dome of slab-coloured grey, that possesses all the comfort of concrete. I learned to stop looking up. Although, six months of total darkness in winter helped. I couldn't see it, at least, could imagine it wasn't there.

Every spring I would wait for the light to return, raw with hope there would be a break in the oppressive weight pressing down on me. And every year, the same depressing, claustrophobic barrier overhead, the light murky and thin even in high summer when the unseen sun didn't set, ever. I existed in a bleak world of pale grey, all the time.

And it never rained. Ever. Neither did it snow. But it got cold. Fast. Within two weeks it hit minus seventy Celsius. Over the second winter, it went to minus ninety-four. I took myself to the deepest part of the city out of reach of the blistering winds and hibernated for four months. It was still fucking freezing when I woke back up, but at least the winds had died down and the temperature was a tolerable minus forty-two. The summers weren't much better, a balmy minus thirty-one on the good days. And through all this: no sign of Blue's pod. Or any other pods for that matter. But I've got time. I know she's here and I'll find her before it's too late. I just have to be patient, systematic, and disciplined. This at least, I have in spades.

Tonight is the first night I'll see the stars again in almost half a decade, and I can't help myself, I'm like a kid at Christmas. I even told the water bears about it, but they didn't say anything back. But I am sure they are happy, too. That fucking sky was misery. Like the longest, shittiest hangover ever. I thought it would never end.

I lay down in the centre of the area I've cleared over the last five years and wait. It's late September, and surprisingly warm for nineteen hundred hours: minus twenty-one Celsius. It came at last, in the middle of August as I hauled twisted struts free of the rift and dragged them away. In less than two weeks, the dense barrier of soot, dust, and god knows what else thinned and then, just like that, the blinding glare and heat of a twenty-four-hour sun slammed into me.

I won't lie. I cried. It felt like I'd been released from prison. I need to see the sky, the clouds, and the goddamned stars, to see the hope of life continuing to go on, even when there is almost none left here. I've never been more fucking lonely in my life. So, the stars. They are going to help. And tonight I will see them again. Sirius, Orion's Belt, the Pole Star. Old friends. Something from before. Something familiar.

Darkness sweeps over the horizon, a glorious stately tide that marks the line between day and night and fills me with joy. And then, they are there. One after another, bursting to life across the black, empty canopy until the entire band of the Milky Way arches over me. It's beautiful. I gaze at the river of stars, billions of them, and drink in the sight of other worlds spinning through the galaxy, each on their own lonely course—and hope they are doing better than me.

Sated for the moment, I scan the heavens for my favourite constellations and planets. Before Blue happened, I would spend my free time at Omega V's planetarium. After a few visits, I had the locations and transits of most of the major constellations memorised. Orion's Belt was always the easiest to find, so I settle back and eye the sky. It's not there. Nor is it anywhere along its usual transit. A prickling tingles inside my scalp before the now-familiar flick of binary code overlays my view. I don't want to read it, but it's there, staring me down, eating straight into my awareness.

Recalculating.

It's already cold but that word makes me colder. No. It can't be. I never even considered it. But then, how could I know? I have no idea how long I was dark after I came to the surface. Although, considering the whole world had burned, there was a distinct lack of residual heat.

And then, it hits me. I burned, and survived.

It doesn't take long for the sky's map to be measured against the stars of 2087, and deliver the answer I never asked for but am getting anyway.

The year drops before my eyes in that shitty code. It's worse than anything I could have imagined. I stare at a heaven computers could only simulate in 2087, but for me, right now, it's real and a nightmare. Above, a sky five thousand four hundred eighty-seven years after I put Blue in her pod glares at me. 7584. Seventy-five fucking eighty-four. Denial storms through me, deluges me in horror.

I sit up, clawed by terror. Blue was supposed to sleep for one thousand years, not five fucking thousand. Five years. I thought only five years had passed since I came to—that I had time to find her.

Misery, panic, guilt, fear, and rage course through me in sickening waves. It's almost unbearable. I can't think. It's too much. I fucking failed. She's gone. I wasn't there. Futility bears down on me. Claustrophobia tears into me. I stand and break into an agitated pace. I don't know what to do. For the first time in my existence, I am lost, completely unmoored. The fruits of my efforts over the last five years surround me rank with utter pointlessness. Up until this point, I was proud of my progress, now all I can feel is shame, regret and fury. She was already gone for more than four thousand years before I woke up. I punch a hole into the remains of a wall. She's dust by now. Blue. Oh god. Blue. It's unbearable. The thought of her dying alone, after all I had done to save her.

'Fuck!' My cry echoes through the ruined city. It returns to me, hollow, a mockery of my pain. I am alone. She's gone. Everything is fucked. I can't take it. There's nothing left for me. I delve into myself and activate hibernation mode. I'll come back again at some point, but for now, I want to feel nothing.

For a very long time.