I, Cassandra

59 | CASSANDRA VALLIS

It's cold. So it must be night. I've learned the drop in temperature is the only way I can tell the difference between night and what should be day. The jumpsuit I slept in for the last thousand years might have served its purpose while I was locked in deep freeze, but out here, under an endless dark sky, without the warmth of the sun, I feel the cold, and I'm tired of enduring the raw ache in my fingers and toes for hours at a time.

Hunger is my constant companion, not just for food, but I miss Ryan—or whatever he became—so much it hurts. Sometimes I dream of him, of his body next to mine, back when we were in Alpha VII, as he held me in our bed with its clean, smooth sheets, and Miro curled up at our feet. Of course, I fucking cry when I wake up. Messy, ugly crying, but it doesn't matter because there's no one to see. I wish there was someone to see.

I'd even be grateful to have the ugly brute Ryan was with missing teeth and a Slavic accent. That's how shit this is. It's worse than shit. It's worse than Zee. It's worse than The Jackpot and being raped by GC soldiers at the bar. It's worse than anything I can imagine. I hate it. And I know it's going to take a long and painful amount of time for me to die of hunger since I discovered I can keep down the fat grey grubs that burrow in the roots of the vines—unlike the other things I have tried to eat. Leaves, roots, berries: things that made me puke for hours.

I start to cry again as I pick my way through the vines and streams, as I head nowhere in the hope of finding somewhere. Somehow the crying makes me feel less shit, even if it's pointless. Ryan said he would be here but he wasn't—which means something must have happened to him. He would never have left me alone in this. He got me out of London right under Zee's nose. He could handle this. But he's not here. Which means I am alone. And I don't want any of this. I wish I were dead. With Ryan, wherever he is. And Miro.

I miss her so much it hurts. I feel guilty for feeding her all my sleeping pills but that's stupid because Miro would hate this place with its tangled vines and marshes and nothing for her to eat except worms. It's better that she fell asleep and never woke up. I fucking wish I had—that Ryan hadn't played the hero and ruined my plan to let it all end, and take us with it. But he did. Now I'm here and I don't know what the fuck to do.

In the hugeness of this strange, empty world it feels like I am the only person on the entire planet still alive. I haven't seen any other pods, or any of the other survivors, as few as there would have been. Worse, I can't piece together how I ended up above ground when Ryan said he had taken me more than two kilometres underground the day it all happened. Maybe he brought my pod up to the surface for some reason, but there is nothing, literally nothing remaining of Alpha VII that I have found. And now I am left to put the pieces together except I don't know what the puzzle is or what the pieces are. It's just this.

There are times, usually in the coldest part of the night, when I wonder if I am dead, or in a kind of cryo-coma, and this is my own personal hell. If it is, the god that made this place has done a good job. Nothing like waking up alone in a weird, dark jungle, and eating grubs to stave off the pain of hunger for eternity. Maybe this is my punishment for all the people I killed for Global Command—No. I have to stop thinking about it. It can't be hell. It's not hell. There will be an explanation. I know I can still bleed because I have cut myself enough on the barbs of the vines. Or, maybe we can bleed in hell. I crush the thought before it takes root and torments me for the next hours. It's not hell. I'm not dead. I just need to keep moving and find the city. It's all I can think to do, even if it feels hopeless. Once I find the city, or what's left of it, there will at least be something to remind me of what was—proof I didn't imagine it all as my thoughts have begun to whisper, a relentless siren song.

I have no idea how much time has passed since I pushed my way out of my pod, saw this, and puked. It's been total shit ever since. That's how much time has passed: one, long, miserable, dark night either damp and warm, or raw with the bite of cold and not another living thing in sight except thick swarms of minuscule insects, grey worms, and strange flocks of shy, bat-like birds the colour of night.

In the distance: a distortion in the mundane predictability of the horizon. There are the usual clusters of the spiked tufts of spindly trees against the starlight, but something else is there beyond them, something other. Something big and enduring that mocks the effort of the strange things that grow here.

Hope slams into me so hard tears blur my vision. It's Alpha VII. I am sure of it. Or at least what's left of it. For all I know I have been walking in circles around it for days. Everything looks the same in this dark, overgrown world, but it doesn't matter now. I have found it. Home, at last. I run straight for it, as fast as the vines, bogs, and fucking insects will let me.