I Remember You

2056

Nick shut the journal resting in his hands. A smile painted his lips, even though hot tears streamed down his face, as if a fountain of eternal sorrow hid behind his eyes.

Her diaries. She left them to him. Like her house, her money, her furniture, everything. After she was gone, he remained there in a desperate attempt to keep her close. Roaming like a shadow inside the barren rooms. Empty of her presence. Indulging like a madman in conspiracy theories about the aliens and the departed. Fantasizing ways to find her, reach her, trespass, somehow, the vastness of the universe.

His parents begged him to move with them to the countryside. He refused. His friends tried to fix him up with other women. He mocked them. Only Liam understood. He stayed with him, enduring his mood and his weirdness with nothing but compassion. If it wasn't for him, he would have shot himself.

He glanced around. Everything was there. The only thing she took with her was the only thing that mattered.

Her love.

The journals had been in his possession for five years. He had read them all, except for the last one. He couldn't bring himself to do it. He didn't dare. But now, as the time for the operation approached fast and everything else was ready, it was the one thing left to do. The only piece of the puzzle missing. The way to understand, or rather to confirm, why she left. His final debt before he died and, hopefully, meet her again.

He decided to read them all from the start. He spent the last week doing so. She was writing quite a lot, that's for sure. And with every sentence, with every word, he could hear her sweet voice caressing his ears. The child Iris voice. The teenager Iris voice. The woman Iris voice.

She loved him so much. And she would never know what she meant to him. He was too proud to admit the little things. The details that mattered. How he had noticed her from the first days he set foot in their school. How he craved her for years, but thought himself unworthy of her and kept his distance. How he eventually gave in to his desire, incapable of holding back anymore. How he ran off that first morning, nervous and intoxicated by the kiss.

She would never know how he followed her that last morning, watching her enter the alien tower of doom. Banging the doors and attacking the guards until they almost beat the life out of him. How Liam found him hours later, bleeding, swollen, wasted on the soils of Hampstead Heath, wishing for death.

She would never, never know, how deeply he loved her.

The realization nuked his heart into a never-ending winter. It made the guilt a thousand times heavier. It made the regret a thousand times more unbearable.

It made the letter and the truth it exposed, a million times more horrible.

He shut his eyes. Every time he thought of the letter, a sharp pain tore through his chest like a dagger stabbing his heart.

At first, he hesitated to read it. Whatever was in there, revealed Iris's true fate. And from the minister's insinuations, it was better if he remained ignorant.

As it turned out, it would have been better if he had blown his brains out and never read the abomination at all. Never know the hellish truth it uncovered.

After that, it was a one-way street. He contacted his most devoted companions from LEL, especially those whose loved ones left with the aliens. He arranged a meeting.

And what a rare sight that meeting was! Twenty grown men and women, activists, survivors of God's hundred plagues, former fugitives, and proclaimed terrorists, crying like babies. Gasps of pure terror, sobs of excruciating pain escaping their lips. He didn't have to ask them twice to follow him down the path to vengeance.

He recalled the moment his gaze crossed with Liam's. The guilt had never left him as well. It lingered like a permanent cloud above his head. He smiled at him. They would finally find peace.

Nick sighed. It was time to go. It was time for the final preparations, for the final gathering before they stormed the G14's summit.

He opened a drawer and took out his favorite pistol. The rest of his comrades would use the latest pride of the Russian weapons industry, the Kalashnikov automatic rifle AK-54.

Her last journal still nested in his hands. He brought it to his lips and kissed it. This was his Holy Bible. And she was his religion.

He drew it close to his heart. Remember me, Nick... It was all she asked of him. But not a day had passed that he didn't see her face, as if she never left this place. Not a night had unfolded without her breath caressing his skin, as if she still lay beside him on the bed. He could hear her footsteps tapping on the wooden floors. Smell her scent on the clothes, the chairs, the sofa. Taste her lips on his mouth.

Laughter echoed around the house. "I love you, Nick," her voice chirped.

He saw her ghost approaching. Blue eyes, sorrowful and loving, gazed at him.

Don't be sad Iris. Please, don't be sad. I'm coming.

The vision faded, leaving only a whisper behind. "Do you remember me?"

Nick exhaled and closed his eyes. Black claws clenched on his soul, squeezing till it smashed to a million pieces. And each part, every single one of the shattered million little fragments, cried the same thing, over and over again.

I remember you, my love. I remember you.

It feels so weird posting this with everything that's going on in the world right now... 😔