Cosmic Story Rays

Buttons

All the cares of humankind probably shouldn't rest on the thin shoulders of a twelve-year-old girl, but it's a little late for that now. Keyla takes a deep breath. It hurts her lungs, but it's a good pain, the pain of being alive, so she takes another one.

Blue or green?

It's a simple enough choice. Press the blue button-and what? Find paradise in space? Be welcomed with open arms into the galactic community? Or the green button. Save herself. The pain in her side pokes when she takes another deep breath.

"This is fucked up," she says. No one cares what she has to say, but she says it anyway. Perhaps later, when they replay this clip for the billions of people on Earth, someone will hear it.

The buttons glow, pleasantly illuminated without being bright. There is nothing else in the room, only the plain gray walls that accent the shining buttons. Blue or green. Ascension for humankind or a few more meager decades for herself.

"Fucked up," she mutters. Her hand hovers in between the two buttons.

She wishes that the ship had never come, never landed in the barren field by her house. That she had stayed in bed, warm beneath the faded pink comforter, hand-sewn by her Gammy. But there is no point in wishing. She is here, with the buttons, and she must choose.

Her breath catches in her throat now. No more pain. Not now, not ever. Her hand falls onto the button. She wants it to thud, but instead it makes only a polite click. The blue light makes her fingers look ghostly.