Husk

Chapter 12 - Death / Rebirth

Chapter 12

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 "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

- Julius Robert Oppenheimer quoting the Bhagavad Gita.

I swore I would never kill again but here I was the blood of a million innocent lives on my hands. I couldn't believe it. Did Cross know my plan? Did Archer? Would they have been willing to die for this? I was too torn up to even cry. I was a monster. I did not deserve to call myself human.

Twelve hours of silence past while we were inside the interceptor. I had no idea where we were going. I couldn't believe it was all over. I had spent hundreds of years planning the destruction of my own civilization. I was ready to die. I could see it in Azra's eyes too. We could just turn the autopilot off and fall to our deaths. Together we would destroy the last of a culture based on lies. Then we saw the ocean. I had never imagined the ocean could be so beautiful. This was my gift to Azra. To any family or life I would ever have.

There it was. The coordinates took us to one of the last colonies of man. Right there on the coast. There couldn't have been more than a thousand of them: hunters, fishermen, and gatherers. Their villages were small but they welcomed us with opens arms; a world without implants, without violence, without war and oppression. An old man there recognized me. He said I hadn't aged a day. He told me I saved them once. I wish I could have told him that was really me. How many times had I been to this place, watched over it and kept it secret from the order. This was my master plan years manipulating myself and planting seeds that would destroy my world and allow this one to flourish. It would be human world.

Epilogue

They gave us a place to live far away from their city so we could keep to ourselves. After all we were still different. We watched the humans expand. They were smart, smarter then us and for that I was afraid. I feared a shadow would begin to form. Maybe they wouldn't make the same mistakes. I lived in fear for what I had done. Night after night I could see the faces of everyone I had ever met. I knew that the order, the first ones were smarter then to all be awake at once. I knew somewhere underground in the ruins of that city they just lay somewhere in storage silently waiting. I knew that one day they would wake up and they would want answers. That didn't matter I had a new life now. I had a family and the old world now was nothing more than a story. It was just a small tale of a group of people that lived their lives over and over again with no morals and no remorse for others. A tale of two stars that would rise and find each other only to be put out and rise again and again; it was a story about fallen gods. All of that was then. This was a time for life.

The years pass and we grew old. Azra and I stare quietly into each others eyes.

I give her the palm of my hand. We smile. "Not too rough and not too soft.." She says as I begin to drift asleep. I feel like I am a feather in the wind. Falling.

 That was only a few moments before I woke up.

THE END. 

Author's Note: Thank you for reading this short experimental novella. Husk was the first thing I had ever written in a book format. I wrote this entire thing over the course of a three day weekend in 2012. I originally planned to do so much more with it but never got around rather instead I began outlining and writing Deep Darkness (of which I am writing the sequel to now!). I hope that you have enjoyed Husk, I know the format was very raw and at times it probably seemed confusing. If you still don't understand I suggest you message me with any questions or give it another read now that you have read it to the end. I am planning to make some changes and self-publish this story by the end of the year. Hopefully you will pick it up and share it - it will of course be free. 

Thank you all for the support! Hearing that you have loved my work is what motivates me to continue writing.

If you are interested in seeing a sequel to Husk let me know by voting, sharing, commenting, and messageing me! I have a million ideas for how it can go especially after Seth wakes up. 

- Stephen Landry