After Fate Fell

65 • MAREN ELIZABETH

2 years, 4 months, and 9 days after it all
•MAREN ELIZABETH•

The descent seems to take an eternity. All I want to do is get out of here. Get out of the ship, get out of this paralyzing fear, get out of my mind, get out of this galaxy maybe. I want to be anywhere but here. This isn't how I pictured the homecoming. Yet here I stand. In this ship, paralyzed with fear, my mind racing, about to land on this planet that's supposed to be my home. It's unrecognizable. Dead, barren, somehow worse than the desert on Earth we just left.

Nobody says a word. I have no idea what anybody else is thinking. Is the room as silent as death because we all are wondering if we're speeding toward our imminent deaths? Is everyone just awestruck at the fact that we're finally here? Are they nervous for the landing? Or is it something else? I don't know. But my mind races on.

The ground finally nears close enough I could almost reach out and touch it, if not for the glass between it and me and if not for the feeling that if I do touch it, the already fragile world will crumble apart between my fingers, out of my reach.

The thrusters jolt us once again, and we lower yet even more slowly. But then everything stops moving and I realize we're on the ground.

Lexa and Rex turn around, sweating, fear in their eyes, but relief taking over, taking over us all. Because even as bleak as it all looks, we made it. We made it alive.

The dust set loose from the landing obscures our view of the horizon, but we don't need to see it again to know the planet is dead. I realize the unsettled dust probably hasn't moved since the day the planet and everyone on it died. Since the last time I was here. Before every fucking thing in my world was turned upside-down and torn to shreds.

Everything hangs in the air just like the dust outside our windows. No words emerge from anyone's mouths, the only interactions are the looks on everyone's faces. I can't read any of them. I know mine probably looks more dead than the planet we've just landed on.

When the dust finally settles, someone finally speaks. The words don't register in my mind at first.

"Night is falling," Adam says, having finally emerged from his room.

I look outside and realize that he's right. Somehow. How long has it been since we landed? My concept of time has slipped out of my reach. I feel less in control of myself than when the entity had taken over my body.

The darkness is falling upon us quickly, and nobody seems to know how to handle it. I never pictured emerging from the ship that would ultimately take me home in the dead of night, or even dusk for that matter, but I guess that may be how it will be. Tomorrow will be a completely new day, for more reasons than just one.

"Maybe we should just stay the night in the ship," Lexa suggests, and a collective sigh floats from all our lips, whether it's a sigh of relief or a sigh of disappointment, I don't know. But no one protests her words, even though they weren't orders, she isn't our leader, we take them as such, or maybe we're all just too fearful or nervous or hopeful or exhausted to speak up otherwise.

//

Tonight, the cold metal walls separating us from our home outside just feel different. Maybe it's because there actually is a night, where a real sun actually sets, telling us to drift into our rooms and off to sleep, rather than the hands of a clock dictating our lives and every movement within them. Or maybe it's because I know this is probably my last night sleeping within them, or at least the last time my eyes will close and then open before stepping onto the surface of Lorien.

I keep repositioning myself under the thin sheet that covers my body. I'm sure Sam and Malcolm aren't having the best night's sleep either, but my constant moving probably isn't helping. I close my eyes but I open them almost instantly every time. The only thing I want right now, I crave right now is for my eyelids to feel heavy, to gently close, and for myself to wake on a new day. But that's the last thing that I'm going to get right now.

I quietly throw the sheet off my body annoyedly. I don't exactly know where I'm going, but my feet carry me out of my bed and out into the hallway that houses all our bedrooms. I stand, in the light of the door that is open just a crack, gazing in at the boy I've grown to love. Sam. When I first met him in Paradise, Ohio, all I saw in him was the fact that he was a loser. A nerd. But then something in my heart drew me closer to him, and fate brought us together. In this mess, somehow, I found the love of my life. I smile as his chest rises and falls, his breaths heavy through his nose, his mouth somehow in a wide smile, a wider smile than I could ever manage, even if I was dead lying in a casket and the morticians were stretching my lips apart into a smile for all who came to mourn to see. I am calmed by seeing him so happy, even if it's just in his sleep.

I shut the door and lean against it, an obscure tear trailing down my face. I stand back up and this time I carry myself, control my own motions. I head for the ramp that opens up to the outside of the ship. The ramp I haven't seen open since that day in the mountain base the day we left Earth, the day that I knew there was no turning back. I press the button that opens the ramp to the outside. It takes a few seconds to lower, finally resting on the ground. I step out into the night.