The Escape

Milo Wang was like anyone else. He was simply trying to get by, clinging to the fragile thread of survival on this planet we call Earth. The idea of escaping. Leaping onto one of the starships-felt like a hopeless undertaking. Yet Milo was not the kind of man who turned away from his own longing. He held on to hope with the tenacity of someone who had nothing else, and he kept trying, again and again, as if persistence alone might bend the universe in his favour.
Somewhere else, a young woman lay dead. No one knew what had happened. One day, she was simply there, lifeless. The police were barely a presence anymore, just a faint echo of what they once were, so no one bothered to investigate. They cleared her from the street quietly, almost indifferently. They took her belongings and lowered her body into an unmarked grave, the earth swallowing her without ceremony.
Milo did not know it yet, but her death would become his passage, the key to leave Earth behind. It would also mark the beginning of his end.