At the Bottom of Nothing
By Seán Arena
The infinity of deep space is enough to drive any human to insanity. No matter how routine it may be, sitting at the helm of a freight-class ship on a cross-galaxy mission can be lonely. You and infinite emptiness. It's unforgiving, uncaring, and timeless. This occurred to the co-pilot of the SS Alexandria every time she sat in that stiff, uncomfortable, wonderful seat staring out into the black.
The name tag on her jumpsuit read CLARKE in stitched letters. She kept her hair short and rarely wore makeup. She preferred efficiency. Function over form she’d say. No time for that on deck. Her favorite place in the universe was behind the helm of a ship. Didn’t much matter what type of ship, any kind would do. A freighter, a speeder, a dream-liner - she’d flown them all. She’d even been the pilot of a sludger. The smell was unbearable and she developed an unbearable rash, but she still had her wings.
Deafening sirens screamed across the cockpit and the co-pilot came back to life. Orange lights flashed in her face. A red-level emergency. She hailed the captain. "Sir, you might want to get up here. There is a spatial anomaly in quadrant four approaching at - this can't be right...mark XI?" she said.
When the captain shuffled onto the bridge, he was still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. "That speed isn't even possible, lieutenant."
"Tell that to whatever's out there," she said through the blaring sirens.
The captain dropped into his seat and jammed his sausage fingers into a few buttons. "The dark matter charts look like a Jackson Pollock on a bad day," he said. Panic ran through the captain's veins faster than his heart could pump. "Redline the reverse thrusters. Now!"
"Aye, reverse ion thrusters at full," said the co-pilot.
A giant ripple ran through the ship as the engines struggled against the laws of physics. The anomaly swirled on the Alexandria's scopes. It was not a black hole, but it was not not a black hole. Invisible to human eyes, it moved at unfathomable speed.
"It's getting closer. I do not want to be closer. Engage the emergency core," he said.
"Will dual cores behave?"
"It can't hurt and right now, I'll take what I can get."
"Sir, the scopes are going ballistic. Fighting it is only going to shatter the ion cores. We should do a Huckleberry. Use its own momentum like our personal slingshot and get as far away from here as possible."
A nervous face materialized on the dashboard of the bridge. "Hydroponic Lab 3 to Bridge. The emergency protocols kicked in down here. Anything you want to tell us?" asked Sai, the ship's resident botanist. He was the superstitious type, the kind who always wore handfuls of good luck charms. The alarms were not helping him stay calm.
"You and Caleb prepare the escape pods," said the co-pilot. She couldn't keep a grip on the helm. Her fingertips always sweated when she was nervous.
"Belay that order!" shouted the captain. "As long as I am the captain of this ship, we are not abandoning ship. I can do this." He repeated, "I can do this," to himself over and over. A mantra with no effect on reality.
The anomaly spun ever closer to the freight ship. Two forces on an object, moving in opposite directions, cannot be sustained. The reverse thrust tore the ship in half. The transmission to the Hydroponic Lab was cut.
"Sai? Caleb!" The co-pilot's hands slipped from the helm.
The half second the bridge went dark felt like an eternity. By the time the auxiliary power jerked on, it was already half dead. Black holes are inescapable, but that didn't stop Lt. Clarke from trying. She used the few moments of light to run for the escape pod. The lights on the bridge dimmed as the ship died. The captain scrambled to beam out an emergency transmission.
"Encrypting...encrypting...come on..."
Sound cannot travel through the vacuum of deep space. If it did, the implosion of the Alexandria would have echoed across galaxies.
#
The sky was set ablaze in crimson and violet, suspended in eternal twilight. Whether it was dawn or dusk was indeterminable, but Sierra decided it was as you saw it. This was life at the bottom of the Cronus 7 anomaly, stuck in a narrow lifeboat on an infinite, black sea. No beginning, no end and no escape.
Lieutenant Commander Cassandra “Sierra” Clarke’s list of possessions was short: flight suit, jug of water and pouch of energy pills. Sierra enjoyed the minimalism, though, she could have done with more water.
The irony of being set adrift on a poisonous black sea was not lost on her. Pirates of the 17th century often set prisoners adrift on the ocean in a lifeboat. The goal was to force them to drink the salt water. Sierra could be only so lucky. Were a single drop of the black ocean to touch her skin, it would shred her molecules apart until nothing remained. For inexplicable reasons, it appeared only to affect living matter.
Sierra, accustomed to discipline, was strict with her rationing of the water. She knew time was very far from her side. One of the key rules of survival is to keep a positive mental attitude. Keep your brain stimulated. Idle hands do the devil’s work, but an idle mind will kill you. Sierra's routine was to first calculate - out loud - how long she had been on the lifeboat. It was difficult to determine, what with the lack of a sun, a calculator or a single sheet of paper. There was also the fact she was inside an anomaly that defied every law of physics she learned in flight school. Sierra always made it a point to be clear and audible when thinking out loud. It kept her thoughts neat and orderly.
“Three months, one week, four days, sixteen hours and twenty…one minute. 3, 1, 4, 16, 21. 3141621. Three million, one hundred forty-one thousand, six hundred twenty-one.”
Three months, one week, four days, sixteen hours, and twenty-one minutes. That's how long Sierra was set adrift. She believed she’d know nothing but the inside of a lifeboat for the rest of her days. Inside an anomaly that liked to misbehave, time passed much slower. Seconds felt like an eternity.
After the morning calculations, she'd talk through her own personal manifesto.
"It's not all beautiful sunsets here," Sierra said very matter of fact. "You need to be ready for the next step no matter what. There are rules. Rule number five: ration the water, ration the food."
She downed one energy pill with a gulp of water.
"Rule number four: anything is a weapon if the occasion arises. Rule number three: Sleep. If time doesn't matter, then there's all the time you need. Rule number two: Keep a disciplined mind and a level head."
"And rule number one: don't fall in the water. If it even is water."
Behind her, an island poked out of the black water. The perpetual twilight made the canopy glow like a beacon on the horizon. Sierra went on mumbling variations of the digits and the rules. She inched closer and closer to the island. The waves kissing the beach pulled Sierra out of her trance-like routine. The sight of the sliver of land changed everything. In the space of a breath, a multitude of emotions washed over Sierra. She almost tumbled head first out of the narrow, aluminum lifeboat.
It wasn’t a very big island. In fact, it was no more than a mile long. Flat beach made up most of the island. A vibrant cluster of trees, which had no business growing next to each other, covered one end of the island.
Without oars, Sierra knew it would be a challenge to reach the floating oasis, but not impossible. Shifting her weight from side to side, Sierra forced the boat toward the island’s golden shores. Black water splashed into the boat; Sierra sprang to the other side. She spouted blasphemes and watched as the water evaporated away. She repeated the tedious process until the hull of her boat scraped through the sandy beach. Nylon rope tied to the inside of the boat, Sierra leaped from the bow to the shore and pulled the vessel in. The second the boat was secure she was on her back in the sand.
Sierra never expected to think of the ability to lay down and relax - truly relax – as a privilege. She listened to the calm surf and stretched the anxiety out of her muscles. Her body sank deeper into the sand with each breath. She could feel the island hug her bones.
“That’s enough.”
Sierra pulled herself to her feet. Most would consider the island a paradise, a vacation, a place to escape the world for a while. Sierra could not lie to herself any longer. There was no escape for her - but she was happy to stretch her legs. It’d been so long it took her legs a few minutes to remember how to walk. Sierra explored the entire beach before heading into the greenery. She hoped to forage for, well, anything. Anything was better than nothing.
With every passing second, the forest felt much larger than it appeared from the water. When she came to a particularly thick patch of brush, Sierra could feel something slither over her feet. She looked down as she tried to kick it off, but then something slithered over her hand. As she flailed her limbs, slimy vines wrapped themselves around Sierra’s jumpsuit. Around her arms, around her legs, around her throat.
“It’s all in my mind,” she said out loud. The more she assured herself everything would be okay, less and less of the fiery sky was visible. The world darkened. Her feet no longer touched the ground. Gravity was meaningless. Air was nonexistent.
“Ion. Wasp. Lithium. Cronus,” choked Sierra.
Her foot scraped against the bark of a tree. The world came back to her. With all the strength she could muster, Sierra kicked off the tree with one foot. The vines snapped. She was free, flapping her arms through the air. Sierra hit the dirt, sliding into the trunk of a tree. She pushed herself up and spit the grime from her mouth.
Before Sierra stood an enormous white tree. Its bark was thick and its branches gnarled. Its tallest branches reached far above the rest of the canopy. The tree was at the center of a clearing. Brush, vines and trees surrounded Sierra on all sides. Dried leaves and palms covered the forest floor. She circled the tree, entranced by its beauty. On one side of the tree was a cavernous gash wide enough for her to peak in. She could feel a throbbing breeze against her face as if she was inside the tree's lungs.
The ground underneath Sierra's feet rumbled and shook. She pulled her face away from the tree. She spun her attention to the purple glow of the forest. The ground shook again, only greater than before. Again, but closer. Again. Feeling your organs vibrate inside you is an unsettling feeling. For someone like Sierra, it only triggered her adrenaline – the good kind. She needed to know what was coming, what she was up against. She needed a better view.
Sierra scurried up the white tree and leaped from branch to branch. She perched herself on a broad, flattened branch and waited. Far below her, she watched a furry mass the size of a house push through the trees. A mane of thick, black hair stretched down the creature's back. Its beady gray eyes hid behind the fur dangling over its scarred face. The creature's claws were like shovels it used to dig and forage when it wasn't running on all fours. Its hind legs were veiny tree trunks. One kick from them would turn Sierra's bones to dust. She was no match for this monster. Surprise was her only ally.
“Keep walking. Keep walking,” whispered Sierra. “Go on.”
While the creature dug at the ground near the tree, Sierra looked for anything to defend herself. She spotted a dried branch with sharp offshoots. She slid down to the branch and twisted free an offshoot the diameter of a fishing rod. The sound echoed down the tree and over the creature's ears. It whipped around, knocking down a small tree with its legs. The creature moved closer to the white tree, guarding the tree’s lungs. It leaped up toward the canopy and swiped its giant claws at Sierra.
Sierra wrapped a vine around her leg. The creature was enormous, but flesh is flesh. She pushed off the white tree and swooped down on her foe. The creature heard Sierra coming before she could throw the spear. It pulled its giant claws through the air and cut the vine.
The branch flew from her grasp. Sierra plummeted to the ground and landed in a bed of tall grass. A body - a woman - rolled over Sierra and pinned her. She put her hands over Sierra's mouth and an index finger in front of her own. Sierra noticed the stranger was missing her little finger. A scrap of cloth covered the stranger's face. She wore a tunic, pants and cowl made of more scraps. They lay silent, listening to the creature thump around. After a few moments, the creature moved on in search of safe ground.
The stranger let Sierra up and they poked their heads out of the grass. Tree-covered paths blazed by the creature were on either side of the clearing. Sierra spots her spear in the clearing. She makes a run for it. The stranger doesn't stop her.
"Who are you, where am I and what was that?" Sierra scooped up the dried branch and stood at the ready. Ready for the stranger to make her move. Ready for whatever was next.
"He can no longer perceive light. He can only sense movement," said the stranger. Her voice sounded familiar to Sierra.
"You mean that thing is blind...," said Sierra. A fact she would have liked to know before.
"I said he can only sense movement, not that he was blind."
"Is there a difference?"
"There is more to sight than your eyes." The stranger walked away into a mess of wild ivy. It swiped and grasped at her. With little effort, she jabbed at a node in the center of the vines. The murderous vines went slack and a path lay before the stranger.
"You can stay here, or you can come with me. It’s your choice." She didn't wait for an answer. The stranger disappeared into the forest.
Sierra tightened her grasp on her spear. She took one last look at the destruction left by the creature. It spared only the white tree. A deep breath and she followed her rescuer into the forest.
#
Lieutenant Clarke could feel the artificial gravity weaken. Her feet lost their grip on the metal floor tiles as she floated down the passageway. The blood-red sirens dimmed with each flash. The alarms dropped an octave with each passing second. She wouldn't let the captain take her down with him.
Egos aren't worth dying over, she told herself. Least of all, his.
She shoved herself down the hall backward and she spiraled in the zero gravity. She rocketed through the doors of the escape pod. Her fist smashed into a large green button on the other side. Silver doors slammed shut behind her and the pod jettisoned from the dying freighter. Its thrusters fought against the gravity of the anomaly, but the tin-can never stood a chance.
The pod's engines burned up all its fuel in seconds. It spun over itself into the anomaly. The co-pilot held on with all her strength as darkness engulfed the pod and the debris of the Alexandria.
#
The stranger led Sierra out of the brush into a sandy clearing. At its center, a hut made of palms. Crimson and violet light streaked through the forest canopy. Everything in sight glowed with a warmth Sierra found so calming it unnerved her. A black cliff face crawled out of the forest and clear water dripped down it into a glassy pool behind the hut.
A barrage of questions flooded Sierra’s mind. The stranger pushed open the hut's door, its frame made of branches and sticks. There wasn’t much inside. A bed of palms and leaves lay in the corner. Sierra spotted a series of hand-carved spears and staffs against the wall. The stranger closed the door behind her.
Every possible scenario ran through Sierra's mind. She couldn't help it, her instincts accelerated into overdrive. Every way to take down her opponent and every way to escape unseen flashed through her mind. She thought it best to take a breath.
The hut door swung open and Sierra came face to face with herself. There, on the other side of the fire pit, stood another Sierra. Another Cassandra Clarke. The stranger stepped out of the hut wearing a jumpsuit like Sierra's, sleeves tied around her waist. Underneath it she wore a linen shirt speckled with dirt and sweat and holes. Under her jumpsuit, Sierra wore the same shirt – only much cleaner.
This other Sierra preferred her real name - Cassandra. She had no nicknames like Cassie or Cass or prefixes like Dr. or Mrs. Her hair was sun-bleached and unkempt. Faint freckles peppered her cheeks. Cassandra held a half dozen green-shelled coconuts tied together over her shoulder. In her other hand, a jug of fresh water. She dropped both into the sand next to the fire.
“Here. Eat something," said Cassandra. She pulled a knife out of her jumpsuit and stuck it into the top of a coconut.
Sierra did not budge.
"Well, I guess I’ve been expecting this,” said Cassandra.
“Why would you expect this?” asked Sierra.
“It’s only logical.”
“Logical? How is this logical? How is any of this logical.”
Cassandra’s freckle-covered apple cheeks rose up as she smirked. “It’s not quite like looking in a mirror –”
“–Pretty far from it –”
“– But it’s close enough.”
“– Or not at all,” said Sierra. She didn’t like not having control of her own face staring back at her.
“You’re me, I suppose,” said Cassandra.
“I am not you.”
“Then I’m you.”
“You are not me.” She couldn’t spit out the words fast enough. Only Sierra was Sierra. Not this imposter. A fiery hatred for Cassandra burned close to the surface.
“You can’t have it both ways, Cassandra,”
“My name is not Cassandra.”
“If we’re the same, then –”
“We are not the same!” Silence followed the echo of her voice. She let it linger for only a moment. Sierra didn’t want the imposter to speak first. “Sierra. Everyone calls me Sierra.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Sierra. I’m Cassandra.” She strutted around the fire pit, so as not to get too close to Sierra, and into her hut. A dumbfounded Sierra stood alone outside. The crackling embers in the fire pit collapsed in on themselves.
“That’s it?” said Sierra, smacking the makeshift door to the side.
“What’s 'it'?” asked Cassandra, sticking her head out the door.
“‘Oh, hi clone. Welcome to my island. Bye.’ That’s it? Nothing else you want to say? Or are we going to leave it at that?”
“There’s nothing else to say. You’re you. I’m me – I. I? I’m uncertain if that’s correct, or what qualifies as correct. My grammar is a bit hazy. This place will do that to you.” Cassandra came back to the fire pit. She dropped to her knees and untied the bunch of coconuts. “Makes you hazy, I mean. Not the grammar, though that's a byproduct I suppose. The reasons we’re both here. Dwelling on its strangeness, arguing over identity, they serve no purpose. Always better to move forward than back.”
She plucked the smooth knife out of the coconut and jabbed it back in with force. She carved out the top. With a smile, she handed the green shell to Sierra.
Sierra hadn’t realized exactly how thirsty she was until the coconut water ran over her lips. She gulped it down until those little drops you can never seem to get at were all that remained. Once Cassandra had scooped out the inside of her coconut with the knife, she held out the worn blade for Sierra.
Sierra wasn’t afraid. She hated the imposter, but she posed no threat. Cassandra was harmless enough and she did rescue her from that thing. Besides, Sierra already calculated all the ways to overpower her.
"You're welcome to stay here as long as you like," said Cassandra. "There's fresh water back there - the non-lethal kind. I'm going to wash up."
Cassandra stood and shuffled away to the clear pool. Sierra sat at the fire pit eating coconuts and drinking fresh water until she could take no more. She enjoyed the silence. She enjoyed not starving. She sat in peace until sleep nestled her into the cool sand.
#
Sierra took to the island lifestyle quicker than Cassandra expected. Cassandra taught Sierra what food on the island was safe to eat. Everything on the ground was deadly and for that they spent a lot of time in the trees. The most prominent was coconut. There was some fruit that resembled pears and vegetables like string beans. One tree produced a nut much like a walnut. Often the creature would stumble by underneath them. They were too high for him to notice or reach.
Cassandra showed Sierra how to avoid the wilder plants. Sierra's least favorite were the death vines. They strangled anything and everything in their grasp. A light press with a staff on the center node and they went slack for a few minutes.
The two of them built a makeshift dock for the lifeboat. It was perfect for ferrying food from one side of the island to the other while still avoiding the creature. The island seemed to grow larger each day and the trip took longer and longer. But Sierra had no way to track time. Or it was a lack of tolerance for Cassandra which slowed the time.
Sierra couldn't stand to look at Cassandra for extended periods. That face staring back at her made her blood boil and her skin crawl. Sierra and Cassandra were similar in that they spoke little. To themselves or to each other. The two agreed sharing the same hut was a bad idea and they worked together to build a separate space for Sierra. While Cassandra slept, Sierra would sneak off to build traps for the creature. It became her sole method of decompression.
Sierra would come back to Cassandra sitting on a log by the fire, fighting off the morning drowsiness. Sierra satisfied from hours of trap building, Cassandra rested and relaxed. Cassandra always assumed Sierra went for a morning run each day. This is when they spoke the most. After this routine set in for what felt like years, Sierra needed a change.
"Why are you here?" asked Sierra.
"That's a strange question," said Cassandra.
"Is it? I know why I'm here. How I got here. I just can't figure - "
Cassandra cut her off. "Why are you here, then?"
Sierra stared into the fire. She wasn't ashamed, she knew what and who she was. She didn't want the imposter to know. Know what made her tick. What fueled her every day. That was for herself.
"If we're stuck here, we may as well have an actual conversation. The occasional Thanks up in the trees isn't going to cut it." Cassandra slid off her log and onto the sand, closer to Sierra.
Sierra's face hardened. That was enough conversation for the day. She kicked herself off the log and sought refuge in her dark hut.
#
The escape pod was a spec of light in the darkness. Time slowed and accelerated all at once. Gravity was everything and nothing. Co-Pilot Clarke ricocheted from one side of the tin can to the other. A seat strap waved at her. The co-pilot grabbed it, the action playing in slow-motion in her head. She pulled herself down to the seat with the little concentration she could find.
The pop of a sonic boom crawled over her skin. Gravity was behaving again and the pod was plummeting to the surface of something. To what, the co-pilot did not know. It could all be in her head. It could all be her life flashing before her eyes in the moments before being pulled apart. No one can or has ever survived an encounter with a black hole but, whoever said it was a black hole. The pod crashed into something and it eased back and forth as it settled. Whatever she hit was not solid.
The voice in her head was quiet. And outside - waves.
#
Sierra always stayed sharp. Even before her military training, she wasn't one for lazy Sundays. Every minute, every second was of use and she wasted none of them. The island, though, had a way of confusing time. It was never consistent. Or constant. It changed speeds on a whim. Time felt slow when it was fast, fast when it was slow.
Cassandra knew how to resist the confusion. Keep herself on track. But Sierra was still new to the island, despite feeling like a decade had passed her by. Sierra's morning ritual of counting through the days had faded away. One morning saw to that.
The island had seemed larger than ever before. New sections of forest materialized faster than Sierra and Cassandra could map them. Cassandra embraced the unknown, excited to see life find its way. Sierra disagreed. She wandered the new forest, clearing paths and counting through her ritual.
"Ten years, eight months, two weeks, five days, three hours and forty-five minutes. 10, 8, 2, 5, 3, 45. 10825345. Ten million, eight hundred twenty-five thousand, three hundred forty-five.”
Plants and trees Sierra had never seen before grew in these new sections. Flowers with colors so vibrant, they glowed. Trees with palms broad as a house. Sappy bark that smelled of cocoa. After finding a new path, she started over.
"Ten years, eight months, two weeks, five days, four hours and eleven minutes. 10, 8, 2, 5, 4, 11. 10,825,345. Ten million, eight hundred twenty-five thousand, three hundred forty-five.”
The path wound in large circles past the cocoa trees. Sierra could not find her way back. She didn't panic, but she knew she had lost her way. She stopped counting.
"Great. And now she'll never let me alone about wandering off," said Sierra. She, of course, being the imposter.
Sierra passed the same sappy tree over and over and over until she decided to go full throttle. She picked a direction and ran headlong into the forest, off the path. Crackling leaves, snapping branches. Thorns scraped her face and deadly vines grabbed at Sierra's arms and legs.
Her left thigh caught on a particularly pliable branch. It jettisoned Sierra backward and pinned her against a giant stump. Between breaths, a mess of deadly vines wrapped themselves around her wrists and ankles. Trapped.
Sierra took a good look around. She knew exactly where she was; this was one of her traps. The harder she struggled the more the vines tightened their grip. She didn't hear the crunching of leaves and dirt behind her.
"You're alive," said Cassandra.
Sierra looked at her, upside down. "Cassandra. Help me. Get these things off me."
"Do you have any idea how long you've been gone?" asked Cassandra.
"Yeah, sorry I didn't call. I've been a little..." she motions to the vines. "Don't make me say it. Just get me out of here."
"Sierra, it's been weeks. You've been gone for weeks," asked Cassandra. She used her staff to release the vines’ reflexes. Sierra's green, slimy bonds went slack. She scrambled off the stump and away from the vines. Cassandra did not help her up.
"Weeks? That's not possible, it's been a few hours," said Sierra. "...hasn't it?" She pushed herself onto her knees. That's as far as her strength could take her. Sierra couldn't help but think That's two I owe her.
"You know better than to think we decide what's possible here," laughed Cassandra.
Sierra muttered a very low, unsure Brilliant to herself.
"Why didn't you build in a release for the trap?" asked Cassandra. It was more a statement than a question.
"What?" said Sierra. "How could I -"
"There are three more traps back that way. How many are there?" This was the angriest Sierra had seen Cassandra. She wasn't a hothead like Sierra, instead, she was calm. Steady. It was unsettling.
"I…I don't know," said Sierra.
"What do you mean you don't know? I know you made them, Sierra. How could you not know?"
"I don't know," said Sierra, again. "I lost track."
Cassandra was silent the entire hike home. Sierra was doing the math in her head. Had it been weeks? She was afraid to admit it aloud. At the camp, Cassandra started a fire and stared into the red-orange flames. The cuts on Sierra's face stopped bleeding. She headed into her hut, sliding her arms out of her jumpsuit. Blue and black bruises had formed around her wrists.
"Rest up," said Cassandra. "There's much to do."
"What do you mean?" asked Sierra.
"We're going to find all your death traps," said Cassandra. "And we're not stopping until we destroy every single one of them. Now get some sleep."
#
The forest was in such a constant state of evolution, that Sierra could not remember all the traps she made. Each day Sierra and Cassandra tracked down one trap and took it apart piece by piece. Cassandra did not scold Sierra through the process. Instead, they worked together. Sierra built each one with skill, imagination and focus. Deconstructing them took time, strength, and patience. Years rolled by.
As the island expanded and the forest grew, avoiding the creature became easier. Most days they saw or heard no sign of it. Sierra steered clear of the great white tree to be safe. After deconstructing a trap, they would forage. Cassandra liked it up in the trees. She seemed to have an infinite well of energy and was never too exhausted to get the job done. Sierra was always too drained to climb up into the canopy. She preferred the ground, combing through the bushes for new sweet berries.
Sierra and Cassandra would never be inseparable friends, but they grew closer. They only spoke when they ate; never while working. Every night, after pulling in their foraging haul, they shared stories around the fire. It had been a long time since Sierra counted the days.
Sierra was a meat and potatoes person. Surviving on what they could find in the forest never sounded particularly appealing. Each day brought new finds, some tastier than others. Some less so.
Sierra and Cassandra sat around the fire, carved wood bowls and utensils in their hands. Gray streaks were more visible on both their heads.
"I used to yell at my daughter to eat her greens. Then my husband would yell at me to do the same. And look at me now, a tree-hugging health nut," said Sierra.
"Literally," said Cassandra. Both laughed and shredded green leaves sprayed from their mouths. Cassandra watched the smile fade from Sierra's face. "When was the last time you spoke to her? Your daughter."
Sierra was unsure how to answer. She let the silence linger a moment before answering. She slid down into the sand and placed her bowl next to her.
"We were on the L - my husband Mel, my son Daniel and my daughter Isabelle. We were heading to the park because..." She thought about it. "You know, I can't remember what for. Anyway, we were running behind so I brought my latch hooks for Isabelle's hair. Danny was bouncing between annoying Izzie and harassing Mel about a game on his mobile. Mel was busy reading an article about who knows what. Fan theories about something nerdy. He always had his opinions."
"I was finishing up Izzie's braids when the train stopped, we all looked up. It wasn't one of those we're having signal trouble excuses. The train was full-on dead in its tracks. Lights dark, no loudspeaker, nothing. Completely trapped. Izzie pointed out the window up at the sky and these things ripped through the clouds onto the city."
"Funny thing about the Hrothnars, their ships are completely silent. They're like ghosts...ghosts falling through the air. But we could have heard the ion explosions on the other end of the city. I remember feeling the train tip sideways and Izzie slip through my hands. After that it's dark. They didn't tell me I was the only surviving passenger until I was stable. Or what they considered stable - three months of surgeries and a year of physical therapy. I joined up the second I could walk again."
Sierra didn't notice the tears dripping down her nose until Cassandra wiped them away. They left clean streaks in the dirt on her face. Sierra stood up out of the sand, salt water on her lips and the smell of fire trailing after her. She jumped feet first into the pond behind the huts. Cassandra stayed by the fire and waited for Sierra to call it a day.
A snap echoed across the island, followed by the throaty cry of the creature. Sierra and Cassandra were still. The cries worsened with each passing second.
"What did you do?" whispered Cassandra. She ran through the forest barefoot toward the creature. Sierra pulled herself out of the pond to catch up. She was racking her brain for which trap the creature could have run into. They'd taken down every trap, each one, hadn’t they?
She stopped in her tracks and found the memory. There was one trap. One she never finished at the farthest edge of the island. When Sierra built it, it made no sense, even to her. She abandoned it, leaving it to the forest.
"Oh no..." she muttered. She kicked off her heels and ran with all the strength she had. The creature's cries grew louder the faster she ran. Sierra didn't want to find what she knew she would find.
As she tore through the edge of the forest, Cassandra was waiting at the edge of a cliff. One side was the ocean. On the other side, the creature lay impaled on wooden spikes at the bottom of a pit. The creature could not move nor was it still. Its enormous claws flailed for anything to grab onto. The more it struggled, the deeper the pikes drove into its flesh.
The creature's cries were deafening. Sierra covered her ears and watched as Cassandra bore it. Cassandra caught the creature's gaze and it was calm for a moment. Then a loud, throaty call reverberated up the pit. The creature flailed its entire body and managed to snap the pikes. Thick, syrupy blood oozed from the creature's wounds. It was free of the trap, but could not escape the pit. It tried to climb up the walls, only to slide back down.
Sierra's lost cause had worked. She couldn't help but feel a small amount of pride well up in her. That faded when the creature slammed itself against the walls of the pit. Over and over again until the walls cracked. Black water poured in. As the water rose, the creature began to disappear. Its screams weakened until all that remained was the sound of flowing water.
#
Death hung over the island like a cloud. Most of the smaller plants crumbled into ash, then trees died and toppled. The island changed shape every day. It seemed like it was shrinking. No, Sierra knew it was shrinking.
Sierra's hair turned full grey in a week, the fire behind her eyes extinguished. She wandered the paths she could find and searched for any signs of the creature. She searched for any clues where it came from but there were none. The great white tree was grey and rotting from the inside out.
She visited the dead tree every day. It was the only place she could quiet her mind. The clearing where she once brazenly attacked the creature was now a dust pit. The dirt climbed into Sierra's nose with every step. She tore a sleeve from her jumpsuit and tied it to her face. It wasn't perfect, but it was enough.
Cassandra would not acknowledge Sierra. Their only contact was moments in passing through the camp at the beginning and end of each day. And they were just that, moments. As the island shrunk it was hard to escape each other. Food became scarce. What they once foraged in a day now took a week to gather.
They survived on nuts the size of a tennis ball Sierra called sweetnut. Cassandra rigged up a tripod to hang four nuts at a time over the fire. They took turns. Roast and crack open the shell and it almost tasted like chocolate. Chocolate for breakfast, lunch and dinner sounds good until you have to eat it every day.
Sierra needed something else. Something that wasn't sweetnut and did not require Cassandra. She managed to find a tree full of ripe mangoes. It must have been the last standing fruit tree on the island. By the end of the day, she was carting every single piece of fruit back to camp. Cassandra was already sitting at the fire roasting her finds of the day.
Sierra nestled herself at the edge of the camp away from Cassandra. She wiped clean one of the mangoes on her shirt before biting into it. Sierra immediately spit the whole mouthful into the dirt. A cloud of dust kicked into the air. The mango was rotten.
She grabbed another and took a bite. Rotten. She grabbed another and pulled it apart with her hands. Also rotten. Sierra went through the whole batch and every single piece of fruit was inedible. Her stomach growled the growl of a stomach that hadn't been fed in days.
One of the roasted chocolate tennis balls rolled toward her in the dirt. Cassandra had tossed it over from fire. The sweetnut was still too hot, but Sierra didn't care. She ate it in seconds, burning her mouth and throat with each bite. Sierra looked across the campsite. Cassandra held up another sweetnut and tossed it into the dirt of the fire pit.
Sierra left the rotten fruit behind her and sat at her place by the fire. She scooped the nut out of the dirt. Cassandra tied up more of the sweet nuts over the fire. The silence was unbearable. Sierra wanted to scream or cry. The line between the two was easy to fall over. Deep breath in.
“Ion. Wasp. Lithium. Cronus," she said to herself.
"You've said that before," said Cassandra. It was the first time Cassandra had spoken to Sierra in weeks, months, years.
Sierra cracked open the sweetnut and dug it out with her fingers. Her stomach growled as she swallowed the not-chocolate. She tossed the shells into the fire and grabbed another.
"Once I could walk again, I joined up," started Sierra.
"You're not the only one," said Cassandra. Sierra didn't skip a beat.
"I'd never even left home let alone been in the sky. Grew up and stayed in the same neighborhood my whole life. But I was ready for anything. What was left of us, you know, humans needed flyers so, I became a fighter pilot. They fast-tracked most of us. A lot of on-the-job learning, maybe a little too much."
"Always the best way to learn how to operate a nuclear jet," said Cassandra.
"You asked,” said Sierra.
Cassandra leaned back against the log, her lips pursed.
"At the Battle of Wasp 82b the Hrothnars tore through us like paper. The fleet splintered and there was no coordination. We lost most of the flagships. The few of us remaining fighters tagged up and managed to take down one of their dreadnoughts. And then another five more before the Hrothnars jumped away. We were all running on fumes by the time reinforcements showed up.”
“After that, they made us a squadron. Slapped some medals on our chests and silver bars on my shoulders. They called us the Reapers, but we just wanted our fair share of revenge. We saw some shit. Everyone did. Lost a few people by the end of it, some good and some not so much.”
“That treaty though, the Kepler Accords, that didn't sit right with us. Start trade with the Hrothnars like nothing ever happened? We fought to decimate those bastards, not for peace in our time. Not as long as there's any of us breathing.”
“I managed to get my hands on a lithium scatter missile and slip it into the Hrothnar Customs House. Most of the reapers chickened out. Can't blame them, not everyone has the strength to do what's right. There were four of us: Jem, Willow, Lynd and me. Will always was a klutz. Tripped the heat sensors too soon and blew himself to - well, they couldn't question him.”
“Jem and Lynd took the plea, pointed a finger at their leader. Couple of years in the fridge and probation for them. Me though, I didn't even get a trial. They sent me right to the high council. Walking into that chamber is like something out of a movie. No windows, barely any light. Bunch of old men looking down on me like I'm the criminal. Not saying anything, just staring. Then this toad-looking councilor leans forward and croaks, ‘Cronus.’”
“Next thing I know, I'm floating around here on the lifeboat with a handful of food and water. They thought they could break me, trap me. They thought-"
Sierra finally took a breath and looked up. Cassandra's eyes were wide and filled with pools of tears. The story was over. Sierra leaned forward; her hand outreached to the stranger. Cassandra flinched. Her arm shot up in front of her as a warning.
"Don't," was all Cassandra said. She walked off into the darkness without another word.
#
Waves hugged the outside of the escape pod. Cassandra had not quite adjusted to gravity again when she forced open the top hatch. The fresh air was a relief. Surrounding her was a calm, infinite black ocean. The sky was the pink-purple of sunset.
In front of her, the rear end of the Alexandria floated on the ocean like a raft. Cassandra pushed herself up on the edges of the hatch and her finger dipped into a puddle of the black water. The pain was unlike anything she had felt before. Eyes wide, mouth agape, and unable to make a sound, she watched her little finger shrivel up and dissolve away. And the pain was gone as fast as it arrived. She instinctively clutched her hand to her chest. She knew it would do nothing; it wouldn't make her finger reappear.
Above her, flaming debris raced across the sky toward the ocean. The pod teetered closer and closer to the ship's remains. Cassandra watched as the flaming debris burnt up and disappeared into the purple sky. She was on her own.
#
Sierra awoke with her cheek in the sand and the smell of the rotting forest in her nose. The smell was inescapable. The door to Cassandra's hut was wide open. Aside from a few palms on the ground, it was empty. All was quiet. The waterfall stopped and the pond was still. The only sound Sierra could hear was the forest dying. The cracking of dried branches echoed through the forest. Dead trees toppled and fell to the forest floor. Dust swirled into the air with every shuffle and step.
Sierra knew where Cassandra was, but she wanted to see it for herself. She scooped up her staff and left the camp behind. A trek to the shore used to take hours. It now took minutes. The beach was far shorter than the last time she visited. She could see from one end of the island to the other.
The dock Sierra and Cassandra had built was half-sunken into the water, bits of it eroded by the black water. The lifeboat was gone. Sierra took off her shoes, buried her toes in the cool sand and searched the horizon. The tiny boat and Cassandra were nowhere in sight. Time slowed. Sierra's gray hair reflected the purple of the perpetual twilight sky. It was a subtle difference between sunrise and sunset. But this morning, this moment, was different. On this morning, Sierra swore it was a sunrise.