Listen

"Help me!" "Help!" My cries were inaudible as I felt myself tossing this way and that. Nobody else seemed to notice me, and passed right through me like I didn't exist! Hoping for some sort of rescue from this terrible fate, I managed to steady myself enough to grab the controls. Someone yanked me from the back and pulled me into the capsule, but I was too overcome in shock to realize who it was. 

     "None of us will survive if you don't listen to me. Right here, right now." The mysterious stranger shoved me into the back of the one-person capsule and leaped out. An explosion followed, and everything went black. The only thing I seemed to remember was that I had built the capsule to smell like a new car. I guess it had worked. 

       Waking up, I figured that the capsule was still flying this way and that through the air, until I heard a bump. I braced for impact, hoping that the force field would generate. The impact sent me flying, me all the while cuddled into a ball. So this was how the end would follow. My calculations were right; the end of the world had finally come, but nobody would listen, and nobody would remember me. The mysterious stranger had probably saved my life at the moment, but I had built the capsule, and if it wasn't there, then we both would've died. Anyways, I was dead meat now, so why bother to save a scientist who was known as a cuckoo throughout the lab?

     ********

     Who knew we had been a mere copy of another for years?

     A simple fragment in a massive universe of others.

     I told her I had to save myself, 

     Iliri, you don't understand me, or my life.

      This is not your battle.

      Live your life in peace,

      Protect our home.

      NO!!!

     ***********

    The capsule was open and my hand had been slammed into a metal joystick, smearing blood all over them. I wasn't dead, but I wasn't sure I was alive either. All I saw were the stars, and endless darkness. Where was I? Ash, floating among me, red consumed the dark and I saw a speck of dust. This was what was left of Earth. A tiny voice tried to speak up inside of me. You were right, you were correct, but they didn't listen!! All I heard was that I had let everyone down, and the mysterious stranger had saved me, only to make me go through more. "Listen." My least favorite word. I hated living while everyone else died, it happened so fast, too quick for me to realize this was the day. I pressed my face to the window, hoping to see something besides the blackness of what I hoped was the sky, but i knew in my heart where I was. Space. 

**************

Iliri,

Head in my arms,

back half severed in the confusion of the takeoff.

I am alone on their Earth,

and I lost her too.

Not Iliri,

The other one who I had saved.

Who am I?

And why am I so dead inside?

*************

    Somehow, I could breathe, which meant I was wrong about the Earth being destroyed. Maybe in my younger days I was a bit dramatic. Or, to unleash my dramatic side, this could mean I had finally died as the only person on Earth, or space, or whatever. But, even though it seemed useless to continue anything in this meager amount of hope I had left, it was definitely worth a try. I had to find the mysterious stranger and get her to talk to me. That was the only way to get out of this mess. She had jumped out on me, bailed, and probably died, but I knew I had to find someone, something, that was alive. I walked out the door for the first time in what felt like hours, and began to walk, One step at a time to listen for whatever noise or living being I could find on this journey.

**********

I got up,

Brushed tears from my eyes and continued to walk,

If I had died, I was letting myself down. 

I shouldn't have fallen out of the capsule, I just shouldn't have,

but now what do I have to lose?

Everything.

The girl had my boots and my hair,'

She was a wacko scientist.

oh,how i regret my childhood days. 

I will find her,

But first, give Iliri my condolences.

Yes, that is how it will be.

**********

   She was actually a mile from my capsule. Her hair looked like mine, and we wore the same leather boots. Another human? Impossible. I edged closer. What did I have to lose anyways? Aliens in my head were green with pointy horns sticking out of them, shapeshifters. But then again, I did watch a lot of Marvel. 

       The girl looked at me---and spoke to me---in English! the blast was too strong for anyone to have survived it, except for me, the only one in secure protection! considered my two options of action. 

1. Leap into her arms and hug her.

2.Question if she was the stranger who had saved me and demand for answers.

"Earthling", she spoke soothingly. "save me from the depressing thought's I've been holding onto and listen to me as others have never." How did she know I was a wacko scientist? What did she want from me?

*****

Found her,

We look just the same, just like my research. The space time continuum has never been so vast and confusing, and time ratios are just crazy!

Ha! 

You were wrong boss!

I was right.

Now, I must fix this,

And complete my quest.

*********

The girl spoke to me again. "You are in grave danger, and I am here to warn you."

"Umm, what do you think THIS is?"

"This is your future if you don't make others listen. I've always admired strong women. Ha! I love you Martha!"

"How do you know my name?"

"I am you from the future, and I'm inside your head. Wake, and make them listen, you are not alone.

It was only then that I woke up. This was not right, there had been a blast, my life was on the line, a mysterious stranger... I really was some wacko scientist living the dream life of her calculations being right.

I woke up in a bed, in a hospital, a doctor standing over me.

"How long has it been?" I asked him.

"Two years."