The End

The girl is alone, sitting in a black leather chair and staring at her gloved hands, tips still singed with oil. She should have finished fixing the navigation systems, but her fingers ache. Four minutes pass before she glances up at the flashing lights. Her hair is choppy, ragged from neglect. What had been so important?

The lights don’t disappear all at once, instead each darkening one after another. They begin at the end of the hall, the black creeping towards her at a trodden pace. She blinks. The hall flashes red. She checks her watch.

8:53 PM, but time doesn’t matter here.

Skin glowing scarlet, she stands, flexing her fingers in and out. They’re stiff. Is the fuel finally out?

You might suspect she was wearing something flashy as a proper heroine, perhaps a dark jacket and knee-high boots like they always are in the movies—and that might even be how she would recount the story. Her bare feet scrape along the smooth floor, hands cupped against her shoulders as she shivers from the cold.

The red lights flash, long panels strobing from their places low on the sleek walls. They hurt her eyes, but she knows this ship well enough, turning the next corner.

First, she grabs the coarse blankets from the top shelf of the closet, hauling them down with trembling arms. They tumble to her feet, and something falls, shatters. She picks up the blankets.

Her second stop is the engine room, but she already knows it’s too late. The console sits in the center of the room, screen blue and flashing large, white text. WARNING, it reads, FUEL LEVEL LOW. She shuts her eyes, shifting the blankets to one arm.

When she opens them, she begins to tap on the screen, going through the useless motions. A fan whirs overhead, click click click. Power conservation mode, check. Close all hatches, check. Send distress signal, check. But there is no one here save her, and no one will find her in time. Perhaps no one will ever find her. A lone artifact, drifting through the depths of space.

She’s done everything she can—consulted the manual twice—before she leaves. The lights still flash, but she doesn’t know how to shut them off. She settles back into her comfortable chair, kicking her feet up onto the windowsill. The blankets wrap around her, somehow still smelling of home. She thinks of her mother.

Outside is complete darkness, only the faint twinkling of stars in eternal distance. It’s colder now, the endangered air biting at her cheeks. She brings the topmost blanket up over her nose.

While the final lights fade away behind her, she wishes she had taken a shower. This is how she’ll be memorialized, greasy and unkempt, sick and unsightly. If she’s remembered at all.

She should have said goodbye to her mother, instead of stealing away in the night like a ghost. She should have listened when everyone told her the journey was too far, you’re never going to make it. She isn’t going to make it.

On her watch, the time shows, 10:22 PM. How much longer does she have? She had never wanted to know how long it took the oxygen to run out. A countdown would only scare her.

She’s scared anyway.

But it doesn’t matter. What will come, will come, death or life.

She wonders if any of those stars are hers, the one she came from or the one she’s going to. There are so many, too many to count in a lifetime. She does not have a lifetime—she begins to count. What else does she have?

One. Two. Three. Her home had sat on tall cliffs overlooking the ocean. There was a little path carved into the side of the bluff, and if you were careful and it wasn’t wet, you could hike down to flood yourself in the roiling waves. Sometimes there were seals to call rambunctious greetings, sliding through the turquoise water.

Four. Five. Six. Her father had been a doctor, sent to the front lines in the war to fix those that had been mauled by giant lizards. He’d been mauled by a giant lizard, and hadn’t come home.

Seven. Eight. Nine. Her mother hadn’t done much of anything, lost and mourning, sitting around and gazing out the tall windows as if the horizon held some sort of answer. The girl knew now that it didn’t, nothing in the universe had the answers they needed.

Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Her brother had disappeared five years ago, taken by raiders from the sky. Their family had broken. Two years later she had followed, a wide-eyed girl creeping into the hangar and commandeering a spaceship—this spaceship. It had not been the best choice, could only travel so far before running out of fuel. This far.

Thirteen. Fourteen—she gives up, whipping her head away. 10:27 PM. She’s still afraid. She doesn’t want to die. Who wants to die?

Perhaps this is the only way. It’s been five years. She could meet her brother in death, and it would all be worth it. Everyone would have a happy ending. Everyone except her mother.

She wants to go home. Why had she left a woman already fractured—left her to burst? Would the last remnant of her family break like the wind, wafting her tiny pieces away into a cloud; or like an explosion, ricocheting outward, crumbling to nothing? She will not return home, the same as the rest of them.

Will her mother notice she’s gone? Will she care?

Hand stretching out from underneath the blanket, she reaches to snatch up the bottle of dark, sloshing beer that rested patiently beside her. It reeks even unopened, the smell nauseating to her senses. She peels back the cap with her fingers, sharp edges drawing slices of dark blood. The drink tastes as foul as she expects, sloshing down her throat with a heartily grimace. She takes another swig.

It is so cold. Her chest tightens. Her breathing shallows. How long?

Perhaps she should have known.

She knew the end would come some day. Did people worry for the end, wait anxiously for its arrival? She hadn’t thought of it, only focused on this singular path. Now she feared like any other soul, touched by the darkness and the silence. It is so cold.

“Goodbye,” she tells the quiet stars. Will they remember her?

As she sits there, staring, she wonders if she’s already dead.