Lovers in the Great Collapse ◊ NOVELLA

v. » Boldly Go

v. 

BOLDLY GO

The alarm began at late noon.

It wasn't when it was supposed to happen. Not when I'd pictured it. Bombs drop and citizens scream and horizons catch flame at dusk or dawn, not at 3PM on a sepia-toned summer evening, where anything you did felt both glorious and entirely correct. I was supposed to be bumming around outside with Jacqueline, flouting our chores in favor of blowing dandelions at the war-scarred horizon.

Instead, we were rushed, through white the hallways, stumbling, with lab coats at our backs.

"Where are we going?" I tried to ask. One of them pressed his hand between my shoulder blades to keep me moving. "Is it time? Jesus! Is it time?"

"Fuck," Jackie was saying. "Fuck, fuck, fuck—"

"Where's my dad?" I twisted my head, trying to get one of the lab coats to just look at me. A couple burst from a door we passed; the woman clutched a crying baby in her arms. Warning lights bathed the walls red. "Look at me!" I shouted. "I need my dad! I—I need to say goodbye to my—"

They shoved us into the entrance hall. Cryopods gleamed where refugees once stood. Immediately, Jackie and I were wrenched apart. When I lunged to catch her hand, someone grabbed my elbow and yanked me back. BIt was a sea of latex gloves, needle pricks, shouting. Beyond the blur of pale blue hands and powder-white lab coats, I heard Jackie yell, "Shotgun!"

I choked out a laugh, even as I was forced into the Mayflower, even as my wrists and ankles were twisted into restraints. I yanked, heart pounding, stomach lurching with adrenaline, immobile. "Not yet!"

I glimpsed brown skin. "Dr. Hussein!" I screamed.

Our gazes locked. He looked wild, disheveled, glasses askew. "Gillian!" he shouted—or I thought he did, I couldn't hear anything past the shaking of the walls and the screaming of the sirens. My eyes were pried open, and glue-reeking liquid was dolloped in; tears forming, unable to wash them away—

"Dr. Hussein—HAKIM!"

The Mayflower's hull slammed shut. For just a moment, Hakim's wrinkled hand pressed flat against the circle of glass separating me from a burning world.

And then it fell, and he was gone.

Silence. I clenched and unclenched my fists, twisted and bucked against the restraints—

Count, Gillian. He told us to count.

I sucked in a shuddering breath.

One.

Lights flared to life around me. Oxygen levels, heart monitor, nuclear radiation sensors. The numbers on that last one were soaring, the needle going haywire.

Two. Three. Four.

Something hissed near my right ear, wet, like steam, but so cold it burned. Tears, hot and fat, squeezed from my eyes. The tiny window began to ice over—just count, justcountjustcount—

Five. Six. Sev... en...

Suddenly, exhaustion swept over me. I wanted to sleep. God, please, let me sleep. No thinking. No feeling. No concern for the dark figures beyond the glass, falling to their knees...

Eight... nine...

I hoped it would be nice. I wanted a gentle nap and Jacqueline kissing me awake. I wanted to punch Hakim; I wanted to hug him goodbye; I wanted my time back, a lifetime of things I'd never know how to miss: football games and weddings, graduation caps and internships and travel. Each snapshot stolen by algae and sunburns.

I wasn't ready. I wanted my dad. I wanted out.

I wanted the other half of that fucking lemonade.

Ten.

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