Escape

Cold wind pushed into the room as Dale forced the frozen window open; not an easy task holding a gun. But he wasn't

about to put the weapon down, no sir.

Footsteps thudded behind him. He knew what was approaching, and it terrified him. Struggling out the window, Dale fell into a foot of soft snow.

The heavy footfalls subsided.

 Dale’s heart fell into his stomach. He had nowhere to go. Miles around showed nothing but a peaceful white landscape that was actually anything but peaceful.

Having no choice, Dale turned around to try his luck in any random direction. Anything was better than going back into the building, and certain death.

Then the heart that had fallen into his stomach dropped into his shoes.

She was there, awaiting him like a coquettish young lover, with no inhibitions, no shame, and no clothes.

Suddenly a voice, the voice that had guided him through the dangers inside, rose inside his mind.

“Bullets are now ineffective.”

Dale dropped the gun as the svelte young woman took seductive steps toward him, hips swaying back and forth in a mesmerizing pattern. Only one thing left to try.

Dale shot forward, took her in his arms and kissed her like it was their last day on earth.

It wasn't. Because he meant that kiss, meant it because at one time she had been his true love, before her body had been invaded. His kiss, and his love, freed them both from the tyranny of possession.

Patience

Despite the howling wind’s best effort, Dorian stood firm upon the green grass, looking out over the cliffs to the wild, reckless ocean.  She awaited her love’s return.

Long had he been gone; absent from her life. She clung to him in her heart though, and the belief that he would someday return.

Years she had spent on these cliffs, hoping, praying.

“You asked for it, you know.”

Em’s brusque voice cut through the wind, as though the breeze itself were scared of Dorian’s imposing sister.

“Falling in love with that uncouth sailor.” Em continued. “Now you come up here , so everyone can see you and feel sorry for the poor seaman’s bride.”

Dorian blinked, careful not to let her hostile sibling see the motion. Em wasn’t concerned with her sister’s well-being, she was jealous the younger woman had found love, where Em herself was lonely, and bitter.

It needn’t have been that way. Em was beautiful, passionate, and charming in her own way. But fate had taken her chosen from her at an early age. Instead of accepting what happened and moving on, Em had instead become resentful, and angry. Now she wanted her sister to join her in that misery.

But Dorian held on to love, held on to hope.

“I wish you could see things differently, Em. Life is not against you, and neither is anyone else. If you could just…”

“Bah.” Em waved off Dorian’s reply and departed.

Dorian turned to await her true love.

To the End?

His armor should have chafed. It used too, back during a time when things were simpler, clearer.

Without realizing it, Stavross had actually gotten used to the discomfort. Now that it was gone, an ironic sense of melancholy had settled over his soul. The oddly uncomfortable had become the strangely consoling.

“You’ll get used to it.”

Myrna could read his mind. A trait in exceptional women, he’d noticed. Stav’s mother had always seemed to know what he was thinking, and she was exceptional indeed. Until he met Myrna, Stavross had chalked it up to matronly wisdom.

“I don’t want to be used to it,” Stavross replied. “I just want to go home.”

Stav peered out over the balcony to wide green fields behind a rocky chain of hills.

Myrna drew up beside him.

“I know.”

“But this is home now, isn’t it?” Stavross asked.

Myra’s silence answered quite succinctly.

Heavy weights of a king’s burden pulled his shoulders down.

“We are the chosen ones.” Stavross stated flatly, in a statement of neither question or fact. “Aren’t we?”

After a moment of reflection on the landscape around them, Stavross turned to his love. Deep eyes conveyed the true sorrow in his mind, and the devotion of his heart.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Myrna replied, seeing in his eyes the depth of his emotions. “I’m still glad to be with you.”

Stav’s eyes went wide.

“Really? Even if it is the end?”

“Even if it’s the very end, my love.”

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Lessons

Endemic wastelands stretched across a vast sea of desolation, filling the mind’s eye with a scene of apocalyptic proportions. Nothing lay here now save dissolute souls of the defeated, and the dust of a thousand civilizations.

Across a barren world, the landscape remained the same. Oceans were dry, mountains toppled, lakes arid; nothing lived.

Behold a brown dot in the night sky to mark the grave of a once-vibrant world in a dying universe.

Two stood amidst the rubble. Red eyes peered across the handiwork of those who’d come before. To them this bare, inhospitable landscape was a lecture, a mere lesson on a blackboard.

Metallic voices debated the merits of the day’s session.

“It seems such a waste.”

“Perhaps.” said another, reverberating deeper into the dusk of evening. “If there were no more worlds. Yet, this is not the case.”

“Still, there could have been much potential here, if it were only seen and recognized.”

A long pause emphasized the impudence of that bold statement.

“When this world was pristine, I saw it with my own eyes. I saw the arrogant creatures who pretended to rule. And I say to you now, there was no potential here.”

And yet the student continued to protest.

“And yet, I see no signs of our own progress in this forsaken wasteland.”

“No, you do not.” answered the instructor. “See the signs of our victory.”

And with those words, the day's lesson was concluded.

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