Back at the Academy, Book, they would show some of us younger cadets old movies. They were flat-screened ones, which at this point are pretty shitty, but they were kind of interesting. They had funny ones, scary ones, and others that gave you and idea of how people used to live back then. My favorite was Deep Impact, a movie made just before the new millennium started. I always found the idea of an asteroid slamming into the Earth and changing life as we know it interesting.

Some time ago I was reading the holo-news, and there was some big conference where they talked about a “contingency plan as to the impending danger of an asteroid or comet collision with the planet Earth” or some journalist bullshit like that. Pretty much, a bunch of scientists got together to create a plan to save the Earth. Right out of one of those old movies, right? All someone needed to do was take that idea, get some dumb broad from New Hollywood, and that guy’d be sitting pretty with more credits than he could ever need.

Did they end up getting a plan together? Hell if I know. That journalist mumbo-jumbo was never really easy to read anyway, and the best I could make out was that they had some kind of laser system to shoot the damn thing out of the sky.

What a glorious time to live on Planet Earth: 2092 A.D. I always wondered what A.D. meant. Back at the floating mess of pipes and shit we called the Academy, we learned about religion. Back in the old days on Earth, people believed in some “higher power” that “controlled their lives” or something like that. Kind of a crazy idea, right? If anything, the government controls it. You’d have to be a friggin’ idiot not to realize that.

Well, no sense worrying about that now, right?

But Earth - what a place. After the third world war in 2024 A.D. and the fourth in 2041 A.D., our planet could barely support the life it once did. Nearly all the species on the planet were wiped out, apart from the ones we could clone for food. The newly-formed Federation realized that we couldn’t get much else from Earth, so in 2060 A.D. they erected the Federation Orbiting Ring to house what was left of humanity’s population. It was a pretty good idea at the time. At least, it gave them a massive junk yard to put all the broken-down ships and nuclear waste they were producing at alarming rates.

So there I was, Book, sitting nice and dandy at the Academy, when all the cadets got called into the mess hall for a meeting. Nothing big, I thought. Probably the headmaster just wanted to bitch at us about being “fine, upstanding young men to better serve humanity” or whatever propaganda they liked to feed us. There we were, sitting at our tables, when Headmaster steps to the front of the room. He was pretty fat, and showy as hell. He loved giving a good speech. But when he stood before us at the podium, a glass of water sitting before him untouched, an odd feeling seemed to creep through the mess hall. Headmaster opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. There were a few moments of awkward silence before he cleared his throat and finally started speaking.

“Several years ago, some of the Federation far-range sensors picked up a large object moving towards the vicinity of Planet Earth. While at first little thought was given to the idea that this object could collide with Earth, as time went on, the odds of the asteroid passing by harmlessly became less and less favorable. Now, it is confirmed: in the coming weeks, an asteroid, thrown into its present course by a gravity boost via Jupiter, is going to cross the orbital path of Earth. There is a 95-percent chance of collision.”

Nobody moved. I felt glued to my chair, Book. I was unable to shake off the numbness that was slowly inching its way up my spine and seep into the rest of my muscles. I looked to my left and saw a hundred stunned faces, just like mine. Nobody knew what to do. Was he kidding? Was this all some stupid, unfunny joke that the faculty was playing? Was this another training exercise? Sure, we had had drills by the handful, but none like this. Drills were usually more hands-on, y’know? We all waited for him to speak, to assure us that nothing was really wrong. He didn’t.

“We’ve been in contact with Federation officials since we were informed of the issue. They assured us that the governing body is taking control of the situation, and humanity’s finest scientists and military experts are working around the clock to create a plan to stop the asteroid. With careful planning, humanity will once again prevail.”

We were dismissed shortly after. Judging by those I talked to, the general feeling of the cadets was one of uneasiness, and in some cases, foreboding. A lot of cadets changed that day, Book. I remember this kid Daniel. He was the kind of kid that always liked to get a rise out of you. When I first met him I liked him from the start. But after the meeting in the mess hall, he wasn’t the free-spirit we used to know. He became more somber, depressed. By the time things really hit the fan, Daniel never left his cabin. He was afraid death was going to get him around every corner.

I know I’m getting sidetracked from my story, Book, but death is a really interesting thing. As humans, we can never know exactly what happens after death. Sure, you get those nutjobs that talk about some bright light or that “higher power” I talked about before. I remember one kid, Jake, who would always go on about how he believe when we died, that was it. There would be nothing, just a void as empty as space itself. That always interested me because it made me wonder: do we become part of space? I remember a scientist gave a speech one time at the Academy about how we are made of the matter in space. I shrugged it off at the time because I simply thought he was stating the obvious. However, as time went on, and after what Jake told us, I began to wonder: could this “higher power” be what space is made of? I mean, if it’s an actual entity, and apparently a lot of people thought it was, it would have to be made of space, right?

By the end I was afraid of death myself. What end, you ask? Well, Book, I suppose I could stop beating around the bush and tell you.

It was an asteroid. You know, one of those huge slabs of rock that float between Jupiter and Mars. Junk periodically came out of the belt towards the Earth, but usually missed by a dozen or so million miles. But this one – this one came too close.

What’s that, Book? How am I still alive? Funny you should ask. Well, about two weeks after Headmaster gave us the speech about the asteroid heading for Earth, the asteroid reached Earth. While I could never know for sure, I assume that the scientists’ predictions on when the rock was to cross Earth’s orbit were off. I knew better thought. I figured out that it was going to be closer than they thought, and it would hit us. Call it paranoia, or call it a sixth sense – I was right. The Federation barely had time to evacuate anyone. Up here in space, thought, people began to panic. Everyone seemed to develop an intense form of claustrophobia. I remember one cadet, clawing at the window and screaming his head off for someone to hand him a pistol. Said he was going to shoot his way out.

During all this chaos, one person got my attention. He was a scrawny kid, a green cadet who had just arrived at the Academy. He stood next to the holo-glass, staring down at the hulking mass of smoky haze below us. I walked up to him, tapping him on the shoulder. He didn’t look at me, but glared towards Earth with an eerie smile on his face. I was startled, and almost left, but before I could leave he grabbed my arm tightly.

“If you open a window, you get sucked home,” he said, turning his wide, unblinking gaze towards me. I got a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach as I stared into his expressionless eyes.

“You’d die if you went outside,” I replied uneasily.

“Space or rock, we’re all going to Hell,” he muttered darkly, breaking eye contact and pressing his face against the glass. I felt bad for the kid: a new cadet, far from his family in the final hour. I tried saying goodbye, but all I got in return was inane mumbling.

Not being able to think of anything else to say, I turned around and ran back to my room, thoughts and emotions hitting me like a sack of friggin’ bricks. Should I tell anyone? Should I contact home? Didn’t seem like a good idea - my parents hated me. To them I was a trouble-making little brat who didn’t know what was good for them, and a good discipline at the Academy would set me straight. Being an only child I didn’t have any siblings to contact, and I wasn’t what you would call “social” at the Academy. I thought of alerting the kids that I occasionally talked to, but I stopped myself as I reached for my communicating device. Call it survival instinct, but suddenly this feeling came over me. I could almost hear this voice saying, “Screw them, they never liked you anyway.” It was as if this other part of me, a part that had been hiding all this time, wanted out, and that to that part of me everyone else was completely meaningless. So what did I do, Book?

I listened to it.

Before I left though, I grabbed you. At the time I had no idea, but for some reason I felt like you’d come in handy. I’m really glad I did. Anyway, there I was, running like a bat out of hell towards the escape pods. Amazingly, no one else had thought to escape like I did. I bet Ol’ Headmaster had them all come into the mess hall. He seemed like the kind of guy who would believe in a “higher power”, so I bet he said something inspirational or meaningful. He was a great guy.

At this point I’m running down hallways, trying to remember where the escape pods were. I know they showed us where they were, but when you’re running from death, you aren’t exactly the most coherent person. Finally, I found them. I climbed into this tin can and started going over my evacuation procedures. Standard stuff: secure self, secure door, secure objects, take a deep breath, and eject.

I remember my first year at Academy when they were teaching us about escape pod procedure. They had this simulator we all had to practice in. Take a test, even. If you didn’t pass, you couldn’t progress to the next level of training and you pretty much became the bitch of everybody at the Academy. I was tired of being the bitch back home, so I was determined to pass. And what happened?

I failed.

As the muffled sounds of laughter filled my ears, the instructor, shaking his head, pulled me out of the holographic crater I’d just made and sent me on my way. He told me to come back in a week. Take it from me, Book, failing that test was one of the worst experiences of my life. It really was. For the next week all I heard was, “Whoa! The station is gonna blow up! Everybody get to a pod!” and “Hey shit-for-brains, why not just hold on to the outside of the pod when it goes off? It’ll probably land itself better!” Of course I passed the next time, but for the next year and a half there was no end to the laughter.

So there I was, sitting in the escape pod, all buckled in and ready to go. I didn’t bother calling for any launch assistance as I wouldn’t get a response, and what I was doing was probably illegal. Then again, there wouldn’t be any government to impose such illegality, or whatever that word is, so there wasn’t much of an issue if you really think about it. I just sat there, staring at the eject button. Waiting. Waiting for what? I had no idea. I still don’t. I guess I was scared shitless of what was going to happen next. But like I said, we humans are a surviving species. Planning ahead when the time calls for fast action takes a back seat at times like that. I could hear a buzzing from outside the door. I couldn’t wait any longer. I hit the button.

I forgot to take a breath. Of course I forgot to take a breath. That’s why I failed my test. The shock of the ejection shot what little breath I still had right out of my chest, and it was some time before I got my breath again. When everything had stabilized and all that, I unbuckled myself and floated over towards the view port window to watch the final destruction of my home of sixteen years.

During mess back at the Academy, someone was talking about what it would be like if something hit the Earth. Will, I think his name was. Anyway, Will had a little ball of rolled-up tin foil and an orange. He started explaining that when an object hit a planet, it put a huge crater in it, and, sometimes, ripped the planet apart. To demonstrate, he pressed the ball of aluminum against the orange as hard as he could. For a second it seemed sort of right, but the orange split and Will got orange pulp and juice all over him. At the time we called him an idiot, but I couldn’t help thinking of that moment while I watched the asteroid collide with Earth.

At this point my escape pod was good distance away, so watching it was like watching someone do a puppet show with models. I watched the asteroid inch closer and closer towards the space ring. Trying to guess what was going on back home, I imagined people running around frantically, clinging to loved ones and trying to find their way to the escape pods. I think there was an old movie like that. As the asteroid tore through the space ring, it sent thousands of bits of debris and, as I imagined with a squeamish feeling forming in the pit of my stomach, tiny bits of people. Great flames began to lick at the edges of the rock as it entered Earth’s atmosphere, and the green fog of the atmosphere began to envelope the rock. It wouldn’t be long now.

I remember during a physics lesson back at the Academy when the teacher told us that sound waves aren’t able to travel through space. That explained why you couldn’t hear the nuclear tests they conducted over at Mars. So, as you can imagine, I didn’t hear the end of the world. But boy, did I feel it. It wasn’t like an earthquake. The best way to describe it, Book, is to think of it like being on a boat or something and having a huge wave hit it. Except that the wave is the same level as the water, but with the same amount of force. I don’t know, it’s kind of hard to explain. It sent the escape pod rocking and tumbling. My straps snapped off and sent me flying. I hit my head against one of the panels and wham – out like a light.

When I came to, all I could hear was a tiny beep; the distress beacon. For a brief moment I had hope that I would be saved, but a dark, sickening feeling settled in. It was the feeling that no one could help me. From what I had seen, felt, and felt, I knew it to be true. I don’t know when I started crying. It was slow; the kind of crying that starts in the deepest part of your heart, slowly works its way up, then floods your nervous system with such speed and velocity that before you know it you’re doubled over, sobbing uncontrollably. I cried until I had no tears left. I cried until every muscled and fiber of my being was exhausted, mentally and physically. I cried until tear droplets hung like a thousand marbles in the escape pod.

I slept then. How long? I don’t remember. I had no desire to do anything else. I felt that if I went to sleep, I would wake up, and this whole experience would be a dream. I would wake up in my comfortable bed at the Academy, head off to mess with my friends, and listen to Ol’ Headmaster give us another speech about being fine, upstanding young men. These were the kind of things I dreamed about when I drifted in and out of consciousness, floating in the middle of my hunk of metal. The distress beacon was my lullaby.

When I was awake again, I thought about a lot of things. I thought about my first day at school, my first kiss, and my first…you know. It slowly dawned upon me that these were all I had left of Earth; just scattered memories of a time long ago. How long ago was it? I don’t know. I just don’t know.

That’s when I remembered you, Book. I stuffed you into one of the storage compartments when I made my hasty escape, and completely forgot about you. It was an accident. Thankfully, I found you. I was going through all the compartments of the pod, seeing what I had, when I remembered you. I’m so glad I remembered you, friend. You’re all I have left.

There’s a crack on the window. I first noticed it about a day ago. Or was it two days? A week? A month? A year? The asteroid seemed so long ago. I really wish I knew how long it was since the asteroid. I really do. I also wish I had something to close that crack with. I can almost see it getting bigger: every little atom that composes the glass, slowly spreading apart. It’s like watching water spread as it branches out. Like a tree, almost. The last tree of Earth.

I think this will be the last time we talk, Book. I don’t know how long it’s been, but the crack has stretched across almost the whole window now. Also, my pen is starting to run out of ink, and I had to scribble on the back of you until the ink showed up again. Sorry if it hurt. I really am. I just want to thank you for all you’ve done. You kept me sane all these seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, or years in this hunk of metal. You and I, we’re the last of a great kind. Well, maybe not the best kind, but a kind nonetheless. Who knows – maybe, someday, some alien race will come upon our little pod and they’ll talk to you too, like I did. You can tell them all about me. All about the Academy, old Headmaster and his crazy speeches, and even Jake if you want to. I bet they’d like to know his thoughts on death. They’ll want to know how I survived, and how I made a new friend. Take care, Book.

“So the cause of death was asphyxiation?” the Headmaster sighed, looking up from the pearl white floor to glance at the view-screen. On it, several uniformed men were placing the limp form of a young cadet into a body bag.

“Yes, sir,” the doctor replied, watching the screen as well. “We don’t know what caused the sudden breakdown, but during questioning several cadets said the boy was showing an alarming amount of isolation. They said he stayed in his quarters during non-classroom hours, and during meals, when he did come, he would sit alone and mumble to himself.”

“Have his parents been notified?” the Headmaster asked.

“According to our records, the boy’s parents were killed in a transport accident several years ago. That is probably the cause of the boy’s depression and, well, his reason for snapping.”

With a nod and a wave of his hand, the Headmaster continued to watch the view-screen. Now the screen showed the boy running down the corridors at the Academy, screaming as he headed towards the escape pods. In his hands he clutched a small blue notebook. That book now lay on the control panel, its pages opened to the last page with the boy’s handwriting on it. Sighing, the Headmaster closed it and slipped it back inside its evidence bag. He placed it back on the table he found it on and left the room, clicking the light off as he left. Eventually the book would be destroyed, tossed into the roaring furnace at the Academy. The last traces of the cadet were gone in an instant.