Dreams of a Dying World
By Jonathan Garrett

It was raining heavily on the day that we left. The vast ocean of raindrops made a hollow, metallic clack as they struck the hull of my family’s shuttle. We were leaving that day from our home on Earth and it seemed quite unlikely that we would ever return. I didn’t know why we were leaving, but the faces of those around me said clearly that it was certainly no happy occasion. I vaguely remember my father talking to one of his closest friends before we left. My father’s friend was clearly frightened about something. I wasn’t able to hear the words that he spoke to my father, but they were bad enough that they frightened my father as well and within the hour our little shuttle was packed and ready for immediate departure.

Our shuttle wasn’t very large, though it was enough for all of us to fit. My father had bought it some years back on something of a whim and we had never once used it for anything. Even though we were on the surface, the shuttle had enough power to break away from the planet’s gravitational pull. We had planned to take it to one of the orbital colonies on a vacation sometime, but now that would never happen.

All together there were eight of us leaving for the stars that day. Along with my father and mother, there was my younger brother, my father’s sister, two of my grandparents, my father’s friend, and myself.

I had forgotten the stuffed bear my mother had given me for my birthday that year, but I had no time to go back and retrieve it. It was gone now, as my home soon would be too.

Before this time, I had never once flown anywhere. The roar of the engines and the shaking of the ship scared me a little bit at first, but after we had cleared the atmosphere, I had overcome my fear and was even beginning to enjoy the ride.

The Earth dropped away behind us, growing smaller and smaller with each passing minute. It made me sad to leave it behind, but I understood that it was something that we had to do. I didn’t know why though. I looked back only once as the planet I had lived on for thirteen years disappeared behind us forever.

The stars were so clear in space, like shining crystals. I asked Father once where we were going, but he said that he did not know either. Then, I asked him why we were leaving and he said only “To get away.” I could not understand why it was necessary for us to leave our home, but he would not explain it to me.

It troubled me that no one else seemed to wonder where we were going. They were simply there; they neither offered answers to my questions, nor did they seem particularly worried themselves about what was going on. It was like something routine for them, but to me it didn’t feel that way at all.

We traveled for days in the cold vastness of space. Our journey seemed to take us nowhere at all. We saw no other ships, nor did we pass closely to any other planetary systems. We talked very little during this time and mainly kept to ourselves and what ever it was we had brought with us for entertainment.

Time passed excruciatingly slow during our journey and the close quarters of the shuttle was very chaffing on all of us. I longed for the green pastures near our house and crystal clear streams that I used to play in. All of that was gone, however, and I could only hope that wherever it was we finally arrived at, it would at least have some of the beauty of the land we had left behind.

After about two weeks, we stopped at one of the out-lying colonies. I asked father if this was where we were going to and he said that our destination still lay ahead of us. I wondered for some time about that. It scared me because beyond the out-lying colonies there was nothing. Only empty, lifeless planets. I returned to my seat with only my thought and worries for companionship, though they could offer me no comfort.

I looked around at everyone else, their faces still held that grim mask that they had worn on the day we left. Even my little brother, who cried all the time back at home, was strangely silent, as if he understand better than I did what was happening. It was like being in a room full of strangers and I was somehow being taken away from my true family. I increasingly longed for the security and comfort of home, but such was not forthcoming.

As we left the colony, Father said that we would have enough fuel and supplies to last us for at least a month. I asked him if that’s how long it would take to reach the place that we were going, but he would say no more about out journey. Days continued to pass and we still moved ever forward into the uncharted expanse. I began to believe that what my father had said on that first day was more than just a rhetorical remark and in fact we were simply traveling away from our home with no clear destination in mind and we would wander aimlessly until we eventually died of dehydration or lack of food. I wanted to ask Father if this was the case, but I was too afraid that his answer would only prove my fears correct.

On the twenty-eighth day something happened. Something that my father had not expected. As we neared a planetary system on the outer-rim of our galaxy there was a sudden fluctuation in the gravitational field of one of the planets. Father tried his best, but the gravity was too great to be overcome by the shuttle’s boosters. It was as though we were being sucked into a black hole, but nothing on the monitors or out the windows suggested anything of the sort.

As we entered the planetary system it was clear that the source of the enormous gravity was the sixth planet from a red-giant sun. The shuttle had no escape pods and so the only thing we could do was to get to our seats and use whatever was nearby to cushion ourselves for an inevitable crash-landing.

We entered the atmosphere of the planet and bright flames began to shoot along the metal exterior of our small shuttle. The surface of the planet came ever closer and then seemed to swallow us up. There was an intense flash of light and then…only intense darkness.

A red-giant sun rises above the sandy surface of the sixth planet of a system in the outer-rim of a certain galaxy. It is an old planet, possibly one of the oldest in the universe. Its ancient surface had once been covered with lush forests and mighty rivers and great civilizations had flourished there at one time, but now it stands empty. Its former glory has become merely a dim echo in the mind of the universe.

A plume of smoke rises near the far horizon, towards the sunrise. The smoke originates from a large crater near the base of a cliff. Around the crater is scattered a multitude of metal shrapnel. A small sound comes from under a particularly large piece of metal. A young girl slowly pulls herself out from under the metal and looks around. She stands up and brushes the dust off of her pants, coughing as the dust floats up into her face. She begins to wander around aimlessly with a confused look on her pale, young face.

Finally, she sits down on the ground and leans back against the remains of the vessel. She shakes her head gently from side to side, trying to remember, but to no avail. The memories of her past have slid away and left her as an empty shell. She realizes this and begins to cry softly into her hands. However, there is no one to comfort her in this empty place.

After some minutes, she stops crying and begins to access the situation as best she can. Obviously, she came in on the ship, which had crashed and is now in a hundred pieces, but she does not know where she is, who she was with, or where she came from. She searches the entire crater, but finds no signs of anyone else. This perplexes her.

Surely, she must have come here with someone else. She tries her best to remember even the tiniest detail, but they continue to elude her. She starts to cry again, but fiercely fights back the tears. She wipes the tears away and determines that whatever happens, she’ll survive somehow and recover her lost memories.

She gathers up everything that might be of use around the crater and puts it into large piles. There is food, clothing, and even and an odd assortment of children’s toys. They are unfamiliar to her, though. It’s enough for her to start setting up a makeshift dwelling, if nothing else. Slowly, the largest section of the shuttle that remains intact is cleared out and temporary walls made of thin material are put up.

Before she realizes how late it has become, the sun has already begun to set. The girl has nothing to gauge time with, however, she estimates the time from sunrise to sunset to be roughly 10 hours. She gazes for some time out across the trackless expanse of the dusty and lifeless plains before going inside her new home. Despite the events of the day, sleep comes quickly for the young girl.

From on high, I looked down at the fields below me. There was a vast field of gorgeous flowers. They comprised every color of the rainbow. I gazed in wonder at their magnificent beauty. Beings came that were strange to me; they were unlike the wild creatures that flew in the sky or even those of the field. These beings were more intelligent and with their hands they created many things. And yet they also destroyed. Suddenly, a fire swept through the flowers and burned them all up. Visions flashed before my eyes of great armies fighting one another. They slaughtered each other with reckless abandon, and then the visions were gone. The flowers grew again, but they were different somehow. They were tall flowers, and there were not so many colors. The fire came again and the armies fought. Out of the ashes rose giant trees, with limbs that seemed to reach to the sky. Then the fire came once more…

The girl awakens suddenly during the night. She hears a loud sound coming from somewhere far across the waste. She jumps up and runs outside. It is a rhythmic pounding. The origin of the sound is many miles away, past the horizon. After nearly a minute, the sound stops. The girl continues to scan the horizon for any movement, but there is none. She marks the direction the sound came from on the ground and then goes back inside to prepare supplies to go in search of what it is that made the sound.

It is still dark when the girl sets out. She cannot get that sound out of her mind; it is at once familiar to her and strangely alien. Remembrance of the sound stirs her thoughts as if to recall some lost memory. She tries to concentrate on the echo of the sound, but the moment has passed. She lifts a pack full of supplies on to her shoulder and begins the lonely trek across the forgotten landscape.

Not far from the crash site, the girl finds a glimpse of the former majesty that once resided on this world. It is a forest, but one unlike any that has ever been seen before. It is a forest full of carefully preserved trees that are hundreds of feet tall. Their trunks are now as hard as rock and the life that once resided in them has become as dry as dust.

The girl walks among these relics of some past generation and wonders about what kind of being sat among the branches of the trees and gazed at the stars or if, in fact, they were ever disturbed by the hands of any sentient creatures. Now, however, they do not even bend in the harsh wind of this place, only moaning at the fate that they have received. An oppressive feeling fills the air. The young girl hastens through the dead forest, having no desire to stay longer than she must in this forsaken site.

The red, burning sun has now reached its zenith and the heat from it bakes the ground with unrelenting anger. The horizon shimmers with waves of boiling air. The girl has become exhausted and falls to her knees, gasping for breath. She quickly pulls a small water bottle out her pack and takes several long drinks, but it does little to help her overall situation. The broken and busted landscape offers neither shelter nor shade against the heat. She pushes herself to her feet and continues walking, though her feet drag against the ground with every step.

As she begins walking down a steep hill, a rock seems to pop out of nowhere and she trips over it and falls down the hill. The sharp rocks tear at her clothes and bruise her skin. At the bottom of the hill, she finally stops and several of the smaller rocks continue on, rolling across her body. Her breath is somewhat ragged, but even. She is only unconscious.

I looked down in the valley and watched as the multitudes gathered. Millions upon million of them were in that place. They were “the ones that came first”. “The ones that came first” had come to the valley for a reason, but the reason was unknown to me. One among them came forward and spoke. From his hands came forth great wonders: food for them all, water to drink, and places to live. He was revered among them for many cycles, however, in the Dark Hours, when strange things happened in the night and “the ones that came first” lived in constant fear, the wonders ceased and they tore him down from his place of honor. They cast him aside and then began to fight amongst themselves and committed great atrocities, with fear fueling their madness. While they fought for the last scraps, The Others came. The Others came with powerful weapons and great machines of war. I watched as “the ones who came first” were destroyed by The Others; I was powerless to save them, though I wanted desperately to. Then, The Others left, but a small few stayed behind for reasons which I cannot comprehend.

The girl finally shakes off her sleep. She lies at the bottom of the hill covered in small rocks and dust. Her clothes have become torn in several spots and her arms and legs are bleeding slightly. There is little that she can do about that now. The sun has sunk lower and the temperature is starting to drop. Then she sees it. The rockslide she caused has knocked loose some larger rocks and revealed a cave that had been hiding behind them. She rises slowly paying careful attention to the injured portions of her body and makes her way to the cave.

The floor of the cave is smooth, as if purposely made, and the air inside is musty as though it has been closed off for some time. The light from the setting sun makes its way slowly into the cave and pierces the darkness. The light uncovers the treasures of this mysterious cave. Inside it are several large containers.

She begins to quickly open them. One container is filled with some kind of specially dried and preserved food, which, after close inspection, appear to be edible despite their obvious age. Another container is sealed with a special lock that seems to prevent any air from getting it or out. After several minutes, the girl figures out the lock and, with a rush of escaping air, the container divulges its prize.

It is filled with water. Crystal clear water, like the kind from a mountain spring. She fills her now empty water bottles, as well as several other containers she finds in the cave, and puts them in her pack along with some of the food. She is worried about whether or not this will be enough to get her across the wasteland, but she has come too far to go back now.

The sun has now passed beyond the horizon, so the girl decides to wait until the next day to continue on. The small cave provides a much better alternative to sleeping out on the unprotected plains. She eats some of the food and drinks a bit of the water as she stares up at the twinkling stars. She wonders if perhaps she came from one of those stars that now look back at her.

She tries again to remember anything from her past, even something mundane or unimportant, but her memories remain nothing more than blank slate. She breathes a sigh and then moves to the back of the cave. Soon she is asleep.

I found that some of “the ones that came first” had escaped from The Others. They had hidden in the mountains in secret places. They did not approach The Others for they feared their powerful weapons and for a time there was peace once again. “The ones that came first”, however, were not content with their new place and harbored great resentment towards the invaders. They planned in their secret places to retake their homes from The Others, even if it cost them their lives. I saw this and wished to aid “the ones that came first” for I had watched over them for many cycles and cared for them after a fashion. The Others were strange to me, ones from far away, from a place that I did not know of. I gathered my strength and called down lighting and rains to destroy their machines of death and I ordered the winds to tear down their newly-built cities. “The ones that came first” saw this and rejoiced; they praised the higher beings that they named as “gods” and said that this was sign that The Others were unwanted. They came down in countless numbers and waged brutal war against The Others.

That night, the sound comes again. The same rhythmic thumping that the girl heard the first night that she was on the planet. It is closer this time and the sound has a tinge of metallic ringing interspersed with the hollow thumping. It lasts no longer than it did the first time and the sound soon ceases, leaving only a faint echo reverberating throughout the valley. Again the girl finds this sound to be familiar in some way, though she still cannot remember why. Vague images flash before eyes for a brief instance, but they are gone before she can identify them. The sun will soon be rising, so the girl gathers up her pack and leaves the cave.

Though the thumping sound has passed, she knows the direction which is had been coming from. The path ahead leads to a gradual decline that forms a large bowl shaped region. She makes her way gently down the slope, not wanting a repeat of the pasts night’s incident. She finds that the ground inside the giant bowl is cracked and broken up like a gigantic puzzle, each piece fitting perfectly with those around it. The bowl, at one point, must have been a gigantic inland sea, or possibly even a vast ocean. As the girl travels farther into the dried seabed, she finds evidence that proves her guess to be correct.

Ahead of her lies a foreboding area of the sea. It stretches for many unchanging miles. It is a cemetery for the great creatures of the uncharted depths. Their bleached bones seem to pierce the very sky itself and their skulls, frozen in menacing grins, seem to glare with hatred at the young girl, who possesses the life that they have been robbed of. For some time she cannot move, fear and apprehension battle with her need to go on. Finally, she gathers her courage and places on foot in front of the other, walking slowly at first.

The empty eyes of the giant skeletons seem to follow her as she passes; the girl does not see them for her eyes are closed and her head tilted towards the ground. She places her trust in her other senses to guide her through. Her arms shake uncontrollably and she begins to whimper softly, but she does not stop. The sense of fear is ever-present and strange shapes dance in her mind’s eye. What the shapes are, she does not know, but their meaning is clear enough to her. The girl quickens her pace.

Many hours pass and finally the girl stops. She raises her head and then opens her eyes. Before her is a giant machine. Forged in the hardest of steel, it towers above her. She raises her eyes upward to its very tip, which at that moment seems to touch the rising sun. The exterior of the machine belies its great age for it is as smooth as newly forged glass and there is not even a hint of rust anywhere on it. The girl looks around, but the machine stands alone in the barren waste. She touches the surface of the machine and can feel a gentle metallic hum deep within its heart as well as a soft throbbing sound. It is as though the great machine is alive somehow.

By now the sun has become almost unbearably hot; fortunately the machine provides some much-needed shade. The girl moves around behind it and sits down with her back against it. She is very tired from walking for so many miles and traveling through the oceanic cemetery has sapped much of her remaining energy. She closes her eyes and soon her breathing evens out and she falls asleep.

The New Ones came. They were similar to ones that I had once known but thought had vanished long ago. They had went apart from “the ones that came first” for they were disgusted by the violence that was prevalent in that time. They devoted their energies towards science and knowledge. After some time they created giant metal machines and soon after I knew of them no more. Now, they came back to this land, which had been torn by war and strife. The New Ones were somehow different from either “the ones that came first” or The Others and yet they were still familiar. They were stronger and wiser than “the ones that came first” and The Others and the weapons they possessed were more powerful. The New Ones easily overpowered them all, but they were not unkind as I had feared they would be. They offered peace and prosperity. I watched them closely for any signs of malice, but there was none in their hearts. The built great machine, but these were not machine of death like those of The Others, rather these machine were used for the benefit of all. They created food and built homes and healed those that were injured. They gave the machines gladly to them along with instructions on how to build new ones. For a few cycles they stayed with them and helped them. Then one day, they were simply no more. I knew not what happened to them and I was saddened by their disappearance. There was something which troubled me more, however. The New Ones had left behind a strange machine that was set apart from anything else. I knew nothing of it and I could see that neither “the ones that came before” nor The Others knew anything of its use. I wondered at this machine for many cycles.

That night the thumping sound comes once again. The girl awakens instantly and stares up the machine. There is no visible movement of the structure itself, the sound, however, is obviously coming from somewhere deep within its metal interior. It pounds away with a precise mechanical rhythm and then becomes silent once more. The machine now looms silently in the night sky, as if nothing had happened. She continues to gaze up the machine for several minutes, in awe of it.

She looks away finally and then notices something. Near the base of the machine is a small raised spot. In the dark it should have been impossible to see, but the glint from some distant star has managed to reflect in such a way that the girl is able to see it. She walks over to it and squats down, peering at it cautiously.

The raised spot stands out from the rest of the machine by little more than a hair’s breadth. A quick search of the rest of base uncovers no other raised areas. The girl returns to the spot. Shapes and lights flash through her mind, they tug at they very edge of her consciousness, but they slip away before she can catch them. There is great importance here, she now sees. Her hand reaches up, as if making its own decision, and slowly depresses the raised spot.

She steps back and there is silence. A whirring sound begins within the depths of the machine and suddenly there is an earth-shattering boom. The ground around the machine shakes and the girl is thrown to the ground. There is a vast disturbance as dirt is kicked up and rocks fly into the air. After only a minute that shaking has stopped. The girl picks herself up and cautiously looks around. Leading away from the machine is a perfectly straight line.

The line extends as far as the girl can see. It continues towards the horizon in a perfectly straight line. The girl retrieves her pack and then she stops. The machine sits silently. She presses her ear against its side, but there are no sounds anymore. The faint mechanical hum has ceased and the machine is now dead. The girl shifts the pack onto her shoulder and then begins following the line in the sand that was created by the machine.

She walks with the line beside her for many miles. The sun begins to rise at her back. Its illumination spreads across the ground and reveals what was once hidden under the pale light of the stars. Directly in front of the girls is a small building constructed of metal. It gleams brightly as it reflects the sun into the girl’s eyes. She raises her hand to shield herself from the light. It is less than ten feet in front of her and yet she almost missed it.

She walks closer to the building and inspects it. It has no windows and only one door, which is closed. It appears to be only a single room, and it is made of the same material as the giant machine. The door is completely flat, save for a small knob on one side, half-way up. She turns the knob and the door slowly opens of its own accord. Despite the sun, the inside of the building is completely dark, as if the light is fearful of entering. The girl does not hesitate before entering.

The darkness seems to engulf the small girl like a shroud as she enters. Inside the metallic structure it is pitch-black despite a blazing sun shining directly at the open doorway. Behind the girl, the door slams shut with a hollow “clank”. The only sound in the darkness is the quite breathing of the girl. There is a “click” off to one side and then a whirring sound begins in the middle of the room.

A sudden flash of bright light and the girl is now hovering thousands of feet above the surface of a reddish planet. She jumps back in surprise and the planet waivers slightly. She feels a cold metal surface behind her and realizes that her feet are still touching solid ground. It is only an illusion. She breathes a sigh of relief. A small green planet flashes quickly before her eyes before moving off to her side and then around behind her.

From out of the darkness a man in a flowing robe steps into view. He gestures with his hand towards a red planet. “It has been over 5 million years since we left this world behind. We could no longer cope with the strife and hardship that was so common among those there.” A blue gas-giant passes through his upper torso, but the man takes no notice. “We brought together our greatest minds and charged them with the task of developing a way for us to leave this planet behind. In time the technology was perfected and we moved our entire civilization. Our journey took many years and no few of those who left were killed by one thing or another. For five hundred years we searched the cosmos until we found a place suitable for us. We lived there in peace for many years, but in galactic year 3890 we decided to go…”

He brakes off suddenly in mid-speech as he wavers slightly. He begins to fade and then he is gone. Seconds later the image of the red planet and the planets surrounding it also fade away. The sun shimmers, grows dim, and then disappears. The room is once again filled with darkness and silence. Behind the girl, the door slowly sways open.

At the back of the small building the line continues on across the broken landscape. She begins to follow it once more. She walks for several hours and the sun begins its steady climb down from the heights. Ahead of her a sea of white is beginning to form. She quickens her step until she reaches its outer edge. The ground around her feet has changed from light red to an almost pearly white. She reaches down and touches the ground; it is now composed of very small crystals. She picks up a handful of the crystals and touches them briefly to her tongue. Salt. The place where she now stands was once an ocean. The line continues unabated.

Near nightfall, she sees something forming in the distance. She begins to run so that she can reach the place before it becomes completely dark. As she gets closer the blurred image begins to take a definite shape. A city of some sort, she believes. She reaches the city just as the sun passes below the horizon. There is still just enough light left for her to make out the general details of the city.

It is small, having roughly two score structures. Jutting out from the city are jetties that might possibly have been used for harboring ocean-going vessels. The girl approaches the nearest structure and enters it. Inside the building it is completely empty. There are no furnishings anywhere and nothing to indicate that it had ever been lived in or that anyone had ever been inside of it.

She taps one of the walls. It clinks metallically, like the lone structure and the strange machine. She wonders how they could possibly be connected. It has been another long day for the girl and so she decides to go to sleep early instead of exploring anymore.

There was a great upheaval in that time. The ground shook and the storms raged with fierce intensity. The mountains were torn apart and the seas dried up. In some places, however, the sea overcame the land and new seas were formed. The great cities and amazing machines built by The New Ones were destroyed and the peoples were scattered. The strange machine was covered by the waters and lost forever under the tossing waves. Some of “The ones that came first” and The Others came together in one place and became as one. I called them Those of the Sea. They built settlements by the great seas and sent out vessels that floated upon the water to find food. They lived in peace with the creatures of the sea and took only what they needed. The great upheaval, however, had taken its toll upon me. I was weary. I went to be a place to be alone until I was rested. For many cycles, I did not look upon Those of the Sea.

The girl awakens the next morning in the dark, for though the sun has begun to rise there are no windows in the structure that she is in. She eats what is left of the food she brought with her from the cave. There is still some water left, but she knows that she’ll need more before too long. She opens the door to let in some light and stands looking at across the salt flats.

The line in the sand shifts course here and continues on to an as yet undiscovered destination. It’s strange that someone would build a machine that’s only purpose was to create lines in the sand. The girl accepts that things on this world are built for reasons only known to their creators; her only concern is to recover her lost memories and to return to where she came from.

It is a small village. There are only thirty-eight structures in the area and all of them are completely empty. However, in the middles of the sea-side village stands a structure that is set apart from the others. It is different from the other structures in design and it is locked unlike the other buildings. The girl is sure that something important is hidden inside, but can find no way of entering the structure or unlocking the door.

Her hand moves idly along one of the walls when something stops her. Barely visible along the side of the structure is a shape that appears to be an outline of a hand. It has nearly faded away with age. She puts her hand flat against the outline. It’s a perfect fit. There’s a metal click. The doors slides open slowly, metal parts grinding slightly against each other.

The light from the morning sun illuminates the interior of the building; it’s a storeroom, very similar to the one she found in the cave earlier. She finds food and water, carefully preserved for some contingency that never arrived or perhaps for this very day. The young girl shivers at the thought and then turns her attention to the supplies. The girl fills her packs with as much food and water she can carry. The sun is climbing higher in the sky. She carefully closer the door to the storeroom, which locks back with a small click, and is soon on her way.

By midday the sun has become almost unbearably hot and the salt crystals only amplify the waves of heat that waft through the air. The girl takes frequent drinks from her water bottle, but the sun seems to sap away the moisture as soon as it enters her body. Waves of heat rise off the landscape, giving it the appearance of a vast ocean, but there is no water here.

Shapes form in the distance and seem to dance along the horizon. They seem to be beautiful oases full of green trees and cool water. The girl ignores them. In front of her a shape begins to form and though she continues to walk towards it, it does not appear to be moving at all. She stops. There is a reflection of light. She swallows some more water and shakes her head, but the image is still there. She squints her eyes against the bright sun; something is really there.

By nightfall, she is much closer. It is a vast city of steel and concrete, full of giant glass towers that reflect the pale light of the stars. She is still several miles away from it, but its immense size shows nearly every detail. She is tired, however, and decides to sleep out on the plains instead of walking the rest of the way to the city. She closes her eyes and before long she is sleeping soundly.

After the passing of time, I returned. I looked for Those of the Sea, but I could not find them. I searched every sea and every shore, but of them I could find no sign. They simply were no more. I searched everywhere, but there was no one. I searched everywhere, but there was nothing alive. I even searched the great city that had sunk beneath the tossing waves, but its towers and pathways were empty. I was alone. This frightened me. While I watched over Those of the Sea and “the ones that came first” and The New Ones and The Others, I knew that I had a purpose, that there was a reason for my existence. Now that I was alone, I wondered what would become of me. I was alone in the darkness and I felt cold. I wondered if I would soon vanish as well. In the darkness, I wept alone.

That morning the earth shakes, but it does not awaken the young girl. She sleeps deeply and her dreams hold sway over her for some time. At around mid-morning she finally awakens. The shadows from the city have crept across the land. The girl knows now that her journey is coming to a close and her objective is now in sight. She does not know what will happen once she reaches the end, but she is ready. She lifts her pack of food and water onto her shoulder and begins the last day of her long journey.

Just ahead, the shining city stands tall against the uniform landscape. Its spires reach to the very heavens and gleam with a brightness that seems to come from somewhere deep within them. They stand like rows of soldiers, guarding against some unknown foe that will never arrive to do battle.

As the girl gets closer she is able to make out the streets of stone that criss-cross the great city. It is a sight unlike any that she has seen yet seen on this planet.

About an hour before midday, she reaches the outskirts of the city. Now the towers of the city loom over her, creating an ominous mood. She realizes for the first time how small and insignificant she is compared to this city and the people that were once here, and, in fact, the entire planet itself. She is humbled by the mere thought of the millions upon millions of beings who called this world their home and ultimately died here. Also, the grand civilizations that spanned the entire world, and perhaps even beyond that, amassing the wealth and wisdom to build grand cities and advanced machines.

And yet, they too were not immortal, nor where their cultures or their empires. Their time had long since passed and now they were but a distant echo in the sands of time. Even the planet, upon which they had lived, was itself dying. It would soon pass as well, leaving no one to remember that it had ever existed.

Despite the wind from the surrounding desert, there is not a speck of dust anywhere, nor is there anything broken to be seen. The entire city is sterile and utterly empty. The girl continues walking on one of the main avenues that leads directly to the heart of the city. The wind has stopped and there is no movement save those of the girl, it is vastly silent. The sound of her shoes hitting the concrete road echoes through the cavernous streets. The tall spires have blotted out the sun so that hardly any light is able to filter in to illuminate her path. She continues to walk.

Suddenly, the road stops. At its end is a relatively small structure, compared to the ones around it though still larger than any outside of the city. It has no windows, and only one door like so many other structures that she has encountered. She stands directly in front of the door, unsure now what she should do. She is afraid about what might be waiting for her and yet eager to reach the end. Her hand rests on the door knob, shaking slightly. She turns the knob and pushes forward.

Inside the building it is dark, but as she walks forward lights switch on and illuminate her path. The sound of her shoes on the metal floor echoes hollowly off of the surrounding walls. She stops. Ahead of her the lights continue to switch on and finally a large overhead light comes on.

Standing in the middle of the room is a medium-sized space-fairing vessel. Images flash before her eyes. Her stomach churns. She’s seen this somewhere before, but where? Her head reels, she stumbles forward drunkenly. Her hand touches the cool metal of the vessel’s exterior as she tried to keep herself steady. Her vision begins to blur.

The entry hatch on the ship is open. She pulls herself through it and collapses on the floor of the vessel. Behind her, the hatch starts to close. Her vision narrows and darkens, but she hears a voice that echoes through the cavernous room from which she came.

A voice that is strikingly familiar. It is her voice: In my final hours, I saw a tiny point of light shining in the vast and empty darkness. I reached out and took hold of it

As the shuttle I was in sped away from the planet, I felt a sudden welling up of sadness and grief within me, like someone near to me and whom I loved had just passed away. I switched on the rear monitor. The planet from which I had just left was receding in the distance, but something else was happening. It was slowly collapsing on itself; it was dying. Then, it exploded in a gigantic blast that threw large planetary fragments, dust, and gases into space. And then I knew. I knew at that moment that my coming to this place had been no accident. It was beyond my ability to comprehend, but somehow the planet had known that it was dying, and since the native inhabitants had long since perished or left for other worlds, had summoned me. Because of that, the shuttle I was on had crashed and now I was alone, but I could not harbor resent against this ancient being. The worst thing that could possibly happen to any sentient being, I realized then, was to die alone and unremembered.

As the last remnants of the dead world flee out into space past the tiny shuttle, the lone occupant sheds a single tear for the lost beauty of the once majestic world that was now no more. The shuttle is set an auto-pilot with its destination as the girl’s home world. She does not know what she will find when she returns, but she is not afraid.

The End