CONTRIBUTION: The End of the Road

Take my hand

Take my whole life, too

For I can’t help

Falling in love with you

The year is 2301, and the End of the Road is on the horizon. Humanity’s cruel ambition to blockade life from thriving on Earth has finally succeeded, despite nature’s thwarting attempt to counterstrike. The planet is overrun with smoke, grit, dirt and dust. Food is scarce. Water is polluted. The air is filled to the brim with poisonous gas. Native plants and animals are long gone, drifting off into the Great Beyond, where life can sustain itself without threat of war, or hunger, or greed.

Billions of humans have joined them, mostly during the Siege, when nuclear warships bombed the countries across the globe, spraying debris into the atmosphere and blocking out the sun. Survivors are losing hope. There is nothing in the whole galaxy to stop the End, nothing and no one is coming to save them. They have done this to themselves.

Lysander was just 15 years old when the events of this narrative occurred. He lived to be 17, a great age for a human, who needs air, water, food, and shelter to thrive. It wasn’t long before he was caught, swept up into the night’s hunger pains, thrust into the world of the dead; the Great Beyond. His mother died when he was merely days old, herself, having no birthing care. And his father, who knows? Did he even have one? Was he planted into his mother like they used to plant seeds into the ground?

Lysander was ‘rescued’ by the Beautiful Ones, a group of half-human cyborgs who rule over his city. They looked at him with pity in their eyes, and decided to keep him human, as to preserve the natural order of things. Maybe he could be the start of the New Beginning. Maybe he could be the one to save them.

            Lysander spit the remaining blood into the rusted metal tin at his feet. His mouth was dry, his stomach was empty, and his lungs were coated in a film of grime. He pulled the wet swab of mucus out the corner of his cheek, in the hole where his adult molars should be. He had those removed to ‘save time’ when eating, slurping his allotted amount of gruel three times per week, so he could stick the bowl right up to his lips and drip the liquid onto his cracked tongue. But the scabs were not healing right, and Lysander was worried he would develop an infection. And that would mean the end of him.

            The wind howled into the night, and if the grey smoke clouds weren’t covering the stars, Lysander could have sworn the moon was looking right at him. He cursed under his breath, and he closed his mouth onto a second piece of cloth torn from the hem of his shirt. Pain seared through his jaw, but Lysander couldn’t exactly cry out, for fear that someone would discover him, and then he was really in trouble.

            He was hiding in the old stone houses on the outskirts of the city, where the rotting wood and biting splinters covered him in their veil of solitude and silence. He had to hide, or else the Beautiful Ones would continue with his transformation into one of them. A made-of-metal, law abiding, fuel drinking machine. Lysander did not want to lose any more of his humanity than he already had. Enough was enough, and he had big plans for the evening. He was going to take his own life.

            Lysander did not decide this on a whim, a brief flittering thought that stretched out across the dark void. He had been teetering around with the idea for years; how he would do it, when he would do it, and where he could hide his body to not be resurrected into parts for another unfortunate trainee. He wanted to wait until the last possible second, the last remaining moments of his human life, before passing into the Great Beyond to be with his mother. He had to do this. He had to.

It took two tries for him to stand, his fragile legs weak under the weight of his own body. It was almost time. Lysander crossed over to what used to be a window to triple check for watchers, this wasn’t a show he wanted anyone to see. But instead of seeing any movement from the pillars of dead pines, Lysander was met with the screeching sadness that was his reality. He was, if only briefly, alone.

A silent alarm went off in his head. Was he being watched? No, he looked, there was no one around for miles. But the thin hairs on his scalp stood on end, and he knew; someone was waiting for him to turn. Slowly, he inched his way around to face the inside again. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted it, no, her. She was lying in a pool of fuel, eyes half closed, clutching her rusted innards close to her body. She was dying. And she knew it. And Lysander knew it. And there wasn’t anything either of them could do to stop it.

He reached out his hand to brush a greasy lock of hair off her face. He didn’t ask her name, he didn’t need to, it was Cora. The girl who served him his designated meals. He didn’t know what to do, but what could he do? So, he did the only thing he thought would comfort him in his own demise. He bent down, closed his eyes, and hummed the oldest song he knew. A little off key, a little out of tune, but good enough for Cora to open her eyes briefly and stretch her lips into what looked like a smile before slumping down into Lysander’s arms, dead. It was the End of the Road, but maybe not for him.

Contributed by Olivia Ellisor, Literature