After The Night

Chapter 1

We were running.

He was ahead of me, leaping through the thick emerald bushes under the bright moon filled sky.I was running behind him, barely keeping up through my laughing, leaping and stumbling forward.

He was calling out with joyful shouts; “It’s just up ahead!”

“I’m coming.” I exclaimed, propelled by his excitement.

My words, falling out with life and joy wrapped up.

I was sweating, my hair stuck to the sides of my flushed face, yet embraced by the cool midsummer night air.

Suddenly he stopped and I fell forward into his arms.

He was gazing ahead at the open meadow, the luminous full moon shone on every flower, their faces raised in hallelujah, in the middle of the meadow was a large tree, an Oak Tree he had called it. He pulled me close to him, I held on tight, breathing deep the night air. We held hands as we walked forward, toward the tree, as we walked, barefoot, my feet felt every sensation, so different than the boots I normally wore, on cold steel surfaces.

“Look.” he pointed up, just in time for me to see a shooting star whisk its way across the sky.

I traced its descent, making as many wishes as I could before it fell from view. Making wishes was one thing he taught me in these last few months, one thing of many I never knew existed in life. But this life, was different than the one I knew before. As I thought about this between my wishes, I fingered the silver heart necklace that lay against my neck.

“Here we are” he whispered.

We laid a blanket down and pillows, our bed for the night.

“Do you think this is what the island is like?” I asked.

“Yes.” he whispered with quiet assurance. “I do.”

His words like a blanket over me as I laid next to him snuggling in to his neck, smelling deep his smell of fire and wood and trees, my eyes, heavy.

The last thing I remember.

A soft twinkle of sounds filled the air, a whooshing so familiar, and then a voice;

“It is 6:00, the day is the 66th day of the year 2120, your temperature is 98.9, a little elevated. You are perspiring, oxygen 98, heart rate 88, elevated, must calm down, will add extra doses this morning.”

My eyes felt too heavy to open.

“What was that voice?”

I turned to face Jesse, but he was gone, instead I felt plastic, my face smushed up against the side of my steel pod. I saw the blue soft light of my room, my pod was opening.

A sudden welling of something inside of me came up, my eyes burned, I didn’t know what was happening, just that I wanted to run, wanted to run like in my dream, but not with joy, with pain, escape.

“Time for dressing, put on uniform Dawn, must get to work. Do not forget your daily dosage.” The robotic voice jilted my attention. I quickly put on my grey uniform, my black boots, suddenly I felt my feet in grass, I pushed the thought away, eyes burning again.

“Dosage not taken.” The robotic voice reminding me, the lights in my cell turned red, as they did when a protocol was not followed at the required time.

I stared down at the three black pills. One for nourishment, one for H2O consumption for the day, and one to keep us healthy, without will.

Something inside of me knew I would not be taking them today, but somehow I had to make it look like I did. I grabbed the pills and stuffed them into the side of my boots. My door beamed open, and as I stepped out I ran my hand over my bald head.

I headed to my work cell. Here my job was to go through the past histories of the past world and incinerate everything found that wasn’t catalogued in our history of our new world of Edorh. I loved my work, because I could see into what happened before. How the world before was evil and had to be destroyed by the great fires and wars, and how our great leader, Kadroh saved us and brought us all underground before it was too late. He said our world was under what was once the great city of Seattle. A great city before the worldwide pandemic of 2020, which gave way to mass segregation of peoples, and then the great earthquakes, and finally the two world wars, World War 3 and 4. The world above was now toxic, and completely uninhabitable. There was no “water”, as people once drank I remember reading, hence why we take the H2O pill.

I suddenly saw him, Jesse. “Here, this will help.” His face inches from mine, as he held out a grey cup. “Have some water.” He said gently. I shook my head back and forth, he must be trying to poison me. My eyes were shut tight, trying to keep out the pain. “Open your eyes.” He said.

The without will pill was to keep what happened before from ever happening again.

Suddenly the cell door opened and Eric came in, my partner for life. He and I were both raised in the human room together and both on the same work path.

“Hey, you okay?” He asked seriously.

“Yeah, why?” I asked.

“You’re just staring at the screen.”

“Oh, I was just thinking.” The hotness behind my eyes kept coming, my throat felt tight, maybe it was because I should have taken the pills.

“Open your eyes.” He whispered.

I rubbed my face and got back to work.

I scanned and deleted throughout the day. When suddenly I saw it.

The heart necklace from my dream, it was on a human, a little older than me in a photograph, they called it. She was smiling, next to another human. Her brown wavy hair reminded me of my dream. I looked at the caption.

“Aurora and Harry Darling of Seattle, Washington and their son, Edward.”

I looked down and saw a young human, his eyes so familiar, and then I saw my own in the reflection of the screen, so familiar because they were just like my own. And the necklace, how could it be?