Page 88 of The Brightness Between Us

The reel blips out, and Owl stands in the twilight, staring out at the stars. The comet is bigger than any of them. Big enough to see the radiant gas trail behind it, the glowing coma in front.

She hugs the dad dolls close to her before placing them back on the ground, amid the strewn pieces of the Museum of Earth Civ.

Then she gets back to work.

From behind the malevor carcass, I watch Owl fill the tarp. What I want to do most is to hug her, to tell her how sorry I am, maybe even give her a chance to say that she forgives me. That’s beyond anything I have the right to hope for, and yet I do.

From the way she held that lemon, watched the anniversary reel all the way through, hugged the puppets I madeof the dads, I think shemightaccept me if I went up to her. Even though I tried to murder Dad.

That’s why I can’t let myself do it. I can’t tempt her to remember she loves me. Because I’m still me. Because my brain is still a hostile place. Because if I’m around her, I might try to kill her, too. Scalp her like the hair from a violin bow.

My arms are aching. But I can’t release my bonds. Both because I know it’s a bad idea and because I don’t think I could untie this knot with my teeth. So I just stay on my side, my face in a permanent wince, as I watch Owl load up the tarp with loops of chromium cabling. As she begins lugging it toward theAurora.

Goodbye, Sister.

I wait until she and Father are both at theAurorasite to make my final departure. I don’t feel like I will ever be hungry again, and I certainly don’t deserve to use up any of the precious food stores they’ll pack away in the bunker, beyond the algae planks I’ve already eaten. I do allow myself to draw from the water reservoir, though, bobbing my head to drink straight from the surface. My thirst is too powerful to deny. For a moment I let my whole face submerge, and this time it’s myself my brain imagines killing. But I come up, fighting to live despite my own intentions, my thirst slaked.

Arms behind my back, I start walking. I go south toward the slain malevors, passing between their bodies, stroking each motionless belly with my foot, I guess to commemorate them. I pick this direction because we’ve never gone this way, scared off before by the aggressive beasts. I will travel through a land where humans have never been, and from which this human will never return. Where my family will never think to search for me.

My spirits rise as I go. I guess this is what I needed, taking action, seizing control of my destiny. I will not be responsible for the destruction of my family. They will survive the comet, and I will soon be a distant memory.

It also helps that the trek is beautiful. The comet is still a week away, based on what I overheard from OS and the dads, but the landscape already looks different beneath its radiance. All the bits of quartz and mica and silicone shine and glitter, scattering the colors of the setting Sisters in new directions, casting ruddy light everywhere. The sky is vividly open, like it is a hatch I could tumble through into the universe beyond.

I will miss this land.

I thought my body would have given out by now, but my legs find new energy. Even the pain of my cracked lips and my sunburned face fades from my experience for longperiods. Instead my altered brain offers the sensation of my individual footfalls, my deep breaths, my joyously depleting body.

I am lighter than the atmosphere, I am the duck that never flew, I am the breezes themselves. I don’t know if this is just my mind finally hallucinating from dehydration, but the air smells different from how it ever has. It smells like... blood? No, that’s not it. It smells like tears.

The ground slopes upward at the horizon. I have never seen the ground do such a thing.This, I decide.This is where I will fall. I will discover what is on the other side of this hill before I finally let myself collapse.

It’s like when I was gardening, deciding hours before the end of the workday what my end point would be. The last pea shoot in this line. I can make it to the last pea shoot and then I will watch our latest episode ofPink Lagoon, talk with my sister and the dads, and eat some delicious food.

Today, my last day, I will make it to the top of that rise.

I stumble twice along the way. The second time I have to lie still for long moments, gritting my teeth against the scream in my shoulder where my wrenched arm hit the ground. Then I wriggle my way to my feet, shouting with the exertion.

Ten minutes. Ten minutes more and I will be at the top of that rise.

The smell of tears is even stronger. It’s not just in my mind, I’m sure of it. This is something real. But what is it?

My legs scream as they begin the incline. They tremble, as if I’m lifting something heavy. But that something heavy is just my mortal body, starting to fail to stay upright.

Ten steps more.

Five.

I reach the top and collapse, just managing to muster the energy in my belly muscles to stay seated and not sprawl out. I close my eyes for a long moment, drinking the scent of tears in through my nostrils.

The air is wet.

I open my eyes.

I’m in front of the sea.

I’ve never seen one before, but that’s what this must be. A sea. Thick with minerals, too: it’s the color of iron, all the way to the horizon. Its small waves crash at the shore, a dozen meters below me. I’m seated on a cliff, looking down at a body of liquid that has no end.

I scream, the shock is that great.

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