Until the end of the world

“At last alone!”, said Lena victoriously, walking by her husband Trevor’s side.

“Yes, free from the monotony and smog of Camineet”, said Trevor, admiring the countryside.

  “And free of Mother Brain”, added Lena.

  “Especially that”, emphasized Trevor.

The young couple was enjoying their well-gained holidays. After two years of hard- work, only resting at the weekends, they deserved a good holiday, away from the big city.

  It was a nice scene: a young couple, in their late twenties, walking under the autumn sun, the grass full of colored leaves… idyllic.

  “It was a great idea to spend our holidays in an antique place. It seems time has stopped here”, said Lena.

  “Yes. Gothic is like the forgotten area of Palma. All the other cities have developed through time, but Gothic stays as it was hundreds of years ago. It had only developed the necessary things. It is not like in Camineet and Parolit, where you can find that computer dependence. Maybe that’s why there isn’t so many people here: there isn’t high technology, only a few computers, a teleport station, the necessary technology, not more”, said Trevor, like telling a fairy tale; it was almost impossible for modern people to think in a town without high-technology. The modern society had to live at least with five computers, a visiphone and a big screen connected to all that. Of course it wasn’t obligatory to feel that Gothic was an "antique" town, but it turned to that when people began to become lazy, product of all the comfort that technology and Mother Brain gave them.

  “It’s a real irony”, continued Trevor, “but a millennium ago, a laboratory was located here. The chronicles of that time talk about a scientist that made spaceships. It’s… odd. I can’t remember his name…”, said Trevor doubtfully, concluding his small History speech.

  “Oh, God! They all warned me about this. It’s one of the biggest risks you take when you decide to marry a Historian: free History classes!”, said funnily Lena. They both laugh.

  “Well, don’t blame me. It’s one of my passions”, he said, defending himself. “Besides, when you start talking about how we can stop the pollution in the northern part of Palma, for example, you are unstoppable.”, he said, following her game.

  “But it isn’t too often”, she replied innocently. Her green eyes were shining naughtily, as her intention was. It was a great contrast with her red hair.

  “But when you start…”, followed Trevor.

They sat down laughing. Trevor lay down on the grass, which was full of colored leaves, product of the season: Fall. Lena was sat down, playing with a leaf. After some moments, she asked him

    “Trevor, do you love me?”

  Her husband sit up immediately, like pushed by something, and facing her eyes he answered worriedly, “Of course I do. Why do you ask?” But he didn’t wait for a reply.

  “It was because of my jokes, right? Hey, I didn’t want to call you “parrot”. I know that you are not that.”

  “Oh, what have I done? I just asked”, she said regretfully.

  “I don’t show it, that’s it”, he said, moving his head away from Lena, a bit offended.

  “Oh, I love how much you care of me”, she said lovely, trying to calm him down. “I’m a fool. I don’t know why I had asked that. I know that you’ll be by my side forever, until the end of the word, so what proof do I need?”, she said, hoping to convince her husband. And it worked.

  “You remember it”, he said half seriously, half friendly. “ I told you that when I asked you to be my fiancée…”, he said, in fond remembrance. His eyes showed a special bright.

  “Of course I remember it! How could I forget that moment?”, said Lena excited, and as offended by her husband’s question. “ You take me to the outskirts of Camineet and then you just said <<Would you marry me?>>, as it was the most common thing in the world. It was a lovely moment”, remembered Lena, like reviving a dream.

  “My proposal was very original, wasn’t it?”, he asked cheerfully; “Outside the city, under the sunset, under the first night stars…”, he whispered.

  “Yes, it was gorgeous…”, whispered Lena.

  Both of them seemed lost, reviving the same dream. It took them some minutes to awaken from that dream, that beautiful and important moment for them, to return to their reality. A reality where they were together, sharing their life for ever… Some minutes later, Lena returned to that reality, and hugging her husband, she said full of emotion,

  “I love you, Trevor”

  “I love you, too”, he whispered, and then he kissed her.

  They sat down and chatted for a while. They spent their time planning new things for them: the idea of making their own family, to start their project of life, and to see the things that life had prepared for them. Everything seemed perfect: the young, happy couple under the autumn sun, the grass filled of yellow, red, orange, and even green leaves…

But the idyllic moment was interrupted by screen and computer noises. The couple sat up and started to look from where the noises were coming.

 “It seems they came from the city. What can be happening there?”, asked worried Lena.

  “Let’s go and see”, suggested Trevor, trying to hide his own fears.

  They hurried to the city. It was real mess: people running everywhere, all kind of noises, papers and things all over the road, doors wide opened, it seemed another city.

  “Excuse me, what has happened here?, asked Trevor politely to a passer-by.

  “Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard the alarms?”, asked the man surprised.

  “No, until some minutes ago. We were outside the village”, said worried Lena.

  “It seems that something is going to crash with Palma!”, exclaimed the man. “Well, that’s my own conclusion. They told us to go to the spaceship that is located in the other side of the city. It’s obvious that it’s an emergency!”, he said, excited. “Hey, hurry up! You won’t get a seat if you stay here!”, he suggested, while running to the main road.

  “Thanks!”, mumbled Trevor. But the man couldn’t hear them, he was already far from them.

  “What are we going to do now?”, asked horrified Lena.

  “Let’s find the ship”, suggested Trevor coldly, holding tightly his wife’s hand and running.

  “So, the government always knows more than what it says”, analyzed Lena, while running. “I just thought they were being paranoid, but this showed me I was wrong”.

  “At least they told us about the spaceships”, said Trevor ironically.

  “Yes, you are right”

  They continued running for some never-ending blocks, until they reached the place where the ship was. A crowd was standing in front of one of the ships’ domes. It was immense. It was like a metal ball, the upper part recovered with something that looked a lot like a special type of glass. A guard was standing in front of the door, checking the passengers and taking control of the queue.

  “We’ll never make it if we stay here. Let’s try in another dome”, suggested Lena.

  But they were exactly in the same condition of the first one or worse. When they returned to the first doom, after trying in the others, they saw a little group arguing with a soldier, who was trying to close the gates.    

  “What ‘s happening here?”, asked Lena to an old lady. She thought she could accept any kind of explanation now. She had so little hope within her…

  “They say the dome is full. We can’t enter. They say that the ship wouldn’t resist more people on it”, answered the lady gently.

  Soon, little groups of people were coming from other directions: the ship was full.

  “What are we going to do now?”, asked a voice.

  “If we hurry we can get to Bortevo. It’s the nearest town from here”, suggested a heavily built, middle-aged man. He had black hair and a big, black moustache.

“That’s a good idea! Let’s take some vehicles!”, agreed a young man.

 Soon Lena and Trevor found a seat in one of the cars. They were a group of 20 or 25 people in an old Land-Rover.

  “It’s always the same”, said a woman. “We are always the last ones. I’m sure that all the citizens from Camineet and Parolit are already wandering through the space in their big, luxurious ships, some miles away from here…”

 “Government!”, exclaimed ironically a young man. “They said they were going to build all the ships necessary to evacuate all the people of Palma in case of an invasion. Ha! We only had one… and very small”.

“They were building them, only that they hadn’t expected this event… too soon”, said a man, who seemed to have a blind love for the government. That love could be seen in the way he spoke.

  “ ‘Too soon’, uh?”, replied ironically the young man. “So they expected an invasion or emergency, after all? Damn government! They are patetic puppets controlled by a computer!”, he said violently. It was obvious that an argument was about to start.    

  “Trevor?”, Lena whispered sadly, with the argument between the “anarchist” and the “government lover” as background noise. Besides of that, the rest of the passengers were silent.

  “Yes?”, he replied thoughtfully.

  “Will we be able to do it?”, she asked nervously. “What if the ships aren’t in the proper conditions?”. Her brain started to throw her lots of possibilities, all of them negative, and she only got more nervous than before.

  “Shhh… darling, don’t worry, everything will be OK”, said Trevor calmly, then he kissed softly her head. He tried to sound and seem calm, but he was also fighting with his own desperation.  

  “The guard told me that there are only a few seats, maybe 60 or so. So, how many are we?”, asked the man with the moustaches to the group. From the beginning, he had taken the place of chief. Now they were all standing in front of another dome, in Bortevo.

  “One hundred thirty, or so”, replied a woman.

  “Well, we’ll have to make a selection”, said “Moustache”, “What about ‘women and children first’?”, he asked to the crowd.

  “I think it would be better if we select families. It would be less painful if we don’t divide them. It’s more than enough compared with the fact that we won’t live here anymore”, said a woman, holding her child next to her.

  “Well, that’s a good idea”, said Moustache. “What do you think?”, he asked to the rest of the group.

  They agreed with that idea. After choosing the families, they went to the other side of the city. A guard told them that there were two more spaceships there.

  They reached one of the spaceships. It was a very small one, and there were space for only 20, 30 people in the whole ship, in different domes.

  The few of them that had remained, about fifty persons, went to the last spaceship, their last hope… It was a very sad and silent journey. Lots of families have been divided, friendships interrupted…

  Soon, they reached the last ship. It seemed to have space for everyone, in different domes.

The groups split up into smaller sub-groups.

  It all seemed perfect, until Lena’s turn.

  When she was going up the stairs, a guard appeared and started to close the door.

  “What’s the matter? Let us enter!”, yelled Trevor to the guard.

  “Sorry, there’s no more space here in this dome. Besides, we have to start the engines.”, said the guard coldly, looking at Trevor fiercely.

  “You said there was space for all of us in the dome!”, shouted another man.

  “Sorry, we counted bad. The dome won’t resist. I’m sorry”, the guard apologized, but it was as cold as a machine, exactly as a robot.

  A feeling of sadness and despair invaded the area. The rest of the group stood there, silent. But they couldn’t go to another dome; the ones who couldn’t get a seat were already by their side.

  Lena turned back and faced her husband. Her eyes were full of sadness and doubt. Suddenly, she got off the ship running, crying.

  “Let another to take my place!”, she shouted to the group, before meeting Trevor and hugging him.

  Trevor couldn’t understand what was happening. While some other person was taking the place that Lena abandoned and the guard was closing the gate, he asked her severely, “Why did you do it? You could have escaped with them”.

  She raised her head, until her sobbing eyes met her husband’s ones and answered, sobbing, “I just couldn’t do it. I thought I wouldn’t survive thinking that you were dead, far away from me. Besides, I wasn’t going to leave you here. If I’m to die, I want to do it by your side.” Then, smiling weakly, she whispered, “‘Until the end of time, until the end of the world’, do you remember?”

  He hold her tightly and just whispered, “Oh, I love you, I love you!!” His tears were now joining hers. As the rest of the group was going into the city, they went to the outskirts. Little minutes later, the spaceship, their last hope, disappeared in the sky.

  They wandered through the outskirts of Bortevo for some time, silently, side by side. After some minutes, some never-ending minutes, they saw a hut… and someone outside, a few meters away from where they where.

  They hurried to the hut. Maybe there was their last chance, their last hope. An old, strange man was next to the door, sitting in an old, wooden chair.

  “Hey, what happened to you? Hadn’t you heard the alarms?”, asked both worried an tired Trevor.

  The man smiled and said, “Oh, yes, I had. But I didn’t go. I am an old man, I have lived so many years and I’m happy with that… I know that someone younger would enjoy it more than I would. Besides, I love this place, Palma. I can’t leave it. All my family rests here…”, the man said, looking at the horizon. Then, he continued, “Afterwards, we are all going to die, sooner or later, it’s a fact… so why do I have to avoid my destiny?”, he asked wisely.

  Both Trevor and Lena stayed there, silently, not knowing what to do or to say. They found out that they also loved Palma, but they wanted to go on living. Then, the man just said, “Besides, if I would like to escape, it’s too late. All the spaceships have already left the planet”.

  “All of them?”,  Lena asked breathless.

  “I guess so. It was a nice show in the air. All that ships flying to nowhere with the same objective: to escape”, replied the man.

  “So, we’ll have to tell the others”, said Trevor, “It will be a terrible thing for “Moustache” and the others.”

  “What? Are there others?”, asked the man surprised.

  “Yes, we are like 25 or so”, answered Lena.

  “I’m really sorry for you”, said the man sadly. After a few moments he suggested, “Maybe you’ll think that I’m mad, but why don’t you go and tell the others to come? I have prepared a delicious tea.”

  They looked at each other, amazed. It was an odd idea, but it was also nice.

  “Well… Thanks”, said surprised Lena. “We’ll tell them.”

  “Oh, thanks”, said the man. “Feel free to come.”

  “Thanks”, said Trevor, before leaving the hut. They went to the city, thinking of a way to tell them the others the news and the strange proposal of the odd man.

  They found the others easily. They were in what once was a Teleport Station, trying to communicate with someone. That image knocked them down. How were they going to tell them that all the spaceships have left the planet when they still had hope?

  Moustache turned back and greeted them, saying, “Oh, there you are. Where have you been? We are now trying to communicate with someone” But he stopped when he notice the sadness in their faces, and the tears in Lena’s eyes. “Hey, what’s wrong with you? Have you already give up?”, he asked worried.

  Trevor told him in low voice what the old man told them, included the invitation. Moustache turned pale and exclaimed amazed, “What?!? He must be mad, it can’t be true!”  

  With that exclamation, a scream to be exactly, the whole group turned back and went to where they were.

  “So now, what are we going to do?”, asked terrified a middle aged woman, after learning their situation.

  “I’m not going to die, not yet!”, yelled the “anarchist”. “I’m not going to please them! I won't please that damn computer! There must be another spaceship somewhere. I’ll go to Loar! Don’t give up! You are free to join me. And to the others, good luck!”, he said violently.

  Almost half of the group joined him, included his “enemy”, the “government lover”. Moustache stayed with the other half.

After the others had left and the rest disappeared in different directions, he went to where Lena and Trevor where and asked them, “Why didn’t you leave? You are young, you have the hole life to live…”

  They looked at each other, like searching the answer in the eyes of the other. After a while, Trevor answered, “We don’t know. We gave up, maybe. But what we want is to be together forever. I love her so much, that without her I consider my life as a waste of time. I have found happiness by her side. So, by her side I still feel hope. Of course I would like to go on living, but there’s nothing I could do”. He looked at his wife, who had a big smile; just as the ones she had an hours ago, under the autumn sun.

  “It’s very nice”, Moustache just said, thoughtfully.

  “And you, why didn’t you leave?”, asked Trevor.   

  “I just gave up. I knew that there was no way out of this when our spaceship left, but I tried to deny it. And then, when you come and told me what the old man said, my hope disappeared. It wasn’t very nice”, Moustache answered sadly, still thinking about something. “At least, I know that my wife and children are all right. They were able to do it”.

  “I’m so sorry”, whispered Lena. 

  “Oh, don’t worry, I’m OK”, he said, coming back to reality. “Well, now I’ll leave you. I’ll go with that man. It was a pleasure to meet you, to try to escape with you”.

  “We are also pleased to have met you”, answered Trevor. “Good luck”.

  “Thanks; the same to you”, Moustache said. He turned back and after some moments, he disappeared from their sight.

  “What about a walk under the autumn sun?”, proposed Trevor, looking at nowhere, as nothing had happened, offering his arm to his wife.

  “I’d love that”, she accepted, taking his arm.

  Soon, they were in the outskirts. They walked slowly, silently, pressing the leaves as the first – or last – time. They started to chat, enjoying the beautiful sight they had.

  Suddenly, the sky started to change its color to light orange. Trevor pushed Lena to the floor, and then he hugged her tightly to his chest. Her tears were running down her cheeks, meeting Trevor’s ones, and joining them as one. He tried to be calm.

“Dear, calm down, calm down”, he whispered nervously.  

“I love you Trevor. With all my heart.”

“I love you, too, Len; I love you.”

“Thanks for everything, dear.”

“I’ve told you I was going to be by your side forever.”

“I’ve never doubted it”, she said smiling weakly, between her tears. “Together…”

“Until the end of time, until the end of the world.”, he said calmly. He kissed deeply, trying to stop his own tears.

In matter of seconds, the sky turned reddish faster. In a few seconds, an object impacted with Palma. It was the end of Algo’s brightest jewel.

  Out in the space, a group of people was standing in front of a giant window, from where they saw the end of Palma.

 The one that looked like the Principal said, “A great work, Mother Brain. Only you could have done a work like this one.”

 “Thanks”, said a female but metallic voice. “Just as you planned it”.

 “You are right, just as planned”, replied the Principal.

 “But what about the ships?”, asked another voice.

 “Don’t worry about them. They won’t go far”, replied the Principal, with a strange smile in his mouth.

The End

Author Notes: I know, maybe when you finished it you thought that it had lots of common points with Titanic and other dissaster-love films, Well, I have to say that I hadn't think in that till the second version of the fic (I always add more things when I read it). So, it isn't a copy of Titanic placed in the PS2 universe. I just wanted to say that. I hope you have enjoyed it. Oh, and if you see some gramatical horrors, tell me, please.