And the world is on mute.
Mounds of trash litter the street. A giant crane juts up over one of the buildings, dangling a long thick chain in the wind. Okay, I get it. Rune wants me to see the world with no humans on it. But that’s exactly how we’ve been living for the last few weeks. So far, I don’t see a difference from when I lived there.
I shuffle around the garbage and my eye catches a pile of feathers. There are a few piles of them, strewn through the filth on the ground. Squinting my eyes, I try to get a clearer view.
They’re birds. Pigeons. A few squirrels here and there. But there are hundreds of them, some lumped together in heaps, others alone, with their little bird claws reaching up toward the sky, where they once flew.
I don’t like this.
I back away and walk quickly down one of the side streets. Dead birds litter that street as well. When I reach the corner there are more dead things besides animals lying in the streets.
There are people.
Bodies withering and decaying, their faces stuck in expressions of the most excruciating pain I’ve ever seen. Bloody wounds pockmark their arms and legs, their eyes glazed and sunken back into their sockets as if the muscles and tissues behind them just melted away.
I rush into a store, but no one’s inside. Glass doors are broken, glittering shards of multicolored glass over the floor. Shelves are toppled over, dried blood cakes the walls where advertisements of a ‘60% off everything sale’ hang.
Stores, restaurants, theaters; I enter every building but see no one alive. Hurrying along, I find a sidewalk newsstand and grab for a paper.Worldwide, Flu Pandemic Hits! Coronavirus 2.0! Tell Your Loved Ones Goodbye, the headline reads.
A worldwide pandemic?Coronavirus 2.0?That’s what causes the extinction of humans?
The display on my faceplate blinks out.
Is Rune taking the armor off me?
I slap my hands up to my face trying to keep it on. I’m not done looking. I want to run uptown. I want to go to our apartment and see if my family is there. I don’t believe the entire population of the world can just go extinct. There has to be people still there. Plagues can’t happen in the 21stcentury, can they?
My cheeks and lips go numb as the alloy detaches from my skin. I blink my eyes open and Rune is in front of me, holding my helmet.
I ball my hands into fists. “I wasn’t done. I want to go back and see my apartment. I need to see if my father or Claire are still alive. I want to—”
“You can’t. That was a virtual tour, recorded by planetary rovers three months after my ancestors launched into space,” he says steadily.
I rake my hand through my hair and it gets tangled in the knotted strands. “That was in 2056?”
“Yes,” he whispers, tilting his head. “That is your future.”
I force myself to smile, but end up pinching my lips together in annoyance and rubbing my temples. Rune is giving me a headache. “Listen to me clearly,” I say, in a high-pitched voice. “2056 is a future over thirty years frommy now. Don’t you get that? I’ll be old by then, or, my demise could have been from a bus accident in my late twenties. Maybe,” I huff. “Maybe I die in my thirties from an aneurysm or car accident.”
His gaze drops from mine.
“The point is, Rune, I need to get back to my time on Earth and find my sister. And the women here need to be brought back where they belong.”
“And when you find your sister? Is your plan to live out the rest of your life the way you were before you saved me? Scrounging for food and aluminum foil. In a world torn apart and ravaged by Pious?”
How did he know about my father’s obsession with aluminum foil? “How do you know about the foil?” I hiss.
“Do you think mine were the only memories that could be revealed from these faceplates?”
“If you did, if you can know what’s in my mind…then you already know how frantic I am to get back to Claire.”
“Yes, Kate. I do.” He steps forward and lifts my chin up with a finger. “I also know that you’re not completely opposed to mating with me.”
My breath hitches. It’s not like I can even deny it. Obviously, he’s seen my private thoughts. And I’ve seen his.
He lifts my chin up higher, so I can’t look anywhere but into his eyes. “Just promise me when I get you back to Claire, you will seriously give thought to coming back with me.”
“Are you promising to get me back to Claire? And my father?” I say, shifting closer to him.
“I thought that was the mission,” he whispers.
“Say it. Say you promise.”
“With all that I am, Kate. I promise that I will reunite you with your sister and father and try to mend all that Pious has done.” He rubs his thumb softly over my bottom lip.
“Well, okay then,” I whisper.
