The Event

43.

"What are you talking about?" I sit up straight.

"Reset the time?" Kaylin's dad gasps.

Kayne and KaRayna share a glance. "It's something I've been working on for a while now." KaRayna says, looking over us all. "I wasn't sure it would be possible, and I'm still working out the kinks, but now that I've got access to all of our data and have other scientist and mechanics to work with, I feel pretty confident I'll be able to rework the specifics to reset time one more time before I destroy all of the information to ensure that this never all happens again."

"It will still be months, maybe even a year or more before we'd be able to do it." Kayne says. "We still have to gather our forces and release the other Mundi and exiters before we could mess with the time. We'll need every single one of them for our plan to work."

"What plan?" I snap. "I don't understand how you have all of this stuff planned and I'm just now hearing about it all."

"Rowan," Kayne comes over to me. "I didn't want to say anything too soon. We weren't sure yet what would happen and the last thing we wanted to do was get any of your hopes up for something we couldn't deliver. Not after everything you've all already been through."

"So what does this mean for us?" Matty asks.

KaRayna steps forward. "If we're successful with uniting the Mundi and the exiters, then we would join our forces and use the same traveling methods with only a few minor mechanical changes to travel back to the day that our ships originally arrived here. In doing so, we can fight them and end it all before they have a chance to hurt anyone on this planet. They won't be expecting us, and we can finally put this all to rest."

"So all of this..." Tommy says.

"Would be like it never happened." Jorah nods.

"There'd be no mass genocide. There'd be no deaths. There'd be none of this that has happened. We could stop it all before it begins and that work with your government to ensure that it can't happen again." Kayne tells the group, looking at me.

"But what happens to us?" Kaylin asks and Kayne sighs.

"That's why we are having this conversation." KaRayna says. "If we choose to do this, you all would be back in the exact time and place that you were before any of this happened."

"So we wouldn't...remember?" Tommy asks, shaking his head. "We'd forget all of this? Each other?"

"Unlike in the original traveling methods that left people behind, the way I'm working on would be more like a reset. This whole span of time would dissolve away into nothing. Only the ones traveling back would remember anything from this time. You'd all be back to being the exact same as you were the day the ships arrived. But this isn't our decision to make." KaRayna crosses her arms. "It's up to you all what you want to do, but this is the best chance we've got at correcting all the wrongs that were done."

We all look around at each other. "How can we just forget all that happened here? How can we just forget each other after all we've been through together?" I say, my eyes watering as I look around at each of their faces.

"I know it sounds awful, but..." Kayne pauses. "Think of all you'd be getting back. All of you. Your families would be alive again. Your friends. Your lives would be back."

That's when it sinks in.

Mom, Jeremy, my home, my city, my world could be back. Not just mine, but everyone's. Every person here has lost so much and we could have it all back. But at the cost of this experience and the friendships we've gain along the way.