Alive

The End

2 Weeks Later

I'm sitting in my English class. It's the last day of school, and we're playing a game to celebrate the successful year. I'm having fun. Not much changed in the last 2 weeks since Goshi told me the truth; I'm still scared and I still don't know how to handle things.

Even as the last bell rings for the last time this school year, even as Ross and Nakya flank me as we walk out of the school, I still dread the start of eighth grade, still dread the thought of growing a day older. Because that means that I come closer, every day, to the fate that was set on my shoulders the day I was created.

Although, I guess it hasn't been a very long time since I was created, has it?

Either way, I'm still scared.

But something has changed: I know better now.

I know that Goshi never meant to frighten me or make me apprehensive in any way any at all. I know he was just telling me the truth, and as petrifying as that is, I'm glad he did.

I don't know what decisions I'll make that will keep Yogoyoshi's empire thriving, but I realize as I say good-bye to my friends, promising to communicate with them during the summer, that I'll just have to cross that bridge when I actually get to it.

I leave them and start heading to my own house, peace in my mind.

Like I said, I don't know what decisions I'll make, but I just have to keep believing, and I can promise myself that I always will. I will do anything to keep this empire thriving, and when it is time, I know that me or other replicas of me will give this role to somebody else.

In the meantime, however, I'm glad to have this job. I know that I will still have people out in this world that love me, no matter what I do, and that thought is reassuring.

Yogoyoshi was a brilliant man. He wanted to die fighting, and that's exactly what he did. He saved the environment, really, and that's amazing.

No matter what mistakes he made, he created a race that could save the planet. He knew that Earth's time was not up, and he fought to salvage what was left. He did what not many people of his time would have considered right or sane or even necessary, but he fixed a problem that has been the biggest for a long, long time.

He thought of every which way this could go, and he still managed to do what he had planned all along.

He wanted to save what seemed to already be gone. He wanted to keep it alive for a race of peoples he created. He knew that my kind was, is, alive. He knew it. So he kept on going for us.

Yes, Yogoyoshi was probably the greatest man to ever live, and I will always try to live up to his un-found glory. The truth is, though, that I might not. But I'm okay with that.

Because no matter what happens, I know I will always be what I was meant to be. I will always be what he wanted me to be.

I will always be alive.