Because We Had Us

Chapter 24. The Last Everything

Jo

     My body dragged across the ground, my breath became short and choppy, but I had to find him. I wasn't dying for nothing he was going to live, even if I didn't. The colors remaining started to blur together. It became almost impossible to find him, for his color was black and all the colors were starting to fade, though I wasn't sure how. Ruth's disappeared because I saved her, but the red who was that? Laz? Did he make it out on his own? Something told me my sister had something to do with it. I smiled through the pain because of her.

     Though most people would see her as limited and disabled I saw her for who she truly was, and I believed she too was saving our friends. At first my mission was to find her first and foremost, but I couldn't leave Ruth alone to die, despite our history. Finding Miriam was extremely hard, for her sweet sweet laugh was the only thing I had to guide me, but why was my sister joyful, while the others were in pain? I believed Miriam's maze was the same as her every day life. She was always in her head constantly, and she lived in the darkest parts. This was normal to her, and she chose to find joy through it.

     It was especially hard to locate her since technically she didn't have a color, after all we snuck her onto the ship alongside Corin, so I started searching there: The black walls, which grew by the minute. Her laugh faded along with the last set of colored walls. I hoped and prayed that the silence was a sign that she had made it out.

     The only color remaining in my poor sight was black. Everywhere I turned the eerie pitch black walls surrounded me, taunting me to travel along their never ending trails of darkness. But I refused to give up. I had to find him. Our promise to take care over each other played through my head on repeat. I still heard his faint whimpers, so on my hands and knees I felt my way blindly along the ground.

     It felt like a metaphor of the past few months was being played out before me. I was always lost in the dark desperately searching for the light, never knowing what awaited me ahead.

     "Heh," I chuckled at the irony. If the metaphorical dark couldn't stop me then the literal couldn't either. My once smooth, untouched hands scraped across the floor that was so cold. The mind really was a powerful thing.

     "Thats it," I whispered to myself. What if I can regain control of my mind? I closed my eyes and imagined the walls around me disappearing, the dark turning to light, but when I opened them nothing had changed.

     "Come on Jo," I urged myself. "I am in control." When I opened my eyes again the walls slowly started to fade, but so did my health. "Just a little longer," I winced. "Focus." The dark began to lighten, and everything around me began to crumble. My head felt as if a thousand little fires were lit inside of it, and my body began to loose feeling. I wasn't going to make it much longer; I started to loose hope, but then I saw him.

     Fixated on the shadows that taunted and teased him. The deepest darkest shame, regret, and hurt toyed with him again and again. He was face down on the ground, quiet with only the sound of his shallow breath filling the space.

     "Corin," I choked out as comforting as a dying person could. "Look at me." With my frail arms I lifted his head to face me. He looked too far gone. A rush of unwanted emotions hit me in a wave all at once. I couldn't breathe as the rage washed through me. For a moment all I could think about was the hatred, the revenge plan I was playing out over and over again in my head for COA, but then my piercing headache and throbbing limbs reminded me that I wouldn't make it out to see that plan through; so I breathed a deep breath in and out releasing the boiling fury inside of me.

     But releasing the anger only brought on the next wave of emotions: extreme sadness. My tears began to puddle beneath me, as I held him close stroking his hair. "No!" I screamed at the lifeless figure I once loved beneath me. "You don't get to leave me, you don't get to leave us, we need you."

     My selfish words only reminded me of his kind ones he spoke over me as he thought I was dying. "It's ok to go," he told me. He tried to let me go in peace so why couldn't I do the same for him? Was I too selfish? Was I too stubborn? Maybe I was just in love. That feeling inside of me that pushed me to lay down everything just so he could live, was that love? If so why fight it? Sacrifice is the opposite of selfishness right? That's what I chose to believe.

     My words rung through my dying brain, and reminded me of my enemy's familiar words. "There's always a loophole to everything." I just had to find it. While these people truly did seem terrible, I suspected a sense of humanity left in them, and if I was right then that would mean that if someone actually died in here then they would be burdened with the guilt of it.

     What if the loophole is their own humanity? It was worth a shot. I mustered up all of the strength I had left and pulled both Corin and I against the remains of the walls behind us.

     "Jo," he weakly whispered my name.

     "Shh it's all right I got you," I whispered to him as a tear rolled down my face. "I got you." I could never actually tell Corin what I was about to do because then he would use every last drop of strength left in him trying to stop me, so I just held him close whispering words of comfort to him. Before I let go I slipped a note into the pocket of his jumpsuit which would explain everything when he woke up. My handwriting was probably illegible, for it was already bad so the dilemma of writing in the dark couldn't have helped it.

     I had so many things I wanted to say to him, but I couldn't find the right words to be our last. I didn't think there was such a thing as the right last words because there was nothing right about them being the last, so instead I leaned in close and completed errand number three, that was interrupted may times before: kiss. His lips against mine, made me feel invincible and almost made me forget we were dying. I never wanted to let go because that would mean our first kiss would also be our last, but I had to. A small smile appeared on his face and he tried to talk, but I could tell it caused him to much pain.

     "Shhh it's ok don't try to talk," I began, "Just think about the glass bridge, and how its beauty was mesmerizing." He tried to speak agin, but I held my finger to his lips. "I know, I know what you would say here," I weakly laughed chocking up. "You would try to use one of your lame pick up lines and say something like, yea its beauty was mesmerizing but I couldn't take my eyes off you." He smiled at me and squeezed my hand. "Then I would blush and try to act cool by brushing off your compliment with some sarcasm, that you taught me by the way."

     His grip started to loosen and he started to look weaker, so I cut our story short, just as life was doing. "But Cor in the end behind all the lame pick up lines, sarcasm, and smirks we love each other until the end and in eternity just like you said, and even though this isn't the way I wanted my first epic love story to end it has to be this way." I paused and kissed him on the forehead one last time, though I wasn't sure he knew what was going on. "Don't be too mad at me and tell Miriam I love her so much ok?" I forced a smile. "And promise me you'll look after them all, oh who am I kidding I know you will that's why I can go."

     So with an epic ending I closed my eyes and laid beside him, his hand in mine. I stopped fighting, I let go, I let the world fade around me. I thought about the words of the COA doctor from back on Earth. He told me that to survive I had to embrace the resolute in me. Though he may say I failed at embracing it I think I embraced it to the fullest. Resolute meant determined or unwavering, and though I was letting myself go it wasn't out of a loss of hope; but out of unwavering love for a human being, for all of them.

     My life didn't flash before my eyes like rumor says, but another wave of feelings did. I was scared to die, I was guilty for leaving them, but the feeling that allowed me to drift off peacefully into death, into my new life was the love I felt for all of them and the love they felt for me.