Mortality

by Seven


Disclaimer:  Earth: Final Conflict and its characters are copyrighted by Tribune Entertainment Company.  All rights reserved.



Notes from Author: First-person fanfic from Zo'or's point-of-view.



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The twilight is falling outside.

The pain is still wrenching me apart, more than I have ever felt before. But I can bear it. I must bear it.

Kincaid fell asleep not long ago, draped over the chair. He looks far younger than he usually does, when he sleeps. Every now and then he murmurs or stirs, but does not wake. I simply watch him, trying to keep my mind off what is happening to me.

I am dying.

Kincaid constantly reassures me that he will find a way back to civilization, but I fear he will not in time. But it has given me time to reflect, on how I never have before.

It is almost amusing... humans live such a short while. He can hope to live a tenth of the time I have already lived... and I am very young. Yet he will outlive me. Scant hours ago, I thought that I would outlive him. In some ways, humans are far more fragile than Taelons. Yet he lives, and I die.

And I have failed. Failed my species, by not being able to continue, to survive. What will happen to them?

Wind is rustling the tree branches. The air is cooling with the approach of night. I never noticed the beauty of it before... perhaps because I was never forced to look.

This one is just filled with significant images.

****

A wasteland, dark and lifeless. The sky above was clouded, roiling with a storm about to waken.

Alone.

Zo'or shivered a little in the cold, looking around himself at the hills and valleys surrounding him. He was alone... he could see for miles in this hellish place. There was no one in this world, at least no one near him.

Slowly, he began to walk, into the wind that sent the fine dust dancing across the ground. His bright blue eyes squinted shut at the rush of freezing air that hit his face. Then he heard it—a voice. Calling his name, over and over, almost pleadingly.

"Zo'or?"

Da'an. His parent, his only parent. The voice was coming from one of the hills, where a shadowy figure was standing. Zo'or stared up at the figure, shaking a little as it extended a hand toward him. "Come," the figure whispered, its features still indistinct in the swirls of gray that shrouded it.

For a moment, Zo'or wanted to take the hand. He stared up, then shook his head and continued on the cold, lonely path onward.

And then he heard it. A cry, a thin wail wafting over the hills. The cry of a child, calling for its parent.

Me, calling for me, Zo'or thought, his eyes widening. It was his child, he knew—calling for him.

He began to move more quickly, the winds dying down as he moved. The child's cry was becoming fainter, and a thin touch of panic threaded through his soul. Where are you? he called inwardly, urgency rising as the cry faded to a whisper. How can I find you?

The cry died away. Zo'or stopped dead, his arms hanging at his sides as he looked at the sky... and his eyes flew open. The gray-clouded sky dissipated into a sea of stars...

He was in his own chair, on the mothership. The wasteland was gone, replaced with the usual dimmed bridge, Volunteers drifting in and out of the room on errands... his usual life. But not the one that he knew he wanted.

You... are only in my dreams.