Future Regrets

I remember the night we left our lives behind. So long ago. Much longer than the days I’ve actually lived here. Now. In the future.

Even back then, the disease had killed many of us. Had turned some into monsters, taking shape of wind, fire, beasts, and more diseases. We’d built a wall. We’d made blades. And we survived. Cars and phones were a thing of the past, in fact, none of us truly believed a peaceful and beautiful earth had existed, and we were hoping that one day, we could live like the fairytales people spoke of.

My only consoling factor had been my lover.

Now, as I looked down, at the locket, remorse and emptiness overtook me. I grasped it tight. The locket, shaped crudely like a heart, was filled with her blood. The last drops. The bit remaining after we’d all selfishly harvested from her to get . . . here.

I never knew why she loved me. I was the weakest male, never passed any test until eventually I gave up trying to fight, deciding I could have a different purpose, or perhaps, none at all. My eyesight was poor, and I was not much good at anything.

She was the total opposite, so perfect in every way. I loved her by just looking at her and somehow, she loved me too. “You’re a gentle soul, Jasper, not aggressive like all the other men,” she would tell me.

I wasn’t the only one that adored her. She was the one thing that seemed to keep us all alive. Strong but beautiful. Filled with what could only be an ancient magic, something like everything that was killing us but used for the good. And with that magic she had built a wall. As just a little girl. And since then, we’d survived. With only the food we managed to grow in hard dirt, with the seeds produced by the meager fruit. But they could only grow because we had one hole in the dome of darkness she’d built around us. Enough for air and light to seep through and keep us alive. But also for the disease to seep in.

She was our source of life. We’d relied on her. Trying to learn how we could live with the years she’d given us. But the disease got to her.

I let my skateboard roll away from me and into someone else’s tent as soon as I’d heard. My mind couldn’t register as I ran to her bedside and dropped to my knees.

“Jasper,” she rasped. “Don’t be afraid.”

I could only shake as I took her hands. I was so weak. Tears overcame me. “You can’t die.”

She smiled. The sickness was drying her skin though and I could see it pained her just to move. “Unfortunately, this illness can take me. I’ve been fighting it for some time now.”

Even as she was dying, all I could think of was how that meant we could not survive. “And it will take us. We have no chance without you.”

“No,” she whispered. “I’ve held this shield long enough for you all to learn how to survive without my help. You’ve made weapons. You’ve all grown stronger. You were there when they discovered what keeps away the terrors the most. Plant the seeds and find more. We haven’t been attacked for many a year, haven’t lost anyone to the disease. But listen, when I die, you must bleed me dry. There can be no blood in my vessel or it will be used to become a soul that will kill you. My soul is life, Jasper, remember that.”

I did. It was all I could think of as she slowly was dying. As the darkness began to flicker.

“Bleed me dry and live. With the life I give you.”

She gave me a knife.

I slowly accepted. This couldn’t be happening. But it was up to me to save everybody. I dragged the knife across her wrists. Her essence flowed out and so her shield faded. I heard noises. Wind. The sun began to brighten everything as the shield faded.

“You need to see the sun, my love,” she whispered. “You need to experience the beauties of life. Be smart and work hard, and you will one day, I know it. But you all must work hard for it.”

“I can’t,” I whispered.

“Partake,” she said, lifting her arm. “My blood is life. It will help you get through this. Just like the locket around your neck. It will save you one day. One wish of yours to save your life.”

I drank. I drank her blood, not believing this was happening. I wanted it to be over. I wanted the sun. I wanted to just wake up years later and this life to be in the past, all the struggles to be a bad dream.

The remaining survivors had gathered around us and were drinking her blood too. All praying, whispering, crying.

Another day. Another time. Please. Save us from this night.

And then it all turned dark.

I opened my eyes and found I could hardly move. It was overcast. Cloudy. I began to cough violently. Smoky.

“Welcome to another day . . . another age.”

I felt her voice over me until I was lone in the dark.

No, not alone. My mother was there. And my father’s angry shouting was here too.

I grunted as I sat up. “Where are we?” I asked. We were under a tarp—the same one that had belonged to my lover, but this one was weathered and almost gone.

“No, son,” said my father. My mother closed her eyes and began to weep. “Where.”

“What?” I got up and walked outside. My father grabbed my arm, my mother yelled for me to stop.

But my heart hammered excitedly. A new age, she had whispered. Where, my father had said. My wish must have come true.

But there was no sun. It was darker than the protective wall. A horrible rancid taste in the air made me throw up instantly. Whatever had been in my stomach splattered to rock.

Rock. Everywhere. Not a single plant in sight.

“What?” I whispered, looking over the desolate terrain around me. All the houses and anything built was gone or almost torn down. A scream erupted and suddenly, two forms of death emerged where one had been taken by another. One just a cloud of smoke and the other a swarm of some sort of fly.

I shut the tarp and gasped for air. “I don’t understand,” I wheezed. So I got up again and ran out this time with a blade in hand and a cloak to protect me.

Every garden that once had been fenced was just gone. The rope of the well had been severed. I threw in a rock but I heard it smack against more rock. Skeletons of animals and dead creatures were everywhere. It was almost as if a substantial amount of time had passed overnight. And, as I clutched the locket around my neck, I knew it had.

While my love had bled out giving her life, we’d all drunk like savages, hoping for another day, a different life. It must be, for this was no longer the same day. It was no longer walled, protected, and caging us, with danger lurking at the corner.

It was much worse.

Something cold latched itself around my ankle and without thinking I cut downwards with my blade.

The serpent hissed. Oh, two heads! I swung, missed, but flung around until it hacked into the body. I stomped down until it was still. I looked at my sword. It was rusty. That had to mean there would be water, right? Rain?

I ran back to the tent to where my weeping mother and angry father would be.

“It’s all so much worse,” she wept. “Why isn’t it better? Time has passed. She’s given us time!”

“Shut up,” my father growled. “She was after all an evil bitch.”

Some things, even with time, never changed. I grabbed my father’s arm and turned him around. “No, she gave us what we wanted.”

“Look outside, son. Is this what we wanted? Did you wish for this? Because I don’t know about the rest of you, but I wanted sunlight and food and no more disease or deadly threats. And all we get is tenfold.”

“Like an overgrown field,” my mother silently cried.

“That’s what happened,” I said, shocked. I gulped. Growing afraid as I knew our reality but did not want to accept. “We were gone for too long. The earth left unattended for far too many years. We were given time.” My throat clogged up and I choked. “She said we should fight, use her blood so that we may live. And what did we do? What have we done?”

“Well that is our reality now, boy,” said my father. “And there’s no way out of this.”

Panic overtook me and I sank to my knees. I couldn’t breathe. I heard screams outside but I let go of my sword. All I knew was I couldn’t live like this. The words pained me, and I’d never thought I would even think them, but I said, “I want to go back.”

My mother grew silent. My father did too.

The flap opened and four men raced in. Mike, Roland, Aaron, and Justin. They looked at me and my father. “We need to fight,” one of them panted. “Everybody that can. So that someone can plant these.”

Mike held up a hand sized bag. I knew what was in there. The flowers that were supposed to help keep away pests. What we were supposed to do. Now I wasn’t sure it was possible. With the outside buzzing with danger, the ground dried to rock, and no water to help the plant grow.

Mike tossed me the bag. He nodded at me as I stared dumbly.

“You know I’m not any good with this,” I said, both shrilly and pitifully, so that I nearly convinced myself that I shouldn’t go.

My father’s heavy hand on my shoulder jolted me and I dropped the bag. “We don’t have the luxury of choosing safety, don’t you get it? Everyone is in danger here, and we don’t have a miracle lover to run to.”

Roland brought out weapons. I took a gun and some blades, as there were always different forms of adversaries and different methods were needed. “You plant it, Jasper.”

“But how? There’s no soil—”

“You’ll figure it out, yeah? While the rest of us fight off any danger. We need to surround us all, make a circle as tight as possible for now.”

I swallowed and nodded, feeling sweaty now. I was going to die for sure, and there really wasn’t anything I could do. But going out there just went against everything my guts told me and it almost killed me to stand up. Such a coward.

“Father, you have some ale, mother, your oil. We need all the fluid we don’t need to drink to soak the ground a bit. As much as we can.”

There was no argument to my words and somehow we all gathered what we could and made our way from tent to shack. Men followed, even a few girls, and I swallowed in shame. Yet I was still afraid, being the one with the seeds.

“There!” my father yelled. “I think I see a bit of water. This is where we begin.”

I ran with the rest of them and dropped to my knees on the hard dirt. I dug away and chipped, banging my sword’s handle against it to crack.

I opened my bag and several seeds fell out.

“Jasper!” my father yelled at me.

I gathered the most of them back into my fist.

“It’s not deep enough,” Aaron screamed.

I put aside the seeds, dropped the bag and my blade and began to dig away like an animal. I dropped them back in and then we moved to the next spot.

I stopped suddenly as something came to a fluttering stop and landed on my arm. I gasped, but it was a beautiful butterfly. Hope simmered inside and I allowed myself a quick smile.

“Jasper, get back to work!” shouted my father. “There’s a swarm of something headed our way.”

“Its wings are so large,” I said, totally mesmerized by the first beauty I saw. It must be at least the size of my hand, purplish veins spreading through green wings like leaves.

I heard a miniscule hiss and a horrible burn on my arm made me yelp and drop the bag. I began swatting at my arm, where the butterfly was leeching itself to me, my skin growing red.

“Ahhh!” I yelled, smashing the butterfly against my arm.

“Jasper, it’s dead!” hollered Mike, but the burning continued. I finally stopped and tried brushing it away, but I realized it was stuck. It had imbedded its nose deep into my skin like a needle. From where it had punctured my skin, dark veins like a spider crawled over my skin. In horror, I grabbed its body and began pulling. It must have been at least an inch, but I didn’t look very long and I tossed it far away from me.

“The swarm—it’s more of the butterflies!” yelled Aaron, who, apparently, had been the only one keeping watch. “Jasper, plant those seeds now!”

Between the pain and horror of my skin turning green and black like the butterfly, I couldn’t move. A tear squeezed through my eye, my skin feeling like it was being pulled together, torn apart, my muscles twisting. “I’m probably gonna grow wings and become one of them, what do I do?”

Mike took off his shirt and wrapped it tightly on my arm, just above the elbow, where the butterfly pattern had already spread to. “Now do this, we will fight them off with fire.”

Somehow I managed to find the bag and strew seeds all around. But with my trembling arm I must have somehow pulled out too many for my father yelled at me and tore the bag from my hand.

“Use it sparingly, Jasper! We don’t have that much and—there’s hardly any left! Come, we need to cover this side.”

“Wait,” said Aaron, “we’re not done over here.”

My father growled. “There will be enough.”

“No, there won’t. You just said it, there’s hardly any in there. We have to focus it on a certain area—

“Well, then, since ours seem to have more fertile ground, well I’m sorry but your place is out of luck.”

“No give it, more people live here!”

I cried out and grabbed it, tossing some seeds, and then bolting to finish the circle around my house, ducking butterflies. Mike went with me, waving his torch around and burning many butterflies. They hissed and I could almost hear them emitting little screams.

“We could try to save everybody, Jasper,” Mike said, as I tried to empty the bag onto the last yard of land but nothing came out.

“The little bit we spread across is gonna be very weak and we couldn’t even cover everything,” I said. “And our part is more fertile, it makes sense. It’s not like it matters yet anyways—”

“Jasper!”

I looked to Mike to see why he had yelled at me, but he was suddenly standing crooked, and my world was tilted, then began to turn dark as I felt the hard ground hit me.

All I could feel until I opened my eyes was the angry red burning of my arm, pulsing aggressively. I instantly I looked from my mother’s worried face down to my arm. My entire forearm was green, purplish veins reaching down to the tips of my fingers. And I couldn’t move it. I gasped, horrified. The black was crawling up the rest of my arm.

“Mom, what’s happening to me?”

“Shh, sweetie, it’s going to be ok.”

But her kind voice was not at all that comforting somehow.

I looked at my arm, not believing this misfortune. “Will I ever be able to use my arm again, Mom? Can you fix this? Will I die?”

“Aaron was taken by the swarm,” my dad said, and it occurred to me how I hadn’t even thought about the rest of them.

Still, I became hysterical about my own fate. “So then . . . I will die?”

My father growled. “I didn’t say that. He was taken by too many of them, alright? Now stop whining. Can you walk?”

“Hubert,” my mother gasped.

“No, Nelly, listen to me. We can only survive as long as we can walk and fend, and so as long as we can walk and fend, we will do that. Now answer me son, can you walk?”

No. I wanted to cry. I squeezed out a tear in frustration but got to a sitting position. I made an effort to move my hand. My fingers twitched. I growled. My father sighed and turned.

My hand shot out. I gasped, not exactly sure why I had done that.

My mother came to my side. I grabbed her neck.

I gasped. “Huh?” I whimpered, as my hand began to squeeze her throat very tight. She began choking instantly.

“J-Jasper?”

I just watched her face, then looked at my own arm, unable to think of what to even do.

My father was upon us in an instant and grabbed my mother and my arm, tearing us away from one another.

I then jerked my left hand to stop myself. “What is happening to me?” I cried.

My father then put his entire weight upon my arm and forced it down.

“This is how Aaron died,” he said. “We had to stop him. Because he couldn’t control himself anymore.”

Too much. I thought I might faint and die right then and there. Instead I just stared up at my father. “It’s only my arm,” I squeaked. “Please don’t kill me.”

“No, there is no need for that, not yet,” my dad said. “Aaron was taken over completely, turned into one of theirs. We just have to stop this disease before it spreads. Your arm is all that will have to go.”

“No!” My mom gasped, grasping my dad’s arm, and making an attempt of turning him around.

And so my arm was tied up, fixed tightly against my back. and I was left with only one hand, my left hand.

But my dad’s suggestion, which he seemed to regret speaking but not thinking, was shared by others. Aaron’s twin sister glared over to me from her house, well, it always seemed to be closest to one, as it had a porch and was out of more than merely wooden planks. Now it looked utterly distraught like everything else. The years hadn’t been easy, it seemed.

“Greta,” I said, but she screamed and ran over to me. She rammed me to the ground before I could move away.

“It’s not fair,” she said. “Why should a coward like you live, and my brave brother not get to? You both got attacked, why did only he die?”

“You don’t mean that,” I said to her, all I could think of really.

She heaved in a breath. “What does it really matter,” she said, sounding bitter. “We’re all dead.”

“No,” I argued, angry now. “What happened to being a hope-preacher, Gretty?”

“There is no hope,” she said, tears in her eyes. “There was only a little bit before. Now with the wall gone and years of desolation and bad things, there is nothing we can do to get out of this. Just like the disease in your arm is just waiting to take you over, we’re all just awaiting our death.”

“Stop it,” I said. She’d always been the nicest of Aaron’s family. And now she would hate me too, or at least be questioning why I lived.

“She has a point, you know,” Fritz and Becker approached. I hated them. Because they hated me and quite honestly I didn’t remember which of us had been the first to do so. “You are a threat to us all.”

Becker fell to his knees beside us, pinning my hand to the ground. “I think this arm needs to go, very clearly.”

“Wouldn’t you say it’s only fair anyways, Jasper? I mean, Greta’s brother was protecting you and he died. And for what, you didn’t even do your job.”

“No, please don’t!” I exclaimed, as Becker drew a knife. Fear pulsed through my veins.

“Greta deserves this, and we deserve to be alive!”

“Greta, tell them this is not what you want,” I said, knowing she didn’t truly mean it.

She slid away from me, hanging her head.

My hand suddenly jerked from the rope and punched Becker, grabbed the knife, and began swinging.

I screamed and before my better sense got a hold of me, I grabbed my own arm and pushed it to the ground.

Fritz got out a knife.

“Wait. Don’t,” Greta said.

“I think this proves why we have to kill him,” said Becker.

“Kill?” she exclaimed. “No one is killing anyone.”

“We have to remove his arm,” said Fritz.

“I think we have to step down a little here.”

Becker seethed.

“Leave him, and I don’t think he’ll have to fight you, alright?” Greta said. “We can figure something out, but we can’t just kill him.

“So be it,” said Fritz. “Soon enough you will realize that this is not a choice we get to make.”

They left. I strained to keep my arm in check, hoping that what Greta said was true, and that my arm wouldn’t try to kill anyone if not threatened, though I had just attacked my mom.

I looked to Greta, but her eyes were wide and afraid. She stood up and took several steps away from me. “Yeah. We’ll figure something out. To survive this place.”

But I couldn’t control myself and started crying. “This is hell. It’s supposed to be better than what we lived through back then. But the truth is, all that was better. We didn’t know it would get worse.”

She didn’t say anything.

“She gave us a chance to survive, a start, we could have done it. Yet we all had the same wish. To skip the years of hard work to actually make it better, expecting it would happen on its own.”

“Well, it’s not like we can do anything about it anymore. Your miracle lover is gone, and her blood is too. There is nothing we can do now but go forward from where we are now, even though it may have been easier those years ago.”

Her eyes suddenly lowered, and I remembered my locket. I was too much in a haze to think of why. But later that night, it came to me.

I had my love’s blood in this locket. A gift she’d given to me a long time ago. I had one more wish.

She hadn’t said anything, but Greta must know about this. I remembered the look in her eyes. I needed to speak with her, not sure what exactly to tell her. Not sure what to even do with his information. I was just afraid that everyone would want it for something else. For themselves. But what one wish would be the right one? What could save us all? Which need was most urgent, or above others?

And what a waste each would turn out to be. I could fill my empty stomach, but I would grow hungry again. I could heal my arm, but it could happen any day again and much worse things even. I could wish more plants. But if we waited we would have more anyways and it would be for nothing than just temporary safety.

As I walked outside, my arm hurting and tense, I looked up and saw Greta.

“Let’s talk, Greta,” I said, wondering if she already knew what about.

She nodded without questioning. She didn’t seem surprised at all and said, “Good. I was going to suggest that myself.”

Did that mean she’d thought it over already?

“Hand over the locket, Jasper,” she said, reaching out as if I would give it to her. “We need to discuss this and what it could mean for everybody.”

“Greta, wait. Hear me out.”

“Wait? So you already thought about this, haven’t you? This could be a solution for all of us!”

“Greta think! What solution could this possibly even give us? It is only enough for someone. It won’t do enough good for all of us!”

“So then what?” Her face seemed to twist and I detected tears. “You want to use it for yourself? Tell me, what for? Your arm?”

“That’s kind of what I’m saying, Greta,” I said, clutching it now. “There is no one good reason.”

“Then we have to discuss it.”

“We need to think it over! I know if everyone knows about this it won’t take but a second until someone thinks they have the perfect answer figured out and it will be wasted.”

“I thought you could be reasoned with. Never mind.”

From behind a boulder, Fritz and Becker came forth. “Hand it over, Jasper,” said Becker, almost smiling.

“Them?” I asked Greta. “You trusted them to the locket?”

She seemed a little guilty, but she shrugged. “Yes. Because they agree on its best use.”

They approached. “But you said to tell everyone.”

“No. I agree with you on that one. Everyone will have their own selfish reasons, like you. But since you already made sure that only your house will be protected, we decided we need more plants and seeds.”

“You can’t be serious,” I said. “That’s such a waste.”

“Well, what isn’t?”

I bolted. But they caught up very quickly, and I wondered what I was thinking. They grabbed my arms and forced me to the ground, kicking into my leg.

“Stop!” I cried, hysterically kicking and struggling. But I didn’t wish for someone to come. I just wanted to overcome them.

“What is going on over here?”

I gasped, looking up to my father.

No one spoke.

“Let go of my son,” he said. “And let him explain what’s going on.”

“Sir, we—”

“I said let him go. I want to hear from him.”

Why? They let go of me. But I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t look him in the eye.

“Well?”

I didn’t know why I couldn’t tell him, I didn’t even know what I wanted to do with it! I still held on to my necklace, and my father seemed to have just noticed. I should let go, so he would disregard it. But he knelt down and reached out. I didn’t resist as he held it.

“This could help us, couldn’t it?”

“No, I doubt it,” I sputtered quickly. “It’s just one wish, how could it?”

“You hid this from me, Son? And even worse, when I asked, you couldn’t tell me? What’s wrong with you?”

I couldn’t speak at all. He let go of the locket. It dropped down against my chest as my father stood up.

“We should use it for seeds,” said Greta.

“No one will use it for anything until we discussed it with everybody,” my father snapped at her, glared at the two boys, and just stood there. Waiting for something, it seemed.

Finally he reached his hand out. “Give it, Jasper.”

Why hadn’t he just taken it? I stood up. I didn’t want to. My father could have just taken it. Everyone could, I was weak. I couldn’t defy him for very long and reached over my neck to remove it. I was that weak.

My father grasped it, stared into my eyes for just two seconds, then without another word, turned. “We discuss this at lunch time. In my tent.”

Nothing could be decided upon. Many agreed with Greta about getting seeds. But wait, couldn’t they just wish another wall?

In the end, there was just a lot of arguing and shouting and discussing until I gave up and left without the locket and instead a pounding headache. I found my mother and realized she hadn’t even attended the meeting.

She began to whisper softly. “It’s all useless. That little amount, it was meant for only one person. It won’t last for something greater than one person.”

My throat clogged up. “I’m scared, mom. I don’t want to die. And I don’t want to live like this. I know it wasn’t our dream life but I wish—I wish we could all just go back and do what we should have done—then.”

She reached out to hug me, and though she kept them quiet I could feel her sobs. “You should take it, my son.” She looked up at me and continued to whisper. “Do something that will help you. Please. I need you to be safe.”

She continued crying and I sat down next to her, not speaking.

I awoke to a horrible sound. Had I been dreaming or had something happened? But wasn’t it all just a horrible nightmare? What could I really do? Nothing would truly help me.

I needed to get out of here. Somehow. To wake up. Things were so awful here, it was just not bearable.

Keeping my trembling breath quiet, I stood up and crept to my father’s side. There was already much argue as to who should keep it but my father decided he should and he didn’t ask anyone to oppose him and somehow, no one dared.

I reached to the little table beside his bed. It used to be a beautiful piece of furniture, now rotting, cracked and infested with little bugs.

I picked up the locket. My locket. She’d given it to me.

I saw a pair of eyes look at me from the bed. My mom was awake. She nodded. “Go. Do it.”

Trembling, I didn’t risk being caught by anyone else. I heard hushed voices outside just as I left the room.

“There he is! And look, he took the locket!” It was Becker and Fritz and two others.

I gasped but was determined to not let them get it. I grasped my locket and sprinted away.

“Get him!” they cried.

I ran, my lungs burning, my right fist clenching against my will, not stopping until I came to a visible dark mass despite the night. A mass of butterflies.

Perhaps I should throw it to be devoured and lost by monsters and the night. This locket was what caused so much discord among us. They wouldn’t dare to get it. Not with the swarm of butterflies lurking so close.

But I couldn’t. I needed it. I could not live here. Not like this.

I turned around. They were getting closer. And I saw my father. His eyes were furious. My mother was clutching his arm, dragging him, slowing him down, begging him.

“Do it, my son!” she shouted to me.

I cried. I hated this. I saw all the angry faces. They all wanted it. And beyond were the butterflies. I did not hesitate and opened the locket. “I want to go back!” I screamed.

I shut my eyes. and then I waited. I waited until everything became quiet. Until the thick air became breathable. Still I waited. I needed this to be true. My arm began to throb a bit less and I finally dared open my eyes.

There was the miniature wall of flowers we’d begun to grow. All the houses were yet intact. My arm began to yellow, the green fading. This disease was new, the butterflies did not yet survive this time. At least, that’s what I figured was happing.

I gasped, relief washing over me.

I was back. I didn’t know how far back. But at least I wasn’t stuck in a worse future.

“I’m back,” I said. But after just a moment of standing idly, I sat. What now? I began to question.

How was this truly to be celebrated? I was alone. One day, the butterflies would come. One day, the bad future would be upon me. Not now, though. I was safe. But as I looked around, I wasn’t sure why I had wanted this. There was no one here. I remembered their faces. My father, disapproving. Becker and Fritz, wanting it for themselves. My mother, encouraging with her eyes and smile. None of it seemed to matter now. My life was worthless.

Every moment in the future had been nothing but chaos. Now shock settled in, and I wondered what I had done. Why? This place was not very good. It was better than the future, but there at least I wasn’t alone. I had family. I had some friends. All any of us had wanted to do was just skip time and hope it would be better. But I knew now it would never just become better on its own.

We could have planted more seeds, could have figured out a way to survive and build a great future with the last wish my lover offered each of us. Life was the journey, and we thought we could just skip past it.

We could have made it home, together. And then when we awoke at the time everyone else now lived in, everything would be better.

“What have I done?” I cried. I felt the sun on my face, but I felt it alone. This was all pointless. We’d wasted every chance we’d gotten. My mother thought it was for the better I go back, but now, I was not so sure. Perhaps I should just end it, once and for all, I thought, looking at the sharp weapon in my hand.

No. I would not waste this one last chance I selfishly took. I stood up. I was here now. This was my last chance. And for once in my life, I was not going to cower from the fact.

I grabbed a weapon. I was alone and perhaps my future was now ruined because all my life I’d refused to live in the present. But maybe, one day, if I worked hard enough now, the sun would rise for them. Maybe one day, my efforts would show. It was very likely not to be so, it might not even work like that, and I had no idea how far into the future they were, but I was here. Now. And that was all I could try to change.