Friendly Neighbourhood Lesbian

in theory the ships will be heading to the same place and go in the same direction and be able to communicate to each other, this is the last of humanity and no one wants the end of the human race, so they're all going to the same place. in theory. because they know that humans are hot-headed and emotional and corruptible and they're almost certain that it will take all of them working together but separately, cut off from each other, to get anywhere remotely near where they mean to go.

they all think they will be dead by the time the ships will land. it will take several generations to reach it, and they are already planning ways to hide their immortality on these ships that are so big as to have more passengers each than some countries ever had at their peaks.

but most importantly, they will be alone. truly alone. for the first time.

and they haven't seen each other much in the past few decades because moving humanity elsewhere takes a lot of planning, and convincing people to leave their homes and everything they have ever known takes hard work, and being in the ears of powerful people to make everything happen takes secrecy to a level so extreme.

so it's been a long time. they give themselves a month together before leaving, they can't risk this operation going wrong at the last moment (something, they have learned, that humans always manage).

and then that's it. they're gone, and they believe they will never see each other again, but Nile, always the fearless leader, never says goodbye. she says i love you and see you later and get me a souvenir with a wink.

so she doesn't say goodbye. what she says is almost worse.

this has been the greatest honor of my very very long life. i will miss you, but i will keep you with the others in my mind and my heart and my memories will fade but i will always know that it's you i'm seeing.

and that's it. the oldest army in the world, disbanding.

they hope there will be other immortals, selfishly, so they can be less alone and see their family again through new eyes, yet they hope they are the last ones, tired of carrying this burden they keep passing on, an inevitable mutation that steals you away and breaks you and rebuilds you. that creates your best and worst moments, the happiest memories and the emptiest void inside when you try to recall your mother's language and your father's voice, your children's laughs.

they think they've prepared themselves to absolute loneliness, and they have, to the best of their abilities, but they aren't prepared. it's like the first time they woke up from death, all over again. this time with the anxious little voice telling them you could be thrown into space, die out there and come back to life and die again, until the immortality ends. they push the voice away, and they feel a fear they've never felt, that this could happen to anyone of them, hypothetically.

years pass.

there are no new immortals, yet they do not die. it's as if whatever force makes them what they are is paused. neither ending, nor continuing. just staying as it is. as if it's waiting.

after several decades it feels more like torture than anything they've ever felt. each year feels longer, and yet each day is shorter than the last, a little more meaningless, just a grain of sand on the beach.

their only true solace is knowing that they are managing to push humanity where it needs to be. Nile isn't sure when she stopped thinking of herself as a part of it. of humanity. when she started seeing herself as other than human. she wonders if she'll ever feel that again. being part of something.

then something happens.

a child draws what they believe the other ships look like inside for a school assignment. and it's a little overly realistic and yet so alien, it unnerves everyone. the people he draws though, they're the same as them and yet even drawn their faces feel wrong.

the child continues to draw, eventually just becoming accepted as another weird artist type. his art is very celebrated, and Nile finds the concept of his art, us but not us, to be so interesting, and so painful, but it soothes the ache of being alone, to think about the others living in these places.

it's not until the child dies, after more than a century of his life, that Nile sees the first drawings while cleaning out one of the storage decks. this one is for deceased people's belongings. when all family members die out they are recycled, but Nile like to go through the deck and people's memories. sometimes remembering specific moments. when the belongings stop having traces of earth, Nile doesn't get out of bed for a long, long time. she loses track of the years, stuck in her head, unprepared for the end of the majority of her life. unprepared to be the last person to remember being on earth, to remember natural oxygen, to remember the internet, or the library of congress, or what cities looked like. it's too big.

but eventually she starts to process it enough that she can breathe again, that she can feed herself and cut her hair and wash herself.

it's when she's started to accept that she is the last person she will ever be able to share earth with. alone like she's never been before.

she walks through the deck, endless rows of storage, piled so high in these metallic structures, everything put away and labeled, forgotten and fading.

she sees the child's belongings and feels guilt and grief again, for the years she was gone in her own head, made insane by the thoughts and the knowledge that she has. she remembers enjoying his work, so she goes to see what they stored.

almost nothing from the age of 27 onwards is present. bought over his lifetime, and most likely auctioned after his passing.

there are boxes of his childhood though. she looks through those, curious to see the child's scribble become more distinct shapes, some of his drawings so familiar to anyone who has lived on this ship yet so foreign.

it is then that she sees one of his drawings and everything changes.