1908

lost in the moment, the sound of the strings… seem to melt in the air like water…

*unmutes*

Imagine being a teenage girl going off to fight a war in another galaxy only to return as lone survivor to a dark planet. Your space travel slowed your time, so while you are barely older earth has aged 12000 years. Humanity didn't make it.

You are the loneliest person left in the universe.

Until slowly, on the dark side of Earth, lights turn on. Entire cities are aglow. And they spell Welcome Home in your native language in a massive co-ordinated effort. Except the last letter is written wrong, a basic mistake every native speaker could point out. If there were any left.

These people knew you were going to come back for 12.000 years. They waited for you patiently, probably spotted you coming in your rudimentary war machine. Your friends and family and community, everyone you know is dead, including your own language. But they remembered you. They made sure they would not forget you. They browsed their records for the language of some ancient doomed girls for a concerted gesture of kindness in a language they never heard out of a live humans mouth.