Itâs Over - Thatâs the Understanding (Short Story)
Sometimes the heroes donât win. Sometimes the heroes make a tragic mistake that isnât solved with everlasting consequences and lessons learned--sometimes all it is is a tragic mistake. No learning opportunity. No time to reflect on the adventure, on the hardships, and be grateful anyway because it worked out in the end.
Sometimes it doesnât work out in the end.
Elisa sits on the cliff with her legs dangling over the rocky edge, her armor encrusted with blood and brain matter and multitudes of slime from the species she slaughtered. And all for what? she thinks. All for what? She won her battles, every single one of them, but humanity lost the war.
The mothership in the sky emits an ear-splitting shriek. Elisa is unbothered because her hearing had already been blown out; all she feels is a deep tremor, a rumble shuddering through the Earth. She can only imagine what itâs like in the cities, where millions of people are screaming their heads off, clutching their children, wailing prayers toward the sky, toward their higher beings, but seeing only the mothership blocking out the sun.
Elisa doesnât look up. Instead she looks down, at the ocean below her. At the waves unbothered by whatâs happening on land and in the sky, and she stares until a shadow falls on her. Then she stands up to face the army they sent down to avenge all of their soldiers she has killed.
They donât speak her tongue, and she doesnât speak theirs, yet some sort of mutual understanding passes between her two, bloodshot brown eyes and the dark blue masks of the firing squad she faces.
Thatâs the understanding.
Elisa turns back to the water just before they start firing. Because if sheâs going to die, she wonât die looking at them. Sheâll die looking down at the ocean: peaceful, undisturbed, destined to be there even when humanity is gone.
