Homecoming

Glass’s eyes fluttered open. She was in a space so large she couldn’t see the walls, and the transparent, star-filled ceiling looked like it was miles away. Slowly, her awareness clicked into place, and her confusion gave way to awe. She was looking up at the sky—the real sky, on Earth—and she was alive. But her wonder lasted only a few moments before an urgent thought ripped through her brain, and panic shot through her body. Where was Luke? She snapped into alertness and pushed herself into an upright position, ignoring the nausea and pain that tried to force her back to the ground.

“Luke!” she cried out, jerking her head from side to side, praying to see his familiar outline among the mass of unfamiliar shadows. “Luke!” The growing chorus of screams and wails swallowed her cries. Why won’t someone turn on the lights? she thought groggily, before remembering that she was on the ground. The stars gave off nothing more than a dull glimmer, and the moon offered just enough light for Glass to tell that the moaning, flailing black shapes were her fellow passengers. This had to be a nightmare. This wasn’t what Earth was supposed to be like. This wasn’t a place worth dying for. She called for Luke again, but there was no response.

She needed to stand, but her body felt strangely heavy, as if invisible weights were tugging on her limbs. Gravity here felt different, harsher—or was she injured? Glass placed her hand on her shin and gasped. Her legs were wet. Was she bleeding? She glanced down, afraid of what she might find. Her pant legs were torn, and the skin underneath was badly scratched, but there were no visible wounds. She placed her hands on the floor, no, ground, and gasped. She was sitting in water—water that stretched out far in front of her across an impossibly vast distance, with only the faintest shadow of trees at its far edge. Glass blinked, waiting for her eyes to recalibrate and reveal something that made more sense, but the image didn’t change. Lake. The word slid smoothly into her mind. She was sitting on the edge, on the shore, of a lake on Earth—a fact that felt as surreal to her as the devastation surrounding her on every side. When she turned to look, she saw only horror: Bodies lying limp and broken on the ground. Wounded people crying and begging for help. The mangled, smoking shells of several dropships that had all landed within a few meters of each other, their frames cracked open and splintered. People running into the still smoldering wreckage, then clambering back out with heavy, still figures draped over their shoulders.

Who had carried her out? If it was Luke, where was he?

Glass struggled to her feet, her legs shaky beneath her. She locked her knees to prevent them from giving way and swung her arms out to regain her balance. She stood in the icy water, cold creeping up her legs. She took a deep breath and felt her head clear slightly, although her legs continued to tremble. She took a few wobbly steps forward and knocked her foot against a few rocks below the surface.

Glass looked down and inhaled sharply. There was just enough moonlight to tell that the water was tinged a deep pink. Did the pollution and radiation of the Cataclysm cause lakes to change color? Or was there an area of Earth where water was naturally pink? She’d never paid much attention in her Earth geography tutorials—a fact she was starting to regret more and more by the second. But a desperate cry from a crumpled figure on the ground nearby brought the painful answer to her mind: This wasn’t a long-lasting side effect of radiation—the water was colored with blood.

She shuddered, then walked toward the woman who had called out. She was slumped on the shore, the bottom half of her body in the rapidly reddening water. Glass stooped down and took her hand. “Don’t worry, you’re going to be fine,” she said, hoping she sounded more certain than she felt. The woman’s eyes were wide with fear and pain. “Have you seen Thomas?” she wheezed.

“Thomas?” Glass repeated, scanning the shadow landscape of bodies and wreckage. She needed to find Luke. The only thing more terrifying than being on Earth was the thought of Luke lying somewhere out there, injured and alone.

“My son, Thomas,” the woman said, tightening her grip on Glass’s hand. “We were on different dropships. My neighbor—” She cut herself off with an anguished gasp. “She promised she’d take care of him.”