The airlock hissed open, revealing the skeletal
remains of London. Towering spires of rusted
steel jutted from the earth like broken bones.
The sky was a sickly green, thick with radiation
clouds that drifted lazily over the ruins. It
had been thirty years since the Collapse, and
the world had turned into a graveyard of
forgotten cities.
Mara Voss stood at the edge of the observation
deck, her fingers brushing the cracked glass.
She wore a flight suit that hung loose on her
frame, its fabric stretched over her curves, a
relic of a time when fashion still mattered. Her
hair, dark and wild, was tied back in a messy
knot. She wasn’t here for the view. She was here
for the broadcast.
The last colony ship, Odyssey, was due to launch
in three hours. Its AI had already selected the
crew—scientists, engineers, soldiers. No room
for civilians. No room for her.
She had once been someone else. A woman who
laughed too loud, danced too much, and dated a
man who believed he owned the stars. Elias Grant
had been a billionaire, a visionary, a monster.
He had built the first space station, the one
that became the seed of humanity’s last hope.
And she had been his lover, his confidante, his
downfall.
The memory came unbidden. Elias, standing in
front of the station’s control room, shirt
unbuttoned, eyes alight with something between
love and madness. “You’re my weakness, Mara,” he
had said. “And I can’t afford weaknesses.”
She had left him. Left him for the moon, for the
silence, for the chance to forget. But the past
had a way of catching up.
The comms console blinked. A red light pulsed
beside it. A message from the Odyssey.
“Broadcast approved. You have three hours.”
Mara sat down, fingers hovering over the keys.
She typed slowly, deliberately. The words would
be the last human voice to leave Earth. They had
to matter.
But the system froze. A single error code
appeared: 0x0137 – Forbidden Access.
Her pulse quickened. That code didn’t exist. Not
anymore.
She ran a diagnostic. The system had locked out
her access. Someone had tampered with the
broadcast.
She wasn’t the only one trying to speak to the
stars.
Downstairs, in the old broadcasting hub, a
figure moved through the shadows. His face was
hidden beneath a hood, but his build was
unmistakable. Elias.
He had survived the Collapse. Somehow. He had
watched the world burn and still walked among
the ashes.
He reached for the console, fingers trembling.
The broadcast was his. He had spent decades
waiting for this moment. To speak to the people
he had sent into the void. To tell them the
truth.
The door behind him slammed open.
Mara stood in the doorway, her expression
unreadable.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said.
Elias turned, his eyes narrowing. “Neither
should you.”
They stared at each other, the weight of the
past pressing between them.
The system beeped again. A new message: “System
override initiated. Final transmission imminent.
”
Mara’s hand hovered over the keyboard. She could
shut it down. She could stop him.
But she didn’t.
Instead, she stepped aside.
Elias hesitated. Then he typed.
The screen filled with words. A message to the
stars.
Mara watched as the transmission sent its signal
into the void.
When it was done, she turned to him.
“I suppose this is goodbye,” she said.
Elias looked at her, then nodded.
“I suppose it is.”
The Odyssey launched without them.
In the end, they were both left behind.
But the stars heard their voices.
