I can still feel my mother’s grip on my arm. I can still hear her voice when she woke me up this morning. ‘Get ready,’ she had said. ‘Say goodbye quickly.’ I can hear her screams for me too. They echo in the open air as she desperately reaches out the window of the spaceship.

I stand frozen, alone on the launching pad. My feet already feel rooted to the ground; they will only continue to sink in the next few days, I know. The Earth is about to be completely consumed by its ocean, and I am not different enough to escape it.

She’s still calling for me, and the sky is still painted by an early-morning sunrise. I turn on my heels and face away. I tell myself it’s to protect her feelings. I know that is a lie.

I pull off my bag first, then my shoes and socks. I feel the hot concrete beneath my toes. Somehow the burning is welcome. I mean, what’s the harm in it now? I’m going to die anyway, I might as well experiment.

I pull out my journal and sit myself down to write. You’re probably expecting some sob story or dystopian novel where I was left behind because of my social class or some intrinsic trait I cannot control. But no. I was left behind because I wasn’t on time. Simple as that. Simple as…

A tear falls onto the page. Why am I documenting anything when nobody can physically read it?

I close the book. I can’t do this.

I flop down on the floor, not bothering to even pull my hair out from underneath me. I’ll just lay here. I have to because maybe they’ll come back for me. Maybe they’ll decide that the Earth is worth salvaging. I clutch my eyes closed.

Somehow not trying is easier than pretending to be productive on these last days. I deserve this, I admit beneath the prickly and hot Sunlight. It’s my fault I was left behind. I’m no special last human.

I’m ready to sleep. And I do. For how long, I don’t know. But it’s peaceful, the not trying, waiting for the water to consume my body and trail me deep beneath its waves.

The water finds my face, but it pulls back almost immediately. This repeats again and again until I am interested enough to poke an eye open. I find not water, but the saliva-filled tongue of a big brown and white dog.

It’s still licking me. I turn over, trying to will it to leave. It doesn’t.

I pull myself up. “Go away,” I say to the dog verbally this time. It just sits and wags its tail softly from side to side. “That is the opposite of what I said…”

It cocks its head at me and its collar tag glints in the light: Cookie. “Your name was really common,” I note. “Did your owners leave you behind?”

(I’m too tired to continue rn lol, but I may in the future!)