After I Watched Her Die
When the bright green light left her eyes, I had no idea of the pain that would come after. I held her body in the forest, on Planet GJ 357 in the Hydra constellation. Her left lung was pierced with an arrow from one of the natives. There was nothing I could do.
At first, I begged her to come back to me. I didn’t believe she had gone. Her blonde hair turned red with blood, and her neck no longer held the weight of her head. As she faded, I talked to her. I wasn’t strong, I wasn’t calm. I begged her to not leave me in this strange world. She didn’t talk back. All she could do was struggle for air. She filled the forest with a choking rattle.
GJ 357 was discovered long before I was born. They said it was a Super-Earth. It was covered in tropical forests and lush waterways. Every stretch of the planet held the special mixture that gave way to life. It became a must-have for the colonisation of the galaxy. They dreamed of a planet we could breathe on freely, not strain our lungs for precious oxygen, or adapt our tech so we could survive. They found it, but it was never ours in the first place.
I lay with her body for hours. It was dark when I pried my sniffling, tear-soaked face away from her cheek. Every time I looked back at her, I expected her to wake. She didn’t. A few times I even shook her, willing her to come back to me. It was unnecessary. All the science and tears in the galaxy could not have brought her back.
Her crooked smile flashed across my mind as the shock took hold. She smiled to make people feel comfortable, and she smiled when she saw awe in the galaxy. But she had a special smile for me. It rested on her lips when I told her I wanted her, and it was there at the moment of her death.
After that, I carried her in my arms like I used to carry her to bed when she’d fallen asleep away from our quarters. Her hair fell softly across my arms. The darkness could not hide the alien world I struggled through on our final walk. The spines and thorns of different species of plants stuck into my shins. It drew red blood and left a trail along the mossy ground. When I reached our ship, I placed her in the co-pilot’s seat. It felt wrong. She was more than that. She was my leader, as well as my soulmate.
The anger I felt was too much. It rose up inside me second by second before it was too hot, too red to calm. I moved the hair from her face and tucked it behind her ears. I straightened her out and changed her shirt. I didn’t want to see the blood anymore. Then I left her.
I took a spear; an electric one that we used to subdue native creatures, and I walked into the night towards the villages of GJ 357. I knew the way. We had been there days earlier, treating the young ones for a flu virus we had brought to their planet.
I was quiet with rage when I got there. They didn’t see me, but they sensed what I had done only moments after. I crept into their huts, made from the odd-leafed trees covering the green planet, and I knelt at the sides of their children.
The first few didn’t scream. I went from bed to bed, slicing their chests open with the blunt spear, pulling out their lungs. They were different to ours, more of a single lung than two separate ones. The terror in their odd guttural voices rang through the walls of their homes. Some of them looked me in the eye, some of them didn’t have the chance to open theirs. The youngest one I killed was only an infant, maybe weeks old.
Before their tribal parents could come running to their aid, I was gone. I didn’t go straight back to her. I went to a small stream, and I washed the blood of the native children from my body. I didn’t want her to see me like that.
A week after she’d died, the pain did not get better, and never would. The guilt had risen to join it. We had fought so hard to be together. We’d already had a lifetime of challenges, but each one led us back to each other, and made us stronger than before. We weren’t supposed to be in love, but the longing for each other began from the moment we met. I knew I wasn’t supposed to exist without her.
I took a walk, away from the rest of our exploration team. They didn’t notice. When I reached the spot where she had taken her last difficult breath, I sank to my knees and plunged a carbon bladed knife into my chest. I didn’t feel the pain. I only heard the rattle.
About the Author
J Askew is a member of the Horror Writers Association and an LGBTQ writer trying to portray underrepresented people, and those with mental health conditions in horror and sci-fi. They have previously been published in The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph, Wired and New Scientist for their ghostwriting work in science and technology. Their debut dystopian novel is currently in editing and will be published in 2020.