Page 222 of Everdoll

“That wall looks like it’s about to give out, someone needs to deal with it.”

Before I could respond, Yalaz appeared from the other door. I had only invited Coretta—her brother was an interior architect, so she knew enough about these things. But as always, Yalaz had followed her anywhere.

“I’ll help.”

Coretta didn’t even glance at him. “You can’t. It’s too heavy.”

“Watch me.”

He headed back inside without waiting for her. Coretta scrunched her face and shrugged. Together, we all burst into laughter.

I was beginning to cherish this newfound peace. Yes… peace. Though eyes were still on me, just as they had always been, their weight had lessened.

Mina, on the other hand, had become even more famous than I was. The reporter of the oppressed. That curly-haired, wonderfully unhinged journalist who never stopped smiling. In the past, she was already respected for exposing the brutal backstory of the Bernova family, now she was also the one who had revealed the existence of the ‘Dolls Project’ to the entire planet. She was the reason the names of the children who died for that cause were kept alive.

“I live a privileged life. Thanks to you, thanks to my friends, I am at peace right now. I spent so much time searching for the things I once had. But there are people who have never felt those things at all. People who don’t even know what peace means. I want to find them all and help them.”

My Mina still wanted to make everyone happy, to make everyone smile. She had been working toward that for four years without me, and I was not going to let her walk that road alone anymore.

I had been resentful toward this cold world that had taken so much from me, yet slowly, I allowed mercy to flow through my veins, too. Perhaps that was what absolute power truly meant: The ability to choose goodness in spite of everything. To give more to a world that had taken so much from you.

“Even if you only look toward the darkness, the sun will keep rising.” My love had said this when we visited the watchmaker’s shop. The short-haired girl behind the counter offered a soft smile, her eyes lingering on Mina’s police officer friend.

I still didn’t know what a normal love was supposed to mean, but nothing would ever remind me of love other than the woman into whose lips I breathed my soul every evening.

Nothing had before. Nothing would after. I had no device that could predict the future, and logically no one could be certain of anything, but my heart said so.

For eternity.

No.

Until death do us part.

EPILOGUE

My nightmares usually bid me farewell with sunny days.

Sunny days on Mars are rare now. After the Great Blasts, many of the terraformed systems were damaged. The artificial sunlight, made by human hands, no longer lights our way. Instead, a blue light hangs in the sky, like sorcerers who appear at midnight as the sun sets, painting the planet in shimmers of blue.

Yet the artificial problems humanity brought still haunt my dreamland.

Most of them take place in a graveyard. There are no graves on Mars anymore, only those who were buried the year the founders arrived. Everyone else is cremated here because the dead contaminate the soil. Even so, I keep wandering through this eerie cemetery, a place made of nothing but ghosts. Still, it felt more real than anything.

Sometimes a fog rises, and a child shouts at me. Little Mina wants to join them, while Teen Mina can only weep helplessly. Both are powerless, fully aware that they are too small to fight this world.

That’s why they are so grateful to me for growing up. They’re proud of me for still enduring my nightmares, for refusing to give up and facing them instead. Until the day I die, I will do everything I can to keep them proud.

I walk a little farther through the foggy cemetery. I see my father’s name. Eleanor Kern’s. Angelica’s. Her murderer father’s.

At last, in the distance, I see the black-haired boy holding a chip in his hand.

The sun always appears at precisely that moment. The blue burns in his hair glimmer as he smiles at me, wide and radiant. Then he dissolves beneath the warmth, and all I can do is collapse onto the cemetery soil and cry out violently.

Every nightmare forces me to face the possibility of a universe in which I lost him completely. One in which I was too late to save him.

My screams grow louder, and the sun’s merciful warmth turns into an agony that burns me. The moment I start clawing at my skin, I wake up.

The boy gently wipes the dried tears from my cheeks, looking at me with sorrowful eyes.

“I’m right here,” he whispers every night. There is no longer that green halo in his eyes like before, but for a fleeting second, I think I catch a glimpse of its reflection.

I don’t know when my nightmares will stop. But I know that for the rest of my life, I will taste the pure gratitude of having regained the arms holding me every time I wake. The deep solace of being thankful for them. I don’t know what he thinks as he holds me: whether he believes this will pass, or whether, deep down, he too is struggling with the same anxiety as I am.

Tell me, dear Remi… do you think a day will come when we no longer fear the sun?

END