#eventual klance
Chapter Title: Life Lived, Life Lost
Summary: Planet Earth has been colonized by the Souls, a parasitic, alien race that wipes the minds of their hosts and takes on their lives. Most of mankind have been erased, but a few still live in hiding, struggling to survive. Lance knows this because he was one once- that is, until he is captured by Seekers and a Soul implanted in his body.
But were does the Soul begin and Lance end.
•Next•
Lance is born on a sunny day in July.
The time reads 2:48, but Lance has no conception of time and what it means to have it. In fact, there is very little Lance understands.
Beyond the distinction of dark and light, nothing sticks long enough to permit deep thought. Both his mind and body are new to this world, not yet accustomed nor learned in the ways of living, and it is only thanks to intrinsic feeling alone that he takes his first breath of air- a shuddering thing that has the room at large breathing their own sigh of relief. But even that reaction, rooted in love for him and hope for the life he has yet to live, is too much to handle. It is sudden and loud and new, and Lance, as small as he is, can’t even think to understand, so Lance does the only thing he knows how.
He cries.
He cries and cries and cries. He cries until his lungs burn and that makes him cry some more. It’s exhausting work, being unhappy. For all that he’s been alive- a whopping three minutes and seventeen seconds- he finds that he doesn’t like this feeling. He wants something else. Something more. Something better.
A touch brushes across his cheek, piercing wail hiccuping in surprise as his eyes squint open to the best of their ability. A blob comes into somewhat focus, accompanying the muffled sound that sweeps in a waltz around him, a faint murmur of sorts. It’s… nice. He likes this, he decides then and there, he likes this very much. It soothes him, pushing away the unknown until this is all feels. Contentment. And it’s then, swaddled up in blankets and the loving curve of his mother’s arms, that he slips into his first sleep.
And so it begins.
When Lance is one, he takes his first steps.
He has an audience, his parents and older siblings cheering him on as he stands and grabs onto the edge of the their lumpy couch for balance. They clap their hands and pat the hardwood floor in a melody with no rhythm, aiming for his attention as they call his name with eagerness that gets his heart beating fast. He smiles and leans forward, wanting to be where they are and moving to make that desire a reality.
His feet are unsteady and he wobbles, but it is a step nonetheless. Then he makes a second and third, and even a fourth after that.
The path leads straight to his mother’s arms, stumbling into the plush softness of her stomach. He giggles when arms wrap around him and a flurry of kisses are pressed against his face and neck. His family erupts in a cacophony of sound, exuberant voices and loud laughter.
And so it goes.
When Lance is two, he gets sick.
He doesn’t remember much, just the bleary concept of being too warm and uncomfortable in his own skin. When he sleeps, it is fitfully, tossing and turning in the blankets he’s cocooned in. It is hard to breathe and crying makes it worse, blinding his crusty eyes as he sniffles and coughs.
“Shh,” his mother shushes when he makes a protesting noise at the spoonful of medicine given to him, thick and smelling of bubblegum. “I know it tastes bad, but you need it. Don’t you want to get better?”
He does. However, the fact doesn’t stifle his discomfort. But he suffers through it, swallowing down the pink sludge with a grimace and quieting under the cool hands stroking his cheeks and the voice humming out a familiar lullaby. It’s a long night and when morning comes, sun breaching over the horizon and into his bedroom window, he’s broken out into a fever.
It takes one visit to the doctor, two injections and eight days of rest for him to get better.
And so it goes.
When Lance is three, he learns how to dance.
It is his sister that ultimately teaches him. She sways and skips around the kitchen, singing a pop song as she prepares for the school day ahead, and Lance watches from his high chair, intrigued.
“I want some satisfaction, take me to the stars, just like ooohhh!” his sister sings into the spoon she’s holding, performing for an audience of one. The beat picks up almost immediately and she bounces with it, punching the air and bringing a leg up in a high kick that nearly takes out the trash can. “I wanna cut through the clouds, break the ceiling!”
Without thought, Lance starts to flail his body in imitation.
“Oh ho ho, look at you- so cute.” she coos when she sees him, grinning when he kicks out his feet and pats at the side of his seat, nearly upturning his sippy cup in his enthusiasm. “It’s a good beat, huh? Makes you want to move, huh? How about it, Lance? You wanna dance with your super cool, super awesome sister?”
She takes his continued bouncing as an affirmation and then, in a matter of seconds, he is being scooped up and swung around. Lance laughs, flapping his hands and shaking his knees, growing more excited when his sister resumes her singing at a significantly louder volume. Then she’s jutting her shoulders from side to side and bringing him closer, blowing a raspberry onto his cheek with such vigor that it momentarily drowns out the music coming from the radio.
And so it goes.
When Lance is four, he wants to be a fish.
Even at such a young age, Lance’s head is a power house of imagination. He dreams like the best of them, imagining a world where he has gills and dolphins for friends. It’s fun and sometimes, with his hand firmly grasped in his mother’s and the breeze playfully mussing up his hair, he truly feels like its real.
And how could it not be?
For the beach is a great expanse of white sand and clear water, magical in how it becomes the stage to his adventures, beckoning to him like a long, lost friend. And he answers that call, breaking away from where his family makes camp and sprinting to the water’s edge, squealing in delight when the tide meets him halfway, foam and salt drenching his calves. It feels like a world waiting to be discovered, from the colorful coral reefs to the islands sleeping in the distance.
It feels like home.
And so it goes.
When Lance is five, he’s afraid of the dark.
More often that he’d like to confess, his mother finds him cowering under the bed at night, clutching his favorite toy, a stuffed shark, to his chest as he cries at the ghastly faces that sneer at him from the shadows; it takes only a gentle touch for Lance to crawl out and into her open arms. She hugs him then, bringing him close to her chest, and murmurs sweet nothings in his ear. It soothes him, her warmth, filling him with a fire that doesn’t burn, but, rather, shines.
“What’s the matter, baby?” she asks, stroking his hair.
He merely shakes his head and snuggles closer, eyes blind with tears. It’s always the same. An impression of a figure hunched at the foot of his bed, long claws curling around the wood and hissing something that sounds like his name. Then a touch at his wrist, ash and soot flaking from its skin and staining his sheets.
But she, ever so gently, pries his small fists away from his eyes and kisses his tears away. She speaks then, of the world beyond this one. Of how all he has to do it look up- and she points then, to the glow in the dark constellations smiling down at him from the room’s ceiling- and there won’t be anything to fear, because there can’t be anything scary in the shadows if there are none.
And then, she says it. The words that changes everything. Changes him.
“Whenever you’re afraid, just look up, okay? Look at the stars.” she tells him, brushing his hair out of his face. “They’ll always be there for you.”
“Stars?” He sniffs, pulling back slightly and looking into her face almost quizzically. Curiosity overcomes misery.
His mother grabs onto the tether line immediately, nodding fervently as she leans forward and tickles his tummy. “Mhm, that’s right, stars. And you know what else?” She pauses, leaning even closer so that their foreheads are touching and he could see the sparkle in her eyes. “They aren’t just up in the sky- they’re everywhere. We’re all made up of stars. Even you.”
She tweaks his ear playfully at that, smiling at the giggle it produced, and kisses his temple
“I’m made out of stars,” five year-old him whispers, voice filling with awe. He likes the way it sounded coming off his tongue; it feels right, natural, like it was meant to be said aloud.
He repeats the statement over and over again, fascinated.
“What about Mr. Foamy?” he also asks, shoving the shark into her face to ensure she knows exactly who they are talking about. “Is he made out of stars too?”
His mother smiles, “I don’t see why he shouldn’t be.”
He’s pleased at that, proudly petting the head of the stuffed animal. Then he crawls out of his mother’s arms, dragging his faithful companion with him by the tail, and under the covers. Nestled there, previous sadness long gone and forgotten, he lets his mother tuck him in, smiling up at her when she kisses him goodnight.
“My little astronaut,” his mother calls Lance then, fond smile adorning her face. It’s the last thing he sees before drifting off, into a world of magic before unseen.
Dreams filled with asteroid belts and celestial creatures that sing and breathe in lunar eclipses, lighting a world of uncharted wonder and fortune, are there to greet him. This world holds his heart, bursting from an imagination that holds no bounds. It expands and expands until he is bursting at his seams, a whirlwind of shooting stars.
And so it goes.
When Lance is six, he saves the world.
It’s a warm afternoon and the world has shrunk down to the building blocks and stuffed animals splayed over his grandparents’ carpeted floor. His grandfather, donning a masquerade mask and black scarf, stomps around the living room, roaring for destruction and world domination. But it is not Lance’s grandfather, no. It is a monster, taller than the clouds and unrivaled in power.
But Lance is young and unafraid. With his favorite blanket draped across his shoulders, the edges tied off at the front of his throat with his sister’s hair clip, and a pair of water pistols gifted to him last Christmas, he makes his stand. Pow, pow, pow go his weapons of justice, nailing his enemy right in the heart. And with a loud wail and jerky movements his grandfather dramatically clutches his chest and slumps to the ground, defeated.
His grandmother cheers from her place on the couch, tapping his knitting needles in applause. “Hurray! My hero!”
And so it goes.
When Lance is seven, his father leaves.
It’s in the middle of the night and he wakes up to the sound of thousands of water droplets pelting their roof and thunder shaking their walls. Lightning strikes, distorting the usually welcomed rainfall into something loud and scary. He scrambles out of bed, calling for his mother.
She meets him in the hallway.
He doesn’t think much about how she’s still dressed in yesterday’s clothes and looking far more awake than someone should at such an ungodly hour. He doesn’t think about anything besides the comforting presence she oozes as she scoops him up in her arms and cradles him to her chest, whispering soothing words.
At his request she takes the both of them to her room, where the monsters of his fears can’t get to him, to spend the rest of the night.
“Where’s dad?” Because the room is empty and the covers are haphazardly strewn across the mattress, and he’s not there. Not where he’s supposed to be.
His mother goes unnaturally still, looking like those statues at the museum his brother had taken him to last week. He doesn’t like how her face, which usually reminds him of flowers and sunshine when she smiles, looks tired and drawn.
“Not here… Daddy had to go.”
He’s shocked. “What? Why? Where did he go?”
She sits on the edge of her bed, head angled away and staring at the pictures settled on her bedside table. Lance can just spot one sporting their family, all laughing as they celebrate the coming of fall in a pile of yellow leaves, in the dark. A ring sits at the base of the frame, catching what little light there is. Lightning flashes.
“I don’t know where he went, honey.”
“When will he be back?”
A long exhale has her looking back at him, eyes sad. “I don’t know.”
Lance wants to cry- and does so.
“Oh, sweetie, no, shh- it’s okay, it’ll be okay. It’ll be okay because… because Daddy went to go save the world. He didn’t leave because he wanted to, but because he had to, so, you see, he couldn’t stay here- not when the world needs him,” his mother says thickly to him as means of explanation, smoothing a calloused hand over his hair. Lance isn’t old enough to know if she is lying or not. “Just like the world will need you, Lance, when you’re big and strong. Because, well, everyone has their place in the world and… and sometimes it takes you away from the people you love.”
Pouty lips pull down in a frown, trembling. He wants to ask- to know- but something inside him tells him that even his mother, the nicest and smartest and most beautiful person in the whole wide world, doesn’t know the answer to his simple question of why. That this is one bad dream that she can’t hug away. So, he sniffs and bravely fights the tears until they stop, rubbing his nose against the pillow covers and burrowing deeper into their own cocoon of sheets and whispers.
“I’m never gonna leave you, Mama,” he tells her solemnly, taking a small finger and crossing it over his chest like she had taught him. “Never ever.”
She smiles and wipes at her eyes, pressing a loving kiss to his forehead. Then they are laying down, side by side; he curls into her and takes two of her fingers in his smaller hand and holds on tight. She pulls a thin blanket over them and in the silence that follows Lance can still hear the sound of the storm outside.
He tells his mother so and her eyes do that thing where they shine and sparkle and she asks if he wants to hear a bedtime story. The answering nod has her bringing their clasped hands to her mouth as lips press against his knuckles.
Then she starts talking of worlds far beyond the horizon, where the sun shines and kingdoms of old dominate the land. Words spin into tales of dragonlords and their charges, of princes who fight for honor and justice, and of princesses who dance with fairies and sing to flowers. Her voice caresses him as he slips into a deep sleep, breathing steady and heart full, lulling him into this world where anything is possible.
And so it goes.
When Lance is eight, he meets Hunk.
It’s a Thursday and Lance is sitting alone by the broken fountain in his school’s courtyard, eating his packed lunch as he watches the birds twitter and tweet in the bushes before him. He’s offering a piece of crust to a small finch when a shadow slips over them and, looking up, has him spying a chubby boy his age with dark brown hair and a smile that crinkles his eyes in its intensity. He isn’t in Lance’s class, but the one next door.
“Hello,” he says, unsure and cautious.
“Hi,” the boy returns, eyes flickering toward the bird tearing up the forgotten piece of bread and back to Lance. “Is anybody sitting here?”
His head swivels around as blue eyes make a sweep of his surroundings. The courtyard is still as empty as it was when he had first sat down. He looks back at the other boy, brows furrowed.
“No…”
The boy nods and, without further ado, sits down. The birds flutter away, scared by the newly arrived body taking over their previously designated space. A lunchbox is taken out of a beaten sack and opened, showcasing a meal similar to Lance’s own, but more ornate. The boy starts to eat, seemingly oblivious to the eyes still trained on him.
“I’m Lance,” he says after a few moments.
“Hunk.”
The response doesn’t leave much room for conversation to follow, but, thankfully, Lance has never been one to subjugate to social awkwardness. His sister describes it as his ‘inability to shut up,’ though Lance has never seen this as something to be ashamed of. Case and point: “I like your name. It sounds cool.”
The bigger boy shrinks into himself at the honest words, shoulders coming up to hug his ears as he shoves whatever is in his hand- it looks like a tangerine, orange and freshly peeled- into his mouth. “Thanks,” he pushes past the citrus. “Yours too.”
Lance nods and takes a bit of his sandwich, legs tapping a fast rhythm against the concrete as he sneaks glances to the side. This goes on for a while- long enough for Lance to finish his sandwich and half of his pudding cup, until, finally, the silence becomes too much for him. “You’re new,” he blurts out, watching as the other boy jumps at the sudden volume, “and probably don’t have any friends yet and… and my mama always says that friends are forever and you look nice- so, so we should be friends. Best friends.”
Hunk blinks, then grins this grin and it feels like the start of something great. “Okay.”
And so it goes.
When Lance is nine, he decides he wants to see the stars.
The revelation isn’t a big one, but a reverberating one. It comes on a warm, summer night as he and Hunk and their families are enjoying the tail end of a beach day. Hunk is inspecting the marshmallow he holds over the flame of the fire pit they’re huddled around, muttering about the perfect ratio of crisp to gooiness. One of his cousins is playing some soft pop through the speaker of their phone and his grandparents are swaying in a slow dance by the shore. Somewhere behind him, his mother lets out a soft laugh.
Lance, pleasantly content, leans back in his seat in the sand and looks up into the night sky. The stars stare back, twinkling with the secrets of the universe.
All it takes is one stray thought- of I wonder and I wish- and he’s gone, heart hooked by constellations and following the tug that leads him crashing into a sea of shimmering stardust.
And so it goes.
When Lance is ten, his mother remarries.
The house is a flurry of movement and last minute preparations. People he doesn’t know speed around him, carrying chairs and flowers and ribbons from one place to another, all wearing that same black and white uniform. Occasionally he’ll see one of his siblings or his aunt, dressed to the nines in pressed tuxes and flowy dresses, only to watch them disappear around a corner after a quick talk with a waiter or fastidious fix of a vase.
After a while he gets up from his spot at the bottom of the stairs, not even the act of people watching able to fight off his boredom, and trudges up them, trying to ignore the uncomfortable itch at the back of his neck every time the stiff collar of his suit brushes against it. Unconsciously, he makes his way to his mother’s room, peeking inside.
Despite it being her wedding day, his mother is sans her flock of bridesmaids and the only one in the room, facing the tall mirror at its center. He watches as she fiddles with her hair, makeup, and dress. Watches as she turns to the side and inspects herself, wrinkling her nose before leaning back in to apply another coat of lipstick. Watches the sunlight streaming through the open window hit the teardrop earrings she wears.
“Oh,” his mother says when she finally spots him. The length of her dress bunches up when she turns and Lance enters, meeting her halfway when she steps away from her reflection and bends down to inspect his suit. After a brief inspection she licks a thumb and brings it to the corner of his mouth, trying to wipe the dirt he knows isn’t there. “Aw, my little astronaut, look at you. So handsome.”
“Mama,” he whines, because he’s old enough to know that this is embarrassing. “Stop, no- don’t.”
His mother laughs and it sounds like bells, and it has him going soft and pliant, remaining where he is when she moves to fix his tie, clipping it to his shirt and smoothing it down. The prolonged closeness has him inspecting her dress, gaze trailing after the swirling patterns of white lace that looks curiously like what he remembers seeing his grandma practice at the kitchen table. The gossamer veil cinched to her high bun falls like a waterfall over her shoulder and feels soft when he reaches up to touch it.
“You look pretty,” he tells her honestly, hoping to see her smile linger.
It works. The rouge covering his mother’s lips make her teeth appear whiter, so bright and warm that the stars would be jealous if they were capable of such feelings. “Do you really think so?”
He nods. “You look pretty- pretty and happy.”
Brown eyes melt and then she’s pulling him into a hug that he doesn’t hesitate to return, uncaring of the pearl necklace that digs into the underside of his chin or the starkingly cool temperature of her hands. She smells like cinnamon and hairspray. When she speaks, it’s with a shaky breath and a prick of wetness at his temple, “I am happy, baby. So, so happy.”
And so it goes.
When Lance is eleven, he becomes an uncle.
It happens on a day like any other, ordinary until it is not.
It’s a call late in the night and waking up to his mother bursting in his room with a jacket in one hand and her car keys in the other. It’s a mad rush to the local hospital and demanding answers from a standby nurse, all the while still dressed in his pajamas and kitty slippers. It’s waiting for what feels like an eternity and casting glances at the double doors across the room every few seconds. It’s jumping out of his seat when his sister’s husband finally appears and cheering when he smiles and says, “It’s a boy.”
It’s his mother curling an arm around his waist just as his sister, sweaty and smiling, asks him, “Do you want to hold him?”
And even with nervousness curling low in his gut, Lance nods.
“Careful with his head,” his mother says, reaching over to help shift the bundle into the crook of his arms. “Bring him closer and- good, just like that.”
“He’s so small,” he whispers when he can find his voice. It’s filled with wonder. “He looks like a potato.”
His sister huffs out a laugh along with the rest of his family and strokes the side of his nephew’s face, curling around his tiny ear and down the short length of his jaw. “He kinda does, doesn’t he? A cute potato though.”
“The cutest potato,” Lance agrees.
The baby in his arms gurgles, shifting in its wrap to stretch in accordance to the yawn that pulls those pink lips. A button nose wrinkles and Lance, fearing his new charge will start crying, quickly hums a short tune. It works, the newborn quieting almost immediately. Lance watches him for a long moment, keeping the soft lullaby going even as eyelids slip shut and breath goes even. Then, with great care, he leans down to deposit a kiss atop the sleeping baby’s head.
And so it goes.
When Lance is twelve, he breaks his wrist.
It starts off with Hunk saying that the distance between their makeshift treehouse and the balcony of his room is too far to be jumped and Lance disagreeing. It continues with a foolhardy attempt to show off and then a panicked yell when he misses the branch. It ends with Hunk crying and Lance in a cast for six weeks.
And so it goes.
When Lance is thirteen, he gets his first crush.
Her name is Gwen and her family is vacationing in Varadero. He’s getting some groceries for his mother when he, quite literally, runs into her in the produce section. She’s holding a basket that nearly tips over when they collide; he juggles the two cantaloupes in one hand, offering a steady hand and an apology. Though he eventually trips over both his feet and words when he finally looks up and makes eye contact with the prettiest girl he’s ever met.
She has red, curly hair that’s pinned into two buns on top of her head and a splatter of freckles across her cheeks. She giggles at his lames jokes and it makes his stomach do flips when she immediately accepts his stuttered offer to go on a date.
They see a movie and take a stroll through the nicer part of town, shoulders bumping and tongues tied as they share flustered glances. But, as dates go, it’s the best (only) he’s had. And, on the way home, when he scourges enough courage to try and hold her hand, she returns the touch with a smile that lights up the world.
Two weeks and four dates later he introduces her to his mother, apprehensive.
But the two seem to be birds of the same feather, made of the same material- kindness and love- and he has nothing to worry about. His mother looks at them, fingers knitted and shoulders touching, and smiles this smile that has her looking years younger; the lines that carve her face in exhaustion soften into something beautiful. She squeezes Gwen’s hands and offers an honest welcome, leaning over to press a light kiss to Lance’s temple.
Hunk and his siblings teases him profusely about it, but Lance takes it all in stride. He laughs at their well-meant japes and returns them in kind, never once denying the sickening sweet feeling he gets when Gwen sends him that secret smile of hers when they aren’t looking. It’s nice and Lance wishes life could stay like this forever.
But it doesn’t.
Summer comes to a close like always and though Lance knew it was coming, he isn’t prepared. He goes to sees her off, his older brother volunteering to drive her and her family to the airport in polite accordance. The two of them squeeze into the back of the car with all the luggage, listening the music, thumb wrestling, and doing an overall good job at ignoring their upcoming separation.
However, reality comes crashing back with the sound of suitcase wheels running over waxed floors and a digitized voice speaking over the intercom. With her parents waiting just beyond the checkpoint, Gwen turns to him and deposits a chaste kiss on his cheek.“I’ll miss you, Lance.”
“Yeah,” he croaks out. “Same- I mean, I-I’ll miss you too.”
She smiles and he clings to it, trying to carve it into his memory. But then she’s walking away, leaving him for a place where he can’t follow, and it stings so much that he’s unable to move for a long while. Not until his brother gently nudges his side and offers a gentle smile, arm thrown over his shoulder to guide him back to the car, back home.
And so it goes.
When Lance is fourteen, his grandmother falls and doesn’t get up.
The two of them are having their weekly knitting session in the living room. He is talking of the latest trouble he and Hunk had gotten into and how ‘it’s not my faulty we accidentally stole someone’s cat during my swim meet,’ and she is quietly chuckling as her needles work, shaping yarn into a pair of mittens.
She’s reaching for her basket of supplies when she stills, lips pulling into a strange frown.
“Grandma, what’s wrong?” he asks when he notices her expression. She doesn’t answer and he’s just about to pull the basket closer when she abruptly leans forward in her seat. His heart jerks and plummets into his stomach when she grasps for the side table blindly and misses, falling to her knees. He rushes to her. “Grandma!”
He’s raising his voice, calling for someone, anyone, to help and it’s no one’s surprise when it’s his mother that comes rushing through the door, followed closely by his brother. They both go wide eyed as they take in the situation, gasping along with Lance when his grandmother slumps in his arms, hand clutching her chest.
Then it’s a whirlwind of activity; his brother shoves into the room, kneeling down and reaching two fingers to check for a pulse, sounding frantic when it comes back weak and yells for someone to call for an ambulance. Within minutes the room fills with the bodies of family members, neighbors and EMTs alike, surrounding his grandmother like adoring fans as she’s lifted and strapped onto a gurdy. Only his mother is allowed in the ambulance.
The whole extended family is there, filling the waiting room to the brim with anxious worry and quiet talk. The restlessness comes to a halt when a doctor walks out of the double doors, body aimed their way. More than one body is jumping out of their seats and rushing towards him; his voice rises with the rest, talking over one another in their haste for information and good news. It’s his mother that finally gets through and asks the question that will make them or break them.
“How is she?”
But the doctor sighs and offers his condolences, lips moving so slowly that Lance can’t even begin to comprehend their meaning.
The world stops and Lance’s mind goes blank as he becomes numb. So numb that he doesn’t even twitch when his sister covers her mouth and lets out a low whimper, turning into the arms of her husband. Or when his little nieces and nephews loudly ask what’s going on, not understanding why their father buries his face in his hands and starts to cry. Or even when his mother’s once jolly face (so much like another’s, though aged and wrinkled) morphs into a statue, all hard lines and clenched jaw as she helps his distressed grandfather into a seat. Numb.
He stares listlessly at the white walls, staying motionless even as the doctor excuses himself and his family shuffles to the sided in a limp cloud of despair. People move about him, some shouldering him as they pass in their urgency, completely unaware that the sky is falling and the ground is breaking underneath him- oblivious to the fact that his universe is unraveling apart. And it’s amidst a crumbling world, where heaven and earth had collided in one disastrous battle and left him damaged and bloodstained, that Lance starts to cry. There, standing in that generic waiting room with its upholstered chairs and fake plants, the tears fall. Hot and shameful, they come and don’t stop for a long while.
A week later, a funeral is held.
And so it goes.
When Lance is fifteen, he pilots his first plane.
It takes three months for his uncle to teach him the conceptual side of things and then two more to convince his mother that allowing him in a cockpit wasn’t an absolutely terrible idea. But he’s resourceful and stubborn and maybe even a little aggravating, and his mother caves under the promise that he doesn’t go up alone. Lance counts it as a victory.
And so finds himself sitting in a cockpit and looking over the throttle controls and altitude indicator, hands eagerly reaching for the centre stick as he waits for his uncle to settle in the seat behind him. The rest of his family looks on from a few hundred feet away and he can see the anxious frown his mother wears through the tint of his goggles; he smiles big and waves, hoping his excitement will catch. It does, if only minimally.
But then the engine roars to life and he’s off.
He wobbles a little on the ascent, unaccustomed to the give the real experience provides over virtual simulations, and at one point his uncle has to reach forward and adjust the rudder, but it doesn’t matter because Lance is flying. His unbridled laugh gets catches on the wind streaming past him as he relishes the feeling of freedom.
And so it goes.
When Lance is sixteen, he gets accepted into the Garrison.
The letter comes in the mail in early January, folded and sealed in a crisp, white envelope, his name printed neatly on its front and two international stamps stuck to its corner. It’s the most bland looking thing in all the world, but Lance still screams when he sees it.
The high pitched sounds has his mother rushing into the room, wearing a frilly, pink apron and holding a frying pan like a baseball bat. “What! What! What’s happening? Are the curtains on fire again? Did someone break in?”
She visibly deflates when she sees it’s just Lance in the room and no threat of attackers or burglars in sight. The kitchen appliance-turned-weapon is lowered, only to be raised once more, but now in a threatening manner toward his person. His mother’s scowl is a fearsome thing. “What have I told you about scaring me like that? Just because I’m old enough to start getting gray hairs, doesn’t mean I want speed up the process. And another thing- oh.” Her eyes flicker to the paper clutched tightly in his grasp. He can see her mind connecting the dots. “Is that…?”
He nods.
“And?”
Lance shakes his head, trying to disperse the anxious feeling that returns with her inquiry. The envelope crinkles when his grip tightens further. “I… haven’t opened it yet.”
“Well, what are you waiting for- the Spanish Inquisition? Rip it open and let’s see!”
Lance does what’s told of him. His hands shake slightly as he carefully tears the seal open and pulls out the single, folded sheet of paper housed inside. With his mother watching him closely and a deep breath, he unfolds the letter and starts to read. And when he finishes it, he reads it again. And once more after that.
“Well?” his mother asks.
His blinding smiles is an answer all in itself and she screams out a happy laugh, pulling him into a tight hug.
“I’m so proud of you,” his mother says, depositing a kiss to his temple. “My little astronaut, you’re going to be a star.”
And so it goes.
When Lance is seventeen, Earth is invaded.
He flies home for the weekend to celebrate his niece’s sixth birthday, eager to feel the sea breeze on his face and his mother’s arms around him. He expects a warm and loud welcome, for his little cousins to be playing tag out in the lawn and his sister giggling over her phone and his stepfather singing along to the radio as he grills. But it’s different this time around, because his cousins aren’t playing tag out in the lawn and his sister isn’t giggling over her phone and his stepfather isn’t singing along to the radio as he grills. It’s quiet and muted and it shakes him to his core.
Because it’s not his family that greets him, but complete strangers. Strangers that wear his family’s faces.
“Mama?” he whispers when he’s lost on what else to do and there are no stars to look up to. His voice cracks into something small and vulnerable when the strange light reflecting in his brother’s eyes and the eerie look on his aunt’s face scares him into being five again.
“Hello, son,” his mother’s voice greets him and Lance winces. Her smile is the same one he’s known all his life, but there is something in the way her eyes crinkle and it’s wrong, all wrong. She steps forward, arms open to embrace him. “Oh, how I’ve missed you.”
Automatically, he takes a step back and stumbles into a wall, clutching his hands to his chest as he curls deep into himself. He’s shaking his head, tears begging to prick at the corner of his eyes. “Mama, please, no…”
But it’s not his mother. Not anymore.
Lance runs.
And so it goes.
Lance dies on a sunny day in July.
The time reads 10:17 and Lance thinks of the conception of time and what it means to lose it. In fact, that is all he thinks about.
It is there, at the bottom of a ravine and staring at the distant edge he hadn’t seen coming, that Lance ponders over his life and tries to pinpoint where it all went wrong. The Seekers that had been chasing him are nowhere to be seen and that scares him, scares him enough that even the stars, invisible in the morning light, can’t console him; his body won’t move and breathing is becoming difficult, a wrangled mess of what he used to be, and he knows that he couldn’t run even if he wanted. After a while, when the blood starts to fill his lungs and a deadly black colors the edge of his vision, he stops thinking and does the only thing he knows how.
He cries.
He cries for humanity, erased before they can leave their mark. He cries for his family, for his mother and cousins and siblings, and wonders if he’ll get to see them again. He cries for himself, a boy with so much to do and no time to do it. He cries for the opportunities lost and the regrets gained, for the could be’s and the should have’s. He cries because he never fell in love, never traveled the world, never got to see the stars.
He cries because he doesn’t want to die.
But life is a fickle thing and his begins to slow down, draining out of him with every stuttering heartbeat and prolonged blink. And Lance tries to fight it, he really does, but he can’t feel his legs and the warmth of the day is fading into a long lost dream. It’s slow and frightening and inevitable. It’s life.
And so it ends.
