NEW SWEEP'S EVE
"Hey."
She sits next to you on the rocky shore, the tides almost soaking your feet. For a moment, you stay quiet, relishing in the sound of silence-not-silence, the kind where it's all breathing and waves and rustling leaves amidst the ever present buzz in your head. It soothes your mind, which is a welcome change to the usual fire and grind.
A deep breath and she looks at you and opens her mouth as if to say something, you see the movement in your peripheral vision, but you beat her to it.
"It doesn't feel like a new sweep."
She looks back out into the water. You weren't expecting a reply anyway.
"It's still going to be the same. We're only closer to our impending doom."
"Is it so bad to hope?" she asks and you finally turn to her. The wind blows her long hair behind her, the stars make her eyes sparkle, and the moonlight makes her smile look enigmatic. Like she knows something you don't.
Except it's actually you. You know something she doesn't.
"What is there to hope for?" you say, not really asking. You know there is nothing to hope for. You know you'll all meet Death in the face within the next couple of sweeps. You, especially.
But her, before you. She's going to die first.
"A little chirpbeast told me we'll be playing a game someday," she says. "A very fun game. One that could change our very reality."
"Chirpbeasts don't talk." And someday may as well be never.
"It wasn't literal, silly. Of course the one who told me wasn't actually a chirpbeast." She swats your arm. You don't budge. "I'm sorry I'm trying to be mysterious at all."
"What is there to hope for?" you repeat. "My point still stands. Maybe we'll play a game. Maybe it could change reality. But it won't change the inevitable."
"Isn't the inevitable part of reality?"
"Yes." You pause for effect. "And no."
Yes in that it's a very real thing that will come to, like a brick wall. No in that it's out of your hands.
She swats your arm again. "You and your ridiculous need to have two of everything, even answers." You don't reply.
The two of you bask once again in the silence-not-silence. Suddenly it's not so comfortable anymore. It's almost foreboding.
Like an omen.
"Still, all of that doom and gloom stuff are in the future." She tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear as she turns and looks at you. You meet her gaze. "You're probably right that we can't do something about them right now, but maybe we can at least make the wait at least a little bearable. You know, enjoy these moments of freedom.
"I hope one of these days you learn to just live in the moment."
You think about that. You've learned by now how to at least pretend that the voices don't exist, like they're not speaking of the doom to come to you, to your friends, and to Alternia, of the pain and the suffering and the grief. But in the end, that's all it is: pretend. They're there. They always were.
And they speak the truth.
You can't live in the moment. Not when you know what the future holds.
But you don't tell her that. Even if you can't live in the moment, at the very least, you can let her.
"Maybe," you tell her. You say a quieter "maybe not" under your breath and neither of you say anything more.