Endings:
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Jalan walked down the lonely street. The city had been known as Middleton, then Midland, then just "Mid." That had been when it was dying. The invention of the gateways had made travelling to other worlds as easy as going next door. Mankind hadn't been the first, and when the gateways had been invented, suddenly not just the Galaxy, but the entire Local Group had become accessible.
And now...two thousand years later, the city was abandoned. Like so much of earth. The great cities still existed, at least their old and historically important parts, kept up for historians and tourists from a million worlds, but the rest of earth was returning to the state it had known in the eons before mankind had risen. It was ironic, in a way. The Coliseum still existed, having long outlived some of the greatest structures of the 20th century.
But here? Just the street. The ancient homes were long since gone, save for the occasional bit of remains penetrating the earth. Even the street, made 500 years go by a fusion flame transmuting the ground to nearly imperishable ceramic was decaying, cracks running through it, with plants and even a small tree growing in the middle. Jalan kept walking. He was used to long walks- it was one of the things that marked him as odd, preferring to walk, cut out of the stellerweb, just himself and his thoughts. He ran a hand through his cropped blonde hair. The sun was a bit warm today, and he could hear the insects, animals and birds going about their business, no doubt quite untroubled by mankind's brief dominance of his homeworld.
No place for heroes here anymore, the 17 year old thought. His parents were moving, and he was moving with them. His friend Denise would be going with them, and she was excited. A quick walk through the gateway to the major local Crossings and then to Andromeda where there were frontier worlds along the Argo Spur. Denise had pointed out that there would be a lot of work for freelancers like them saving people- the Spur, to say nothing of Varna and its Starwolves could make for challenging times.
She'd said that with her eyes shining, the quicksilver form of her body nearly quivering. Denise could do "exciting" as well as any 4 year old seeing her first Sapherian dragon.
So why aren't I? They'd stopped the last great earth villain. Dalan, with his picotech fueled plan to drain the sun of its energy was safely incarcerated in the Stormcage. There was nothing else on earth, just old people and young people who would soon enough leave to the stars.
And be forgotten.
Jalan nodded at that last thought. That was why he was here.
He paused at the entrance, the gates hanging ajar. The solar powered street light, still there after centuries continued to let no longer existing cars in. Jalan wondered if it would ever break down...maybe one day it would be the last thing left her to show that man had walked these hills. He patted the warm metal of the light, before turning and walking through the gates to his destination.
Into the cemetery.
The old humans had interred their dead, before the practice of giving them back to starfire had become established across the worlds of man. And here was a great cemetery, full of the wealthy and respected and famous...all now forgotten. He'd been here before when this mood had come over him and now he walked surely across the broken and overgrown terrain, passing the newer graves, only five hundred or so years old, the last to be left to nature as the "eternal" cleaning remotes gave out. There was a flicker to his right and he looked, to see a confused looking woman appear, the holo emitters set into the grave marker still functioning.
"Are you here to hear about my life!" She said happily, long blond hair swaying in the simulated breeze.
"No."
"Oh," 'she' said, looking disappointed. "My life was very important. My parents knew it first, then my school mates and of course once I became-" she paused. Jalan knew what was coming.
"What's your name. What did you do?" he asked.
"I...pardon me. There is memory damage. Those facts are no longer known. " There was a pause, and far more mechanically, the figure continued. "Please contact your official Neverforgotten repair representative for further inf-inf-inf-inf-" Moments later, the holo faded, dissolving into a thousand rainbow colors. The same thing it had done every time he'd passed by.
He continued walking, and a few other holograms flickered, but he ignored them. Too degraded even to talk, they presented people in various positions. Here a dignified old grandmother looked out blindly, there a man held some sort of trophy, his words of triumph, his very name, forever lost to time.
After that came the cold tombs, where the rich and vain had had themselves cryogenically preserved, in the hopes of new life. Another vanity—the act of freezing destroyed the very minds they'd hoped to save and so the dead remained here, the black solar films on their tombs keeping them in a slightly more preserved state of death.
Now Jalan was walking up a slope to the top of the old cemetery, where two thousand year old graves were jumbled and pressed in on each other.
And finally, here it was. The figure must have once been glorious, the best, most resistant marble, still coated in some areas with the diamond film that protected it from the elements.
Gone now. The face was eroded smooth, both arms gone, pitted by rain and wind, giving no hint as to what it had looked like in the beginning. The crypt behind it was completely gone, only fragments of marble left. A tree, old, lightning struck, but still living, grew through where the center of the crypt would have been. Sometimes Jalan wondered what was so compelling about it, but he'd never forgotten the place. He'd been here once, on one of his long walks, and since then had returned many times.
But this would be the last.
He looked down and nodded at the nearly effaced name:
K O SIBLE
"Well" he said, looking around at the timeworn graveyard. "I guess it's time to say goodbye." He felt the crushing depression come over him once again, redoubled in strength. Trying to ignore it, he opened up his lunch box. "One last meal before I go," he said, and sat down to eat in the garden of the dead.
He laughed, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice and failing. "Besides, you probably don't care. Your family loved you, I bet you were famous and here we are, not even knowing your name." He expected silence.
He didn't expect what happened next.
"The name?" The cheerful voice echoed through the ancient trees. "Is that important?"
