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Time stood still; unmoving as the hands that held him up. The pedestal on which he stood was a steel disk in the middle of a larger glass circle, held up by small claws that were connected to the outer wall of the Citadel.
Protruding from the center of the disk was a curved knee high wall that covered half of the outer edge. On the inside of that curved wall laid a small control panel which was made up of blue light and energy, with one unlit button in the center.
He used the wall to hold himself up, his arms shaking as if clutching onto an electric wire, when in reality he was grasping onto the fate of the universe. His race, his people, his family, they had to be swept aside so that the flood could not grow, so they could not claim more species as their own.
It's all on your shoulders, his friend had said, you are the last hope. He was only a boy, not a warrior of strength or courage, but a boy who was not even at the age of divergence. The elders had chosen him because there was no one else. Anyone able of fighting was dying, sacrificing themselves to assure the destruction of the parasite, and the activation of the Halos.
He let his grasp on the wall tether and he came crashing onto his knees, unable to stand. The switch was at face level now, the blue of the control panel reflecting off of the boy's face. He tried to reach out and touch it, which was all it would take, it just needed a simple push, but he couldn't.
His arm fell limp to his side as he lowered his head, his hair falling down and hanging in front of his face covering his vision. His eyes were raw from the hours of rubbing and crying, and his face was worn and ragged from the nights of insomnia and the days of beating himself up over the fact that he had to kill everyone he ever knew.
The panel sat waiting, it wasn't going anywhere.
The button slowly gave into the weight of the boy's tiny hand; the structure was filled with noise as the switch began glowing a bright shade of gold. The shining blue bridge that connected the large glass platform to the rest of the structure activated, making the sound of heat hitting steel.
The elongated glass walkway that it was linked to had seven blue bands of light surrounding it, each of them illuminating in order as they were activated. The firing sequence had been initiated; it was only a matter of time before the boy would be alone in the world, in the entire universe.
Somewhere in his tiny body he found the strength to stand, and push himself down the walkway, over the blue bridge and towards the elevator he rode up on. His mind began racing through the short life he had lived, the countless nights with him mother, the few encounters he had with his father, all of his brothers and sisters.
He smiled as he remembered all of their names in alphabetical order, just like his mom had bet he couldn't. That was the day they spent at the beach, lying in the sand with their bare feet digging into the sand. They talked about his father, and how he had left to fight in a war when he was born.
The flood, he remembered the name his mother had given the parasites, the very same parasites that were destroying the civilization that he had only begun to explore. It was because of them that his mother was alone; it was because of them that his brothers and sisters didn't have a father, and it was because of them that he had to commit universal genocide.
The repetitious noise of his footsteps seemed to vanish as the sound of waves crashing into the shore filled his ears, followed by the sound of his mother's laughter. He felt like he was floating, he was no longer walking down the glass walkway towards unavoidable death; he was back with his mom.
She was cooking a meal while he was sitting at the kitchen table coloring in some picture. Upon finishing the picture his mother dashed up and grabbed it from his hands, she rubbed his head with her hand as she told him how amazing she thought it was. She smiled at him and hung it on the fridge, and then there was a knock at the door.
He snapped back into consciousness on the large emblem in carved elevator, it was descending down to the lower level of the Citadel, where he would find his ship and fly away off into the deep reaches of space. He wasn't sure where, or why, but he would leave, hopefully finding a planet that hasn't been the path of the flood.
Those thoughts made him feel heartless, how could he just forget his entire race and go live with another, or even live by himself. His body didn't want him to go on any longer, it wanted him to just end his miserable existence, but his mom had told him to survive, so he would try, for her sake.
There was a hiss as the elevator slid into its resting place on the citadel's entrance level. Another long walkway stretched from one end to the other, large steel pillars arching around it, each with a streak of blue on either side glowing bright as the artificial sun he grew up under.
He began his walk, his head pounding with the sounds of his elders as they told him what he must do. He would have liked it to be a bad dream, but he knew it wasn't; the flood had been threatening their existence since as long as he could remember. The elders gave him the mission of activating the halo arrays, which would not destroy the flood, but instead annihilate their food source, starving them.
The large sliding steel structures that formed the doorway to the outside disconnected from each other and glided into the outer walls. A large gust of icy cold air rushed its way into the chamber with the boy, but he could hardly feel it.
He stared through his bloodshot and teary eyes at the massive canyon that was before him. Three large towers ejected a beam of light into the air to create a force field for his protection. They arced over the canyon slightly, like giants of myth.
They were similarly shaped like the Citadel, just on a smaller scale. Where the Citadel looked like a metaphorical gun pointed at the collected minds of society, the towers looked like the blades that protect the gun, and they did that very well.
In front of him, where another light bridge would have been, was his ship. It was small, with a rounded artificial shape. Along the sides of the hull were carvings that represented hope, and peace, most likely carved by his brothers and sisters. Then there was one larger symbol located on the entrance that represented love, which was from his mother.
He tried to cry, but he could only laugh.
He didn't stop as he got into the ship's cockpit, flipped the switched that kicked it into life, and hit the thrusters. He didn't let up as he entered an untraveled coordinate marked only by the elders as 'Eden', nor did he stop as he stripped his flight suit to prepare for a long cold sleep in a cryo-chamber.
The laughter filled the ship, covering every wall and pushing into ever corner like a wave of water, like one that might be on a beach; the very same beach that he laid with his mother not many years ago.
It didn't stop.
As he lay down in the large padded tube that would encase his body in a sheet of ice and allow him to stay preserved until being thawed at first sight of a life bearing planet, he put on a recording that his mother had given him on his fourth birthday.
"I love you son," His mother's angelic voice filled the chamber as he began to drift off into his own mind. "Every day with you gives me another reason to live, you are the apple of my eye and the center of my galaxy."
The boy tried to stay awake for the entire recording, his eyes drooping as if weights were holding them down.
"With every passing second I fear the day you will grow up and leave me for good. Just remember that when you do, when you have to take responsibility into your hands, that I am here for you, and I always will be."
He let the heavy anchors of sleep wrap around him and drag him into the never ending abyss known as a dream. He would dream of that beach and hopefully one day be there again, with his mother holding his hand, leading him toward the ocean.
"Sweet dreams Adam."
Dust and echoes