Umm... yeah. Written suddenly on a Saturday night after I remembered that the girls of Issues had one final wish they never used. Wrote this to wrap up issues, kind of. Depends on how you look at it.

The world was in shambles. They sky was dark and ominous, lightning flashed behind the curtain of gray and black and screamed with fury. Fires raged across the landscape, swallowing anything that dared to cross its path. The smell of death was all around; bodies of those who suffered lay mangled in the dirt while building crumbled in the distance. Any hope of survival quickly evaporated in the intense heat of the flames and sucked into the dark, ever present sky.

In the middle of everything were three women, crouched in a field. They clung to each other, fighting for life.

"Teri, please. Please hang on!" The tallest cried, her azure, lilac and chocolate hair clung to her dirt and blood smeared face. Teri--who lay upon the ground with a deep gash in her side and crimson dripping down the side of her head--coughed and gasped in pain. Her pointed ears leaked blood from within; she had suffered a terrible blow to the head earlier in battle.

"Oh Keeren, I can't heal her." The woman with tri-color hair whispered, losing hope. She looked to her lavender haired friend sitting beside her, who couldn't stay upright for much longer. "My body's been working so hard to heal my own wounds that I haven't the strength to help her…"

Keeren pulled herself closer to Teri. "Please hold on a little longer." The shortest of the three pleaded. "Just give us some time, please…" She suddenly grasped her side and cried softly. Fresh blood soaked her shirt as a half-healed wound reopened. She fell to the ground beside her friend, and reached out and took her bloody hand. "Please… just a little longer…"

Teri looked to her sister with half-lidded eyes. "Missy… this is all my fault. Please don't feel guilty."

Melissa choked back tears. "What do you mean this is your fault!" She took her elder sister's face in her hands. "We did the best we could to stop it, you didn't cause this at all!! You didn't kill everything on the planet!"

The eldest blinked, a blood stained tear slipped off her cheek. "Yes I did Melissa. Everything… everything is my fault…" she paused to take a painful breath. "R.I.F.T., the dimensional war, the death of everyone we cared about… it was all me. If I hadn't invented that damn controller…"

She suddenly lurched to the side, spewing blood from her lips. Melissa sobbed and tried to pull any energy she had to heal her sister but she came up dry. Keeren shuddered at her side and gripped her friend's hand tightly as the ground beneath her became wet with her blood; her rosy complexion was growing pale.

"Maybe you're right, Teri…" She whispered with a weak voice. "But we don't blame you… If it wasn't for you we wouldn't have lived as happily as we did for the past thirty years… Thank you."

But she didn't hear her. Melissa cried out and held her limp sister to her bosom. Her body shook with sobs as lightning filled the sky. The ground rumbled beneath them, the end was coming.

"Melissa." Keeren called. Her friend took a deep breath and looked to her friend. "I'm sorry you will live to see the end… Please don't let yourself suffer." Her eyes slid closed for the last time.

The healer's wails wouldn't be heard over the sound of the end of the world.

Hours later she was wandering the wasteland, waiting for her end. She hoped for a fissure to open up in the ground she stepped over and would swallow her up painlessly. She thought back to the good days of happiness and love. Her now dead husband, her children, her parents, her friends, even the people she didn't know. She remembered the day they all changed the world when the summoned the eternal dragon and the wishes they made.

She had wished to have the power to heal, didn't seem to help much when she actually needed it. Melissa wiped a tear from her eye, crying was of no use now.

Suddenly, she remembered.

"Is it alright if we save it for later use?" She remembered her lavender haired friend asking the eternal dragon about a third and final wish. Her eyes grew wide, they had a wish. She could fix all of this! She could wish everyone back!

Considering the circumstances, the stones were probably still in one piece. They were put in a safe place, deep within the earth of another dimension to prevent them falling into the wrong hands.

But wishing everyone back to life wouldn't help at all, the world was still ending. If she wished the world to stop ending, everyone would still be dead. The healer didn't have much time left to decide, the earth was crumbling beneath her.

Melissa then remembered what her sister told her before her painful death and she knew what she had to do.

"Eternal Dragon!" She called into the rumbling sky. "I wish to use my final wish!"

The sky flashed before her and the elaborately decorated serpent was there.

Before the dragon could announce his arrival she screamed her wish. "I wish none of this had ever happened! I wish my sister had never invented the R.I.F.T remotes!!"

The dragon's eyes flashed bright white and everything stopped.

ooooo

It was mid afternoon and Melissa woke from her nap with a start. She had the most terrible dream. She looked around and found herself in her dorm room with a book in her lap. Keeren was there was well, sitting at the table working on homework.

She yawned and stretched her arms above her head. "How long was I out?"

"About an hour." Her sister said from the top bunk nearby. Melissa looked up and found her sister pushing papers and her laptop into her ratty backpack.

"Where're you going?"

"Library, I have work to do."

Teri swung her legs over the side of the bunk and jumped down. However, the strap of her backpack decided it didn't want to leave its comfortable bed and latched itself onto the pole of the bed. As Teri landed on the floor she yanked on the bag to un-snag it, only to tear a gaping hole in the side of the pack. Before the scholar could leap forward to catch the contents, her laptop had already hit the concrete floor with a crash.

Pieces of the hard plastic exterior were scattered around the room and bits of electronic circuits were equally dispersed. Teri fell to her knees, mouth agape with horror.

"Oh god oh god oh god." She scrambled to pick up the busted computer and inspect the hard drive. As she lifted it the valuable component suddenly fizzed and sparked; Teri shrieked and dropped it. A tiny plume of smoke rose from the laptop, signaling its death.

"…my work…" Teri whimpered, her sister and friend watching with equal horror. "…my program… I'll never be able to recreate it… it's all gone…" She sat back, leaning against the dresser. She put her face in her hands in defeat.

Although she didn't know it, the wish that Melissa had made thirty years in the now non-existent future had come true. R.I.F.T. was never created, and it never would be. The dimensional borders would never be breached and the world was safe.

Teri eventually gave up her dream of becoming an architect and went on to join the American Armed forces as an engineer. While she always felt she never reached her full potential she was happy. She bought her parents a home in Bermuda and eventually joined them in retirement.

Keeren graduated with a MBA and started her own business on the other side of the country. She married the first man who was willing to love her but eventually divorced. She spent most of her last days in a custody battle over their children.

Melissa changed degrees several times during her stay at University and eventually left for a more interesting life in Europe. She struggled to maintain a lasting relationship but eventually settled down and raised a family before discovering her natural talent for crisis counseling.

Though nothing quite as interesting as the adventures that may have occurred had Teri managed to create R.I.F.T., but the entire world would be eternally grateful had they known what was sacrificed for the future of life as we know it.