High above London – as high as you could get without a zeppelin – a woman sat in silence, watching the stars. There were not as many here in the city, where the bright lights would drown them out before they had the chance to begin shining, and she regretted not being able to go to the country. Ideally, she would be sat upon a deserted hill out in the countryside, with no lights to compete against the beauty of the skies. Cursing the affliction that had left her like this, she reflected bitterly that regardless of how much she wanted to be there, it was quite impossible. Solitude would be unachievable if she had to take someone to push her chair.
Photographs sat unlooked-at in the woman's lap. Faded, dog-eared snapshots that were a source of amusement to all those who saw them, but not to her. To others they were a retro relic, two-dimensional and tedious. To her, they meant everything she had ever loved or been, and she clung to them now harder than she had ever done in a life that seemed as though it had gone on forever. Most were pictures of her, taken at varying stages throughout her life. The latest was ten years old; since the illness had returned, she had permitted no photographs to be taken of her, but even then she had insisted it be taken on an ancient Polaroid. None of this hologram nonsense.
It was likely, she thought, that others would be doing the same as her now. A meteor shower was forecast for tonight, due to begin any moment now. It was just past midnight, but it was summer, and the air was warm and heavy.
She wished she could go home. Tightening her grip on the pictures reminded her of it, and she found herself recalling her friends and her family. Now, of course, home didn't exist, because they were all dead, and what was home without the people who made it so? She wondered if she would meet them again when this was all over, and blinking back tears, for a fraction of a second she saw her mum's face, smiling.
It was time.
Along with the photographs, in her lap lay a small cylindrical object, hidden amongst the folds of her skirt. A syringe, filled with a clear liquid. The woman stowed the pictures carefully in a complicated pocket, her gaze lingering for one last time on some more than others. She contemplated whether to take the arm or the hand, but when all was said and done, it wouldn't matter. In one movement, lest she lose her courage, she plunged the needle into her palm and watched as the fluid drained into her, relishing the almost immediate numbness that spread first up her arm, and then seemed to wash over her like a wave.
Before the ability to move her neck left her, she relaxed and turned her eyes to the night sky. The stars were beginning to fall, dropping from the sky like burning tears. The faint sound of a zeppelin droned in her ears, but to the dying woman it sounded like singing, and as the breath left her, she felt herself taken by the hand, pulled, and rejoiced at her rediscovered freedom.
And then, there was nothing but darkness, and a familiar face glowing like torchlight.