It Ain't Over Till it's Over

Sarah sits next to me while I'm driving. We're looking for a truck gone missing somewhere in the desert. A truck load of coltan, we're thinking it's hidden somewhere in a small nameless town near the Mexican border. The next step. We go on. We have to.

I'm thinking she's gone through a lot. I'm thinking we've all gone through a lot. But you can't stop, no you can't. You have to keep on going. Till it's over. And it won't be over. Not today.

John, sitting on the back seat, he's not a child anymore. I know he understands. In the end, he will be the leader we desperately need. He'll have to give up a lot and he will. But he will not be alone. He will never be alone. We will be there to fight with him.

The metal is sitting beside him and I don't hate her as much as I did. Not anymore. I know she's saved us, including me, too many times. Sometimes I catch myself thinking, she's part of the team. She's on our side. I'm thinking, she's part of us. And we're not best friends and we never will be. But we're even now.

When this is over, she's gonna have to go. The machines have to go. All of them. None can survive. Maybe John gets that, maybe he doesn't. Yet. But he will. I pray to God that we all survive. But she can't. She has to die. When this is over she'll close her eyes and she can never open them again. Never. But this is not over, not today. And I see her through the rearview mirror and I say to myself, not today.

With fake names and fake lives, I'm almost like Clark Kent. I'm the geeky loser going unnoticed by everyone, trying to be as invisible as I can. But I'm also the big savior in blue tights and red cape. I have to step up, I have to be a man. I have to save everyone.

I'd like to know how my life would turn out. If I lost the cape and never learned how to fly. I'd go to school, and I'd hate it like everyone else. I'd skip classes but still graduate, and I'd make mom proud. I would be a nobody, I wouldn't have to look over my shoulder every day. When someone recognizes me, I wouldn't have to run. I'd finally feel safe.

Would that be how it would turn out? If I choose the other life? What would it be like?

I try not to think of Jesse. There's a black hole inside me. Sucking all the energy in me. So I don't think about her and it gets better. The emotions, I'll deal with them later. When this is over. And it's not over, not today.

Things don't always end the way they're supposed to. We don't always succeed. We're not heroes. Sometimes I wish I could tell John that. That he doesn't have to be a superman. He doesn't have to save mankind. He doesn't have to lead the war.

But I can't tell him that. That is exactly what he has to do.

We won't give up. We'll get up and try again. And we keep trying. Because that's the only thing we can do.

If I step on the road to hell, to the future and to the war, I fear I'll lose myself. Eventually, day by day, there's just someone looking like me, flying alone in the sky. But he's not me. He just looks like me.

Up, up and away.

She says in the future I have many friends. But she also says that it will be lonely being me. I don't know which one is true, sometimes she lies to me.

I don't want to end up fighting the windmills. And when I turn around I'm the only one there. I don't want to end up being alone.

The problem with the future is that you don't know what is going happen. Anything I do to change it, I don't really know the outcome. It could go either way, good or bad. I only know how my life is now.

The ordinary, the normal, the boring. It might just be an illusion. I don't know, I've never been there.

The machines, the war, death. The road I've chosen in another life. I don't know that either. I've never been there.

How am I supposed to know which way to go?

I don't know how we'll know when we've done enough. When we've changed the future enough. I guess we'll just have to do our best every single day. But I'm sure somehow everything will make sense one day. The clarity will define us, we'll wake up to a new day. And we'll know.

There's only one ending to this story. One road, one life.

Whichever you choose, you'll always wonder. What if. What would've happened. What was at the end of that other life. What is at the end of this life?

Heaven? Hell?

What would have happened to Clark Kent if he didn't have to fly. If he could just go home and live his life. Would he have been happy?

Would he have been happy knowing how many lives weren't saved because he wasn't there?

This is the life we've chosen. The road we're on. There's no turning back.

I think it takes a lot of courage to take the first steps. To let go of the hopes and dreams you might have kept alive in your mind. Not to kill them, not to bury them but just let go of them. Let them fly away. Maybe to another lifetime.

I will make a path for the others to follow.

And right this moment, in this very car, we're driving towards the future. This is my life. Right now.

Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who took the time to read + review the story :) It really keeps you going knowing that you're not just writing to yourself (and even if you were, you still have enough courage to publish whatever you've managed to get down on paper). This was a fun story to write and I'm glad I could share this with you :)