-3 Years Later-
I bid farewell to Neo, Trinity, Morpheus, Apoch, Switch, and Cypher, and sit back in a chair. Here in this dingy hotel room, I'm forced to remember my first painful venture into the matrix as a freed mind.
Three years.
I've met so many new people. I've been to Zion. I've truly bonded with the crew. They've become my new family. I've grown up. I'm taller…heavier…But by other standards, still short and skinny. I take off my sunglasses, not sure why I even wore them in, as I survey my dim surroundings.
I slide my fingers through my shortish curling hair, and breathe deeply. I'm exhausted. I'm seventeen years old…But I feel much older. Much more weary.
And with Neo...I can sense the same within him. An old soul.
Today is the day I will die.
Morpheus, Trinity, Apoch, Switch, Cypher, Tank, Dozer…none of them know.
Four months after Sherin died I returned to The Matrix, and met the oracle…
She told me my future.
I will die today, protecting The One, so that he can fulfill his destiny.
I grip the armrests of this chair, my knuckles white.
I pull the sunglasses back out of my breast pocket and put them on. Tears fall from behind them and slide down my cheeks.
I heave a shuddering breath and wonder how I will go.
And I wait.
Voices thunder in the long winding stairwell, and footsteps. By the sound of it an entire S.W.A.T. team. I brace myself, standing and setting my jaw. I go to the case beside me and pull out my gun, my heart racing. Footsteps pound louder and louder, closer and closer.
Tears soak my face, and my heart feels like it's going to burst. I take a deep breath as the footsteps round the last turn of the staircase and rumble down the corridor. With a crash the door opens. My arms vibrate with the force of my guns firing round after round. Even as bullets pierce me I stand strong, until it's physically impossible.
I crumple to the floor, and for a fleeting moment Sherin's with me again....
And I'm soaring.
…………………..
THE END.
