The following morning, I woke up to three sharp knocks at my door. I groggily lifted my head from the pillow and muttered, "Come in."

"It's locked." Shadow called out.

"Ugh. Fine. Hold on a second." I let my head fall back into the pillow, and I began to notice how soft and comfortable my bed was. Just a result of not wanting to get up, of course. Stalling furthermore, I glanced at my clock. Upon seeing the time, my eyes shot open. I jumped from my bed and unlocked the door, throwing it open shortly after. "Shadow, it's four in the morning! What the hell?"

"Sorry, I couldn't sleep." His eyes were sparkling rubies, and he looked so happy he could have been giving off an aura of pleasantness. A blissful smile fell so shockingly on his face he looked like he was made of plastic. "I was thinking about you." He explained.

At that moment I realized he was holding something behind his back. "What are you-"

"Happy Valentine's Day!" He suddenly blurted out, making me jump.

"Shadow, I'm not really in a super romantic mood." I glanced in my mirror and got a whiff of my horrible bedhead. "So how about we just go back to bed and celebrate in daylight?"

"I think you'll change your perspective once you see this." He pulled his right hand from behind his back and revealed to me a flower.

A flower.

I stood there in shock for a moment, wondering if it was fake. "It's real." He assured me, seemingly reading my thoughts, but probably just my facial expression.

"I, I..." I had no idea what to say, but realized it didn't matter since I could hardly speak. My throat went dry, and I reached out for it, my hands hovering a few inches from it on both sides. I wanted to touch it and yet I didn't. I was afraid I would ruin its magnificence with my imperfection. It was like a link to heaven. No, it was a link to Earth. To the planet I watched everyday with longing and desire.

I tried to take a few deep breaths, but the shock wouldn't go away. "Go ahead, take it. It's all yours." Shadow promised me. Ever so gingerly, I clasped my right thumb, index, and middle finger around the wondrously green stem and brought it closer to my face, studying every petal. I had read about this type of flower in my books. It was a rose. A red rose. The symbol of love. Upon the thought of love, I realized that maybe everything I had been thinking the night before was probably untrue. This was love. We were surely in love.

Finally, I managed to get a mangled, choked word to leave my lips. "Shadow..." I looked up at him and watched his look of glee. He looked even better than before, like he was feeding off of my wonder and sheer excitement. His eyebrows were raised and his toothy smile stretched ear to ear. I laughed slightly, enjoying how weird the expression looked on him, then quickly brought my attention back to the mesmerizing item in my hands.

"How?" I asked.

"New scientist. She arrived late last night from Earth with a planter bowl full of these. I jumped at the opportunity and she cut one for me, since she said they wouldn't survive long without the right lighting anyway, which she apparently doesn't have in her room here. Oh, but she said to avoid the thorns, so be careful."

When he was done talking I realized I was crying tears of joy. I tried to wipe them away with my free hand but I knew there was no way for him not to notice. "Shadow..." I repeated, "You couldn't have given me a better gift. Thank you so much." He wrapped his arms around me and I buried my face in the top of his head. "This is the greatest thing I've ever held, besides you."

He chuckled. "Who you should really be thanking is Elizabeth. She lives in room 106-A. Goes by Izzie."

"Okay. Let's go. right now." I said suddenly, lifting my head from his quills.

"Like that? Don't you usually shower and change and do your hair?"

"Doesn't matter right now, c'mon!" I exclaimed, already dashing into the hall through the open door.

"Fine, I'm right behind you. Wait, it's four in the morning!"

But I was already gone.

Now it was Izzie's turn to be woken to three sharp knocks. The woman to answer the door had long red hair that was so light it had some slightly blonde strands mixed in. Her most prominent feature was her eyes. One was a dark bluish green while the other was a cloudy sky. Not white, but just barely a blue. Shadow's face had returned almost completely to normal on the trek to her room, but when she answered the door his complexion was bright again. I couldn't help but notice this.

"Hello, Have you not slept yet?" He asked with curiosity.

She glanced down at her wrinkled street clothes. She was the first person I had seen beside myself who wasn't wearing a lab coat. Even my grandfather always wore his. She must have been so new that she hadn't received hers yet. "Well, no. I've been unpacking. I'm the work-now-relax-later kind of person." She glanced over to me. "Oh, hello! You must be the one I gave Shadow the flower for! I can tell you've slept!"

I gave a chuckle. "Couldn't wait to meet you." I held the flower to my nose and breathed in its sweet scent. It was just like I imagined and I closed my eyes, getting lost in the moment.

"Magical, isn't it? That's why I love flowers so much. I'm so excited to work here, but I wish I didn't have to give up gardening. Unfortunately that flower will probably only last about a week, if you put it in water of course."

"I have to put it in water? Why?" I asked.

"It will be soaked up through the stem and help the flower to survive. Don't you know they need water, just like you and me?" Her look of confusion was immediately replaced with a look of regret. "Oh, sorry. I've studied up on the people here. I know about your..."

"Disease." I finished for her, "Don't worry, it's old news."

An awkward silence followed, and after a few seconds Shadow decided to break the ice.

"So tell us about Earth."

"Sure! Come on in." She held the door open for us and we entered her room. It was a little larger then mine but there was no connected bathroom. Also, there were three single beds against the wall facing Earth, backed against the wall-sized window. She only had two suitcases that were open on top of the farthest bed. I walked over to the suitcases and saw that one of them was filled with pictures.

Pictures of Earth.

"May I look at these?"

"Sure!"

I grabbed one off the top and saw that it was the black and white image of a neighborhood. There were rows and rows of big, rectangular houses with automobiles in the driveways. Bushes and trees were on every lawn and there was a group of kids playing some kind of sport in the street. The sun was shining, and out of the very corner of the image, you could see a small grey circle in the sky. "There's us." I pointed. Shadow walked over and grabbed my hand. He kissed it and looked at the picture with me.

"Wow, that's stunning."

"Yeah, it was nice." Izzie said as she joined us at the picture. "There's me." She put her finger on a young girl holding a ball. "We were playing a sport called kickball."

"Interesting." Shadow muttered under his breath. "Oh, wait a second! I never formally introduced you two! Maria, this is Izzie. Izzie, this is my girlfriend Maria."

I pulled my eyes from the picture to shake her hand, then went quickly back to the framed piece of artwork. After looking at a variety of flowers and nature scenes, Izzie began to vividly describe her childhood and experiences on Earth. I was sucked in and for a while, and even felt like I was living a normal life through her. Until of course, it was six, and that's when the scientists were supposed to report to their duties.

"Oh, wow! Time really flew but it looks like I have to go." Izzie said in her bubbly tone. She yawned. "I can't believe I didn't sleep at all last night! Oh well. I'll go to bed as soon as I get off my shift today."

"Can we walk with you to the lab?" Shadow asked, putting an arm around my waist.

"I'd love that!" She said in her excitable tone.

As we walked through the hallway, we saw scientists passing by in a hurry. They were wearing protective suits, like they would use to handle extremely toxic materials. "I wonder what they're doing." I mumbled. Shadow nodded his head in agreement.

"This is so exciting!" The new scientist exclaimed.

When we reached the doors to the laboratory, we said our goodbyes and Izzie charged in. As we turned to leave, we heard someone yell and a scream. Shadow's sharp ears and reflexes allowed him to act before me, but the time it took him to turn around was too much. I felt an intense heat behind me and was suddenly thrown forward. I heard Shadow shout my name but he couldn't reach me and I couldn't see him. With a loud crash I blacked out.

When I woke up, my ears were ringing so loudly I couldn't hear a thing. I tried to lift my head to look around and caught a glimpse of the metal door that had hit me with excruciating force and had fallen on top of me before I fell unconscious again.

The second time I woke up, I could see two things: Shadow running toward me with my grandfather and a fleet of paramedics, and the rose I had been carrying, its stem destroyed and its petals scattered around the hall. A tear fell down my cheek and onto the floor, and the ringing in my ears had gone down. The only thing I could hear above the screeching tone in my head was Shadow's blood-curdling scream. I laid my head back down again and decided that if Shadow was this terrified, there was probably not much hope left. Not for me, or Earth, or that stupid myth of true love.

There wasn't much left for me to do after thinking that thought, so I just mumbled over and over until I blacked out for the last time the same six words:

"What am I supposed to do?"