The technician adheres a hypersleep ventilator to my scarred face. “You’ll wake on Alpha Centauri in twenty years. You shouldn’t dream.”
Good.
Everything fades.
§
“Daddy, why are you crying?” Billy sits on my knee in our garden.
Bees buzz, masking the drones.
I’ve tried running, tried dragging my son out of this final, peaceful moment.
It always ends the same.
“It’s okay, kiddo.” I force a smile and hold him to my chest as the firebombs fall.
He dies.
I don’t.
My heart shatters for the thousandth time.
The memory loop resets.
§
“Daddy, why are you crying?”
Shatter.
Reset.
§
“…Daddy?”
Brandon Case is an erstwhile government cog who fled the doldrums into unsettling worlds of science and magic. He has recent or forthcoming work in Escape Pod, Air and Nothingness Press, and The Dread Machine, among others. You can catch his alpine adventures on Twitter and Instagram @BrandonCase101.
P.S. If you appreciated this one, be sure to check out Brandon’s other recent contributions to Stupefying Stories, “Divided Sky, Stolen Life,” “Leave the Plasma Gun, Take the Cannoli,” “Writers Strike Reaches the Office of Predestination.”, and “Spin Drive Class with Captain Ryan.”
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