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“Greetings, Ryland Grace, Saviour of stars.”
“Uh, hello?” He calls out, unsure where to direct his speech. “Who are you?”
“We are the beings of the universe”. The echo of many voices surrounds him, a soft sort of lullaby enveloping him in a newfound warmth. He feels as though he is floating, his body no longer, a mere whisper of what once tethered his soul to reality. Even in his new... state, he sees countless colours of varying brightness, blending to fill him with a deep sense of peace. He knows he’s safe here - wherever here is. He decides to ask.
“Where am I?”
The low hum of noise around him sparks to life once again. “You are everywhere and yet nowhere. You are in both light and dark. You are in the space between dreams and reality.”
Well, that’s helpful, he thinks. He might as well accept it though; It’s a nice enough afterlife, and he doesn’t feel the aching of his joints or his laboured breathing anymore.
As if reading his mind, the beings continue. “This place is not permanent. You have shown immense bravery and sacrifice in your life Ryland Grace, and we wish to demonstrate our gratitude by giving you a choice. A gift from us to you, in return for saving our stars.”
“A choice?” Grace asks, still trying to compute the fact that literal celestial entities are somehow talking to him, for crying out loud. “What choice?”
“A chance of rebirth. A new beginning. You could become a star, an observer for eons. You will retain all memories you forged in your human life and be able to consume all knowledge the universe holds. You could watch over your dear Rocky, until his time comes too.”
Grace stills at the mention of his friend. What felt like moments ago, he had taken his last breath in the comforting embrace of an Eridian mourning song. His hearing was the last of his senses to go. But Rocky’s hum felt so distant now, and he longed to be with his best friend, his soulmate, again.
“You know Rocky?” He asks, his voice light with hope.
“Of course. We know everything.”
“Will I get to be with him again?” The desperation in his words is evident. He misses him so much already, his absence a sharp tug where his heart should be.
“When he meets his end, he will come here as you did and be presented with the same choice.”
Relief was flooding his every thought. His best friend, who he thought he had lost again forever, was going to come back to him.
“So, you’re saying we could both just… become stars?”
“Yes. Or you could choose the path almost all other souls have to take. They are dispersed across the universe, their souls no longer intact, but their energy lives on. It cannot be created or destroyed, as you so loved to say to your students. It can only be changed.”
Wow. This is a lot to take in. And yet, Grace knew his answer before the beings even told him about the second option. It’s the easiest choice he has ever had to make – he could have more time with Rocky, and that is all he wants.
They all seem to understand his choice without Grace even voicing it.
“Can I wait for him, here? I’d like to do it together.”
Grace swears he hears a faint laugh in the beings’ words.
“Naturally. You two were inseparable in life, what right does something as small as death have to deny you that?”
And so, Grace waits.
*****
It had been centuries since Rocky last saw his best friend. He remembers their last day together so vividly. The Eridian memory is perfect, after all. They had spent it together on the sand, looking out into the fog smothered ocean in comfortable silence. They sat side by side, Grace leaning into Rocky for both support and warmth – his body had rapidly deteriorated over the past few months, and with it his ability to regulate his body temperature. He relied on the quilt and the heat radiating from the thin xenonite suit to keep him comfortable.
Rocky kept quietly clicking one of his claws in Grace’s direction, sensing the once steady beat of his heart gradually slow. The artificial sun was dimming, signalling the end of a day cycle.
“Rocky?” Grace said, his voice weaker in his old age. Thankfully they were both fluent in each other’s language by that point, so they could still understand even the quietest of sounds the old laptop wouldn’t have been able to pick up.
“Yes Grace, question?”
“I think it’s time.”
He was carding a claw through Grace’s hair when the phrase made his whole body tense up, and he slowly retracted it to bring all five limbs closer to his carapace.
Rocky gasped out a hurried, “What do you mean?” He always forgot to clarify his sentence functions when emotions ran high.
He knew full well what Grace meant. Back when Eridian scientists first detected the irregularities in his heartbeat, he had tried so many times to talk to Rocky about what this moment would look like. At any mention of Grace’s death, though, Rocky just froze. Then he either changed the subject entirely, started an argument for even daring to bring it up, or simply broke down into sobs of anticipatory grief, which of course Grace had comforted him through. He knew it wasn’t fair on his human at all, and Rocky was determined to not let his own feelings get in the way of Grace’s this time. He swivelled his body round to face him, one of many habits he had picked up over the years, his anxious clicking allowing for a more detailed view of his friend.
It was then he noticed the tears silently rolling down his wrinkled face. “I can just feel it. I’m tired Rock, I’m so sorry. I wish we had more time.” The crackle of his lungs as he spoke was audible even over the waves crashing on the shore just ahead of them.
“I know. I am sorry too, Grace. I am sorry we could not find a way to extend your life. I tried, I promise, I really tried to fix-”
Grace cut him off with a soft stroke of his hand atop his carapace and a reassuring smile. “Hey, bud, it’s okay. I know you did everything you could, and I am so incredibly grateful for that. But we both know it’s inevitable, and I really have made peace with it this time.”
“You are not lying, question?”
“Absolutely not. You’ve given me everything, Rock. I couldn’t have had a happier life here. Getting my own house, seeing you and Adrian every day, teaching the pebbles – I’ve loved every second of it.”
“Me too.” Rocky managed to warble out, his sadness weighed heavy on his vents.
Grace shifted uncomfortably on the sand, and Rocky moved behind him to let him lie in his arms. He rewrapped the quilt around his shoulders, with a little bunched behind his head making for good padding against Rocky’s jagged form. He and Grace once had a conversation about the importance of physical touch, the deep intricacies of how a small action can bring great comfort to humans. Rocky began running a claw through his hair again, careful not to catch it on his glasses.
The man looked up at Rocky through teary eyes, and it seemed this movement took the last of his remaining energy. “Watch me sleep?”
“Always.” Rocky said, hoping he muffled the warbles in his notes.
Three taps on Grace’s chest forced the reality of the situation to come crashing down on Rocky in waves. His heart had slowed dramatically.
Grace struggled out a final “See you later,” and huffed out the last of the air in his lungs.
But I won’t see you later, Rocky thought.
Instead of voicing it, a sorrowful tune escaped his vents for the first time since he lost his crew aboard Blip A. Rocky continued for hours, a melody so loud and flooded with grief it could be heard far beyond the walls of the biodome.
He sang of their shared journey, from meeting the strange leaky alien in the tunnel to fishing on Adrian, to Grace turning back for him and their tumultuous journey back to Erid. When his song came to an end, it was replaced with endless wails of such sadness no other Eridian could even fathom. Rocky stayed holding Grace’s lifeless body in his arms for hours, unwilling to leave even when Adrian had come to drag him out so he wouldn’t suffocate. It was worth it to get more time with his friend.
A few days later, Grace’s burial took place in that exact spot. A beautiful headstone was erected, and each one of his students came to rest a pebble at its foot, each engraved with messages of appreciation for their favourite teacher.
The remainder of the ceremony, and the years following it, were a huge blur. He was a hollowed-out version of himself, and the gap could only be filled by none other than his Grace. The sole reason he didn’t wither away was his beloved Adrian - he ate and slept the bare minimum just to stay alive for them, because he’d be damned if they had to lose their mate again so soon after they reunited.
Day by day, he had learnt to fill the raw absence with other joys of life. He has a family now, a clutch of five pebbles: Petrova, Sol, Terra, Mary, and Grace, whom he loves so fiercely.
Still, he has his days, when he needs to be alone and clear out the biodome of visitors to howl his despair into the same sea he looked out on when it happened.
Today is different, though. His limbs feel like lead, and it was taking all his willpower just to walk from the airlock to his friend’s grave. The wind blowing over the water’s surface reminds him of the whooshing of blood around Grace’s body, making him feel so safe he begins to get drowsy.
In his last moments of consciousness, Rocky swears he sees a light heading his way. Sort of like a dream? Which doesn’t make sense, because Eridians can’t dream. But the universe is weird like that, he supposes. He has had countless near-death experiences to show for it.
And so, when his limbs lock up for what he knew would be for the last time, Rocky is not afraid. He knows deep down that his Grace is waiting for him.
*****
They were both dead.
It felt like seconds and millennia had passed all at once. The light surrounding Grace had turned blinding, and then he was somewhere entirely different.
Somewhere in the Milky Way galaxy, a nuclear fusion event began, a cosmic hug, shining so brightly it could be seen from both Earth and Erid. From a cloud of stardust, a new binary star system was formed. Two suns, gravitationally bound in an orbit.
A friendship forever written in the stars.