literature

Extinguished, Part 3

Deviation Actions

Cyrus-the-Acceptable's avatar
Published:
382 Views

Literature Text

    The orange-haired girl lay on a long, folding beach chair, her face partially covered by her hat. She smiled, content with the day's affairs. Large rock formations littered the beach around her in lieu of people, for the Western tip of O'ahu was hardly much of a tourist attraction, save for marine life and the backdrop of dense, colorful forest behind her.

    Not far in the distance, along the water to the North, she spotted a Trader Ship. It remained stationary, anchored to the shallow sea floor. Small, pre-fabricated, domed structures stood on its rear-upper deck, topped with the flags of business trademarks, advertisements like “BAIT/TACKLE” and “GIFTS”. The largest of the structures donned a flag with the ubiquitous WacArnold's yellow arches. A few small fishing boats had docked with the Trader Ship, fishermen resting atop the forward deck at tables under white and red-striped umbrellas.

    The girl averted her eyes, having lost interest. She took a deep breath, exhaling softly. A ringtone began to play from inside her backpack. Picking one out of two cell-phones, she noticed the name of the incoming caller. She readied herself.
“Call: Answer.” she commanded. The sound of her voice was different from before. There were several ways to interact with phones, though voice-recognition was a popular alternative to touchscreen gestures.
The screen unlocked.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Jenny. It's me.” the sound of Lilah's voice left the speaker.
“Hey, hey~” the girl responded. “You forgot to encrypt again.”
“I know. I don't think we'll need to anymore... not after tonight, anyway.”

    “Hm... you ready?”
“Yeah... yeah I think so. We'll meet at the same place as last time.”
“Right. I know it's hard, but I think you'll be better off when this has ended. You know?”
“Yes... oh. By the way, guess 'what'.”
“What?”
“I'm really excited. Can you guess why?”
“Did something happen at work?”
“I got the report back from our last experiment.”
“Annnnd..? Did you get the ignition thingy to work?”
“You remember! Ha... no... but I'm far closer than I've ever been.”
The girl's ears perked. Her attention snapped from the ocean to Lilah's words.
“Ohhh?~” she replied, her grin resurfacing.
“Yes. Fifty-four percent chance. It shot way up. I know now, for certain, that my model will work. That is, if I make some more adjustments.”
“That's great news! I'm glad. See, girl? I knew you could do it.”
“Thank you... thank you. Oh, Jenny...” Lilah sounded as if she was about to cry. “It's been long enough. Maybe I can prove the critics wrong, finally!”
“Exactly, exactly... have you shared this with everyone else, yet?”
“No, no... I want it to be a surprise. Besides, today was off for most of the team. I'd rather everyone get the news all at once, tomorrow.”
The girl named Jenny's inquisitive demeanor became contented, with a smirk.
“... sounds good, Lilah~”

    Dead silence befell the call.
“Lilah? You there?”
“Yeah... I just can't believe it's finally turning around. You helped me, you know.”
The girl laughed. “I didn't do... nothing.” she said, with a tinge of hesitation. It sounded unnatural, as if she'd forced this obvious grammatical error.
“Right, that means you did do something!” Lilah giggled.
The girl was further amused by Lilah's joy. “See, I knew your hard work would pay off. I'm just glad to witness history in the making.”
“I would tell Armand, but...”
“Listen: Don't worry about him. Alright? You know what you have to do. You don't need a reminder.”
“Right... sorry.”
“It's okay. Tonight's going to be one hell of a night. I know how much you like fireworks."
"... If there ever was a perfect night for our last time, this could be it." Lilah's voice turned somber, almost longing. "I... I know this is for the best... but can we at least pretend to still love each other until the end?"
"Lilah."
"Right..."
"It'll be okay."
"Okay. Yeah... but can you promise me one thing?"
"Sure."
"Promise me this time will be the best. The best I ever had. Promise me a night to remember."
"That was the idea from the beginning~"
Lilah sniffled. "It's going to get a little cooler than usual, tonight. Wear that hoodie I gave you, alright?"
"Already planned on it." the girl replied, reassuringly.
"Great. Tonight's gonna be a blast."
The girl smiled, sweetly.

"Yes... yes it will."




Extinguished is a Short Story set in the Highwave fictional universe.

Highwave: Extinguished by Andrew Soto
Comments0
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In