Lethian's Bells

She stood at his approach and brushed off the hot dirt. He was going to take her beyond the Terkelian rings, beyond that beautiful blue planet which was the only source of light on this now dark, cold planet.

He had gathered some dead plants to take back with him so that their scientists could study the effectiveness of the bombs that had rained down on her world.

She was beginning to understand why the Creator had left her alive. These people sought to study her, to see why she had withstood their onslaught. They thought they had won. She would let them continue to believe that...at least for now. They thought themselves immuned to the poison now absorbed in her every corpuscle, her fibre, her brain. She would prove them wrong.

He was handsome, this stranger from beyond the stars. But her heart was closed, her duty laid out before her.

As she walked by his side back to the ship, she listened silently to the bells singing to her for the last time. They were saying goodbye. They already sounded alone, abandoned, their songs fading into the long night.