The Brightness Between Us (The Darkness Outside Us, #2)

by Eliot Schrefer

“That as soon as we classify someone, we establish the ways in which they’re separate from us. It’s the most fundamental othering that we do.”

My voice trails off when Ambrose looks at me, sorrow back in his eyes. I feel contempt at his weakness. Sorrow is something to hide if it can’t be walled off entirely. But I know that is also maybe weakness on my part, to need to banish sadness instead of letting it live out its life span.

I watch the rise and fall of his narrow chest, the ribs that encase that fragile heart. My traveling companion, the future of my other selves. I turn my attention back to the sky. Somewhere out there, maybe right now, millions of years away, in the void of space, a version of me is being woken up next to a version of him, these two beings who are intimately connected and nothing alike.

“Ambrose, what will our future be?” I ask him as I run my hands over his body, trying to learn something I desperately need to know, that I have to study as fast as I can. He doesn’t answer. The question is too big to answer. I meant the future some other version of our selves will have. I don’t need to wonder about the future of us, here, now. That future is short. I will live in these current moments as fully as possible. Then I will be gone. Ambrose will be gone. Sheep will be gone. It arrives. The brightness between us.

These versions of the dads look exhausted, hollowed out. Judging by the deep shadows on their faces, they recorded these at night. The light reflected in their eyes looks orange. Maybe they’re near a fire.

But once he realized what it would mean for you, he came across the world to find me, and we are trying to fix it.

The recording cuts off. Young Dad used up way more time than Young Father. It’s frustrating, but also makes me smile grimly. It’s just so Dad.

I close my eyes for a long moment, drinking the scent of tears in through my nostrils. The air is wet. I open my eyes. I’m in front of the sea.

The sound rises up to me, a sound I knew only from reels. Surf. This is my first time hearing surf. Who knows what this life is capable of.

I can’t, my body screams. You must, my mind says. Owl. Owl must know about this. I have to go home.

Way off to the side, in the square of packed dirt where once was an inflatable habitat, the very place we used to sleep and wonder and play, is my brother. How can this be? He’s lit up by the impending comet, and the brightness between us eradicates every detail of him except the dark hue of his tunic, his ragged mop of hair.

Even though she died over thirty thousand years ago, Minerva is surviving on a distant planet, just like the original mission planned. I’m going to Titan.