The Cowboy
By Kallen Zborovsky-Fenster

The air runs thick with the ashes of the old world. It is heavy to breathe with the weight of the constant reminders of humanity's failure. We hold the old world in our memory under a shroud of falsehoods, ignoring the prospect that it was not as idyllic as we thought it might have been. To be fair, it was undoubtedly better than what we have now. As much as I hate to say it, the gleam of Supernovia's skyline still looks ever so bright, even in my decaying memory. Who could have believed just how dark it would become.

We all suffered under the Corporations back then, but once they were militarized, their powers were unmatched. Everything changed. For years we all complained that the governments were letting the corporations benefit at the expense of the world's population. We were such fools. It was all a distraction. All those damn profits skyrocketed their power to a level we never could have imagined once they formed their own militias. As the governments wouldn't sell them weapons, they realized they had to make their own. Their production came at the highest cost to us when the nanotech they were making for their military ended up ravaging what remained of our fragile planet. They destroyed what they didn't obliterate in the three hundred years before. Sure, their power elite remained protected in their barricaded climate-controlled communities. Still, for the rest of us, the air became more unbreathable, the water undrinkable, and the land slowly too arid to grow decent food. Even the once-government "superpowers" crumbled under their control. Ironic, isn't it? After hundreds of years of protecting the corporations thinking it would benefit them, now they were at their mercy. They brought all we knew to ruin. I miss the glimmer of the buildings of Supernovia City. The destruction has left nothing but the ash of what once was. Regardless, a view is best appreciated with another, and I don't have anyone anymore. The scientist is dead, and she was our last hope. There is no one else to save us. God, I miss her.

With the deterioration of the old world, the people deteriorated as well. Even the best of us faded slowly away. Their souls were slowly suffocated if they were not killed like the scientist. Like my once best friend Lionel, the Viscount of Steamtown, who has become a neurotic coward. He is why I am here, pondering everything that has led up to this moment at the bottom of this damp and filthy well. He ordered my execution, using those cravens led by Cole to shove me down a well in the middle of who the hell knows where. A bunch of sheep, those fools, following orders blindly without putting two and two together that they could be next.

The air is dank at the bottom of the well, and the ground is soft and wet. I sit in a few meager inches of water, remnants of what once filled this entire space. I debate whether or not to drink from it, for it would prolong my miserable last days. Somehow a beam of sunlight still finds its way to me, and it burns my eyes. I didn't imagine this is how it would end, but this may be how it should. Perhaps what they did was for the best.

The lot of them call themselves the "Protectors of Steamtown." Protectors get chosen by Viscounts, the new rulers of this vestige of the old world. Protectors are notoriously prideful and arrogant. They grasp at any sliver of power. This group, charged to end my days, does its bidding for Lionel; a coward who couldn't even wield power over a common street gang before the war. Cole, Lionel's Baron and right-hand man, leads these protectors. Cole's gang consisted of five people: himself, Khari, Gemma, Rodriguez, and, well…me. It was before the last sundown that Lionel sent us off on a "recon mission,' with the primary goal of securing any water that was left remaining in the desert. Despite all the known sources having run out, he had explained to us that there remains one source that hadn't been found. I would have questioned this and debated interrogating him on the matter. Still, as I had known and trusted him since before the Corporate War, I threw my faith blindly at the man. Bad decision. When we reached our supposed destination, the gang seized me. My cowboy hat fell off as they shoved me into a dead Margrove tree and hurled me into a well next to it. I knew Lionel's paranoia was always a risk. His growing false accusations of my disloyalty brought me to this moment. In my descent down the well, the wind sang a song of humility. The last shred of trust I had in this world was gone. As I descended into the hole, I released the few remaining positive memories I had of Lionel. I know now that this was long overdue.

It is turning to night. Damn, this well is tall. Sitting at the bottom of this hole with a broken leg like some wounded dog, I know there's no way to climb out of this mess. I estimate any other person would be horrified by the fact that they know they are dying. In their last hours, they would likely reflect on how splendid their life was. They would wish they had just made the right decisions, so they wouldn't end up in such a predicament. This is simply not how I am. I accept things as they are. You see, I never had a good life. I had good moments, sure, but never anything to boast about, that is, until Lizzie Margrove, the scientist. Lizzie was the light of my life. She illuminated everything. And in this dark hole where I now sit, the memory of her is made brighter.

Lizzie made the best espresso. When I first met her after being given charge of protecting her, she explained that the secret is in the "consistent pressure tamping into fine bean fragments." As I watched her in her lab, I noticed how she swiveled in her chair whenever she got excited at a potential discovery. She had an unjaded childlike quality, something all the rest of us had lost. She clung on to the ways of the past without melancholy. She listened to the old music, "jazz," she used to call it, and swayed her head slightly to its beat. It was magic to watch her. She had more life in her than the world in which she lived. But to remember her is to remember how she died; I can't wallow in those memories. Those memories are my slow death, but not as slow as hers, beside me on that dark day. The cold hard truth is that it is my fault that she is gone, as I couldn't predict or avert the attack from the Corporate militias.

We knew the Corporations got wind of her research, and if they got their hands on it, they would control who lives or dies in what was left of our rotting corpse of a world. That meant the elites go on, and the rest of us sorry saps would die. Our only hope was for the Shadow Council, led by a rogue underground network not linked to any government or corporation, to distribute it. The Council appointed several soldiers and me to guard Lizzie and her work. This was something else that Lionel was not happy about being the power-hungry bastard that he was. This tipped the power scales in his mind. I was still a Protector that worked under him and a loyal one at that. Little did that matter. In hindsight, this may be why I am here counting the last hours remaining of my life.

In the outskirts of the desert was Supernovia City, or what remained of it. The abandoned Albatross Tower sat at its center and was once the site of some of the world's top research labs. By design, it was meant to withstand natural and manmade disasters. So it survived the war, even if partially in shambles. It was there that Lizzie moved to do her research in some makeshift lab in the basement. She had been developing a serum that would make land fertile again, and its vegetation hopefully would produce enough oxygen to clear the toxic atmosphere. The only problem was how to create it in large amounts. She could only create minuscule traces of it. No scientist had ever dabbled in this type of work before. To develop large quantities, a missing element needed to be added. She couldn't figure it out until that fateful night.

The moment Lizzie had the breakthrough, she held up a vile to light and stared closely at its contents. "This is it. This is what changes everything. The answer was always in front of us! How did I not see this sooner? It was so obvious that each of us always had the solution!" she exclaimed. I wasn't sure what she meant when she said that. What is it that we all had? Sitting here in this darkness, I wonder why I didn't ask. Why was it enough for me to be swept up in watching her enthusiasm at that moment? I remember she had given me the vile to hold onto and walked into the hall past the guards to retrieve a container to store the serum. She looked back at me as she turned into the hall and smiled. This is how I want to remember her.

As she disappeared around the corner into the hall, I heard the sounds of rapid gunfire ensue. I still remember the thud of our guards collapsing, Lizzie's screams, and her stumbling back into the room covered in blood. I threw the vile in my jacket pocket and ran towards her to catch her, but as she fell into my arms, I knew it was over. All that I could do was fall beside and feign my own death. I would have traded places with her if life was fairer. The soldiers came in screaming, stepped over us, and destroyed what was left of the lab. I held her hand as I held back the sting of my own tears. Any hope of her survival was gone when I opened my eyes to see hers void of life. The world had ended for me on that floor covered in Lizzie's blood.

The sun has come up again. All I hear is the blowing of the wind. At the bottom of the well, there is only one way out, and that is up. After all, is said and done, would I really face defeat at the hands of a fraud like Lionel? I refuse to give him the satisfaction. He will pay. But the most brutal truth is if I die, the only memory of Lizzie, mine, dies as well. Despite the searing pain in my leg, I push my way up and observe the stones in the well. I begin to scale the well with every ounce of strength I have. She will not be forgotten. I count the breaths that I take to distract me from the overwhelming pain of my limp leg. Just as I think there is nothing left in me, I feel the dusty wind hit my face and the warmth of the sun. I made it. I look out of the well into the barren desert, which has never looked so beautiful. I am happy to spot my cowboy hat on the ground by the tree where those bastards pinned me down. As I make one final push, I feel a sharp pain on my side and yet continue to pull myself completely out of this wretched hole. I should be able to make it back to Steamtown. I would need to start walking now. Ready for the journey, I pick up my cowboy hat… but feel lightheaded. My body feels weightless… and wet? I feel something under my shirt. It's moist… and red… and oozing out.

I need to sit. I drag myself to the dead Margrove tree and lean back upon it. I notice my jacket is the same one from my last night with my Lizzie. I reach into my pocket and feel the cool smooth sides of the vile, still unbroken. I don't have the strength to hold it anymore. I hear the sound of it falling beside me.

The desert is hot.
I am trying to remember what I'm supposed to do.
I can't feel anything.
My blood slowly spills onto the desert floor, mixing with
the liquid in the vile.
The same one that cost my Lizzie her life.
Why didn't I ask about that final ingredient?
I’m sorry Lizzie.
Something is happening to the tree.
Are those leaves?
Is that grass beneath me?

I see green.

I see white.

I see nothing.