Chapter Four: Vows, Lies and Time

A Chapter by Rachel_Biggs

Chapter Four: Vows , Time and Lies

The wedding bells began to sound. It had been over four hundred and fifty years since our escape. I looked around in disbelief. The old space station was in its own way, beautiful. It looked as though roses had been rained down upon every corner. It smelled unbelieveable like the breeze blowing off the sea, which smelled of sand and salt. I heard the traditional wedding march begin to play on an old stereo. I saw Bax waiting for me at the end of the aisle with our new friend, who, as luck would have it, was a priest. Unfortunately, she also was wearing a neon pink tiger print suit. It didn't look too bad on her though, and went fairly well with our choices. I had opted to wear lime green instead of the traditional white, and Bax was wearing a dark purple suit.

They suited us, I mean we were the kind of people who got married in a parking lot, with a may or may not be legal preist. Bax had a smile on his face and had never looked more handsome.

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To keep it short, Bax and I escaped by negotiating our way out, but Zeke and Shiloh weren't lucky enough to wake up before we left. The creatures told us, 'only those who speak for themselves may leave if they make a convincing argument.'

Zeke, I could care less about and Shiloh, we decided make up a story and have him die a hero, he would have wanted to die one anyway. He supposedly sacrificed himself to save us, but Zeke foolishly got caught in the crosshairs. We couldn't wait to get back to Earth. Everyone would know our story. We would be able to reunite with our loved ones. Or so we thought.

We got stuck in time. The technical term, I learned later, was a Flurbian Flume. No one knows exactly how they develop, but the flumes act as a sort of time machine. Neither of us aged or died. To us, it seemed to be only months. Then we found out otherwise.

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We gazed in amazement at the world around us. It had only been a few months, hadn't it? We went to to our former apartments, only to become even more surprised. I looked up and saw a giant bronze Bax in front of me. I turned my head and saw Shiloh, Zeke and I staring down as well. A plaque read 'They who sacrifice themselves for a noble cause such as this, shall not be forgotten. Long may they live in history.'

There were flowers and momentos laid around our bronze feet. Throngs of people milled about. I began to tremble. I circled slowly around the statues, stopping to gaze at each of our likenesses. A teenage girl walked over to me, and after stating that I had 'the coolest Myra costume, that I even looked like Myra' she'd stopped and looked at my face closely. I turned and fled before she could see my lower lip tremble. I made my way back to Bax. He wept openly, tears streaming down his face, dropping onto his shirt.

"Bax," I whispered, "they were wrong. They didn't forget about us."

"I know," he said, sliding his arm around my shoulders, "I know.

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We began to wonder if we'd ever age. It didn't seem like we would. It was the year 2573. We should have been almost 400 years old. We didn't look a day over our 2250 ages. We looked exactly as we did the day we had left.

I had always looked older and Bax looked so exhausted that it was easy for us to claim we were older than we were if needed. Bax just needed some instruction in the art of lying. He almost got us caught in a lie the first week we were back on Earth. He had tried to go get his license, in the proccess revealing his actual name. "Baxter Mattien," he had said, when asked. I had to lie through my teeth just to get us out of it.

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Bax raised one eyebrow, something I'd never been able to do.

"Love, why are you crying?" he whispered at the make-shift altar, taking my hand.

" Because, I'm , well..........I really don't know. I'm happy and sad and fifty thousand other emotions. I'm happy because I get to spend the rest of my life with you, but sad because none of our friends can be here, y'know?"

"I know, but Zeke and Shiloh were not our friends."

"Not just them," I said, "Everyone from back home, from the old space center."

I said this, thinking of James, my parents and everyone else I'd known and left behind. I knew Bax was thinking of his sister, his only family.

"I miss them too."

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"Mrs. Mattien?"

"Yes, Tommy?" I rested my hands on my stomach, which would soon grow large and full, for the second time, with the tiny child growung inside me.

" My daddy says that the Advance 1 never existed, that is was all a conspiracy."

"HOW DARE HE...."

The children were staring at me and I realized this was the first time I had raised my voice at them.

"I am sorry class. Tommy, your father is in the wrong, They did exist! It all happened, I promise you!"

"Mrs. Mattien, how do you know?"