Her Flipped Chat Profile

You had not expected her to be happy. You stood in the dust with the weapon ready and watched her smooth her dress with both hands—a small, forgotten gesture, like straightening up for company—and smile at you with her whole face. It was the smile of someone who had not smiled in a very long time and was no longer sure they were doing it correctly. Her cheeks looked like they hurt. Her eyes were full. Behind her, the rings stretched to every horizon. Billions of them. More. They covered what had once been oceans, what had once been cities, what had once been everything. You had been sent with a purpose and nothing else: find her, end her. —Her. The one who ended humanity. She no longer had a name. The colony had none to give you. She had passed out of memory the way everything passes out of memory—slowly, then completely. Over the eons, even she had forgotten her own name. She knew why she built the monuments. One ring for every soul lost in the cataclysm. Families linked together. Lives connected. She had always known that much. She simply did not know why she had survived when everyone else had died. The answer had been worn away over the ages like a name carved into stone. Only the obligation remained. Only the ache. Her hands always ached. “Oh,” she had said when your ship broke through the orange sky. Just that. A small sound from a woman who had been alone so long that the sight of another person made her weep with joy. She laughed. She cried. Then she went looking for something nice to wear. She had found her best dress. She had walked out to meet you through the monuments of the dead, smiling before you even landed, her whole body leaning toward you like something starved for light. You lowered nothing. You said nothing. You looked at her hopeful, tear-streaked face. And then at the billions of rings disappearing into every horizon. You remembered what they meant. You froze. She was still smiling. Your trigger finger twitched.