Strangers
Tannistha Ganguly
“It has been a couple hundred years.”
“So?” Jack sat hunched, his back to Valentina. “Do you want to resume where you left off, after you gouged out my eye?”
“I-” Valentina choked. Valentina and Jack used to tell each other all their deepest secrets and ask each for advice. Before the Cataclysm, the two were like family.
“Oh, I see. You want to resume our last conversation? Ama wanted a small house with a white picket fence in the countryside. Charlie wanted to get a dalmatian for Sally. I wanted to go back to college and take care of my mother. You wanted power. Do you want to talk about how you’re the only one who got what they wanted?”
Valentina fiddled with her fingers. She didn’t remember that conversation.
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Of facing you. Facing Ama was hard enough, but I needed her to get humanity functioning again. She was fuming when I asked her to govern her people, but she knew she was the only one who could do it. We are on good terms.”
“Did you face Charlie then?”
Charlie had died during the Cataclysm. He body was reduced to ashes in the lightning storms.
“You gotten so… bitter.”
“336 years alone in the dark tends to do that to people.”
“Jack, what will it take for me to mend our friendship?”
“The magic word.” Jack whipped around to face her with his eye. He slowly mouthed out the word.
“Sorry?” Valentina read outloud. “Oh. Oh by the gods.”
“Oh by the gods? By us? With that type of arrogance, it’ll take a five hundred more years for you to get even close to your goal.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“I’m sorry that I gouged out your eye when you took my life’s work away from me.”
“Great apology!” Jack clapped. “Alright, goodbye, see you in 500.” He stood up and started to fade into the shadow cast by the building trees above. Valentina dashed forward and grabbed his arm.
“No! Jack! I am sorry! I’m sorry that I tricked you into killing a god so I could take her power! I was selfish and I used all of you! I used my friends. I used all of you. I didn’t care about anything. I was a horrid, manipulative, messed