To Remember a Beautiful Death

(Rewritten)

By

Watson Sword

---

When I originally wrote this story, I was very dissatisfied with it. It seemed rushed, so as to be sloppy. There were also many things that I was planning on adding to it that I never did because it was so rushed.
This is why I deleted that story, and now present you this rewritten version. It’s much better than the original, and much longer.
Hopefully, this version will get a lot more reviews than the last one did.

---

I had my latest fight with Lilo yesterday. I don’t really even remember what it was about now. I know it was something trivial. I know I started it just as an excuse to take out my discontent, about what I don’t remember, on her.

What I do clearly remember is what resulted of this fight.

I ran away.

I loved doing that. I loved how my family would all react when I disappeared. How they would worry so much about me. How they would drop all other matters just to look for me. How they would come to me so eager to apologize for whatever they had done wrong. Even when they had done nothing wrong, even when it was all my own fault, they would crawl to me wanting to apologize for something. It made me feel good. It made me feel like they truly cared for me, if only for the moment.

But this time would be so much different.

I wandered aimlessly for some time until I found myself on the beach. I walked along the shore for a time until I found a little blue ball in the sand a ways away. It was an experiment pod! I ran to pick it up. I held it in my hands. It was something from the four hundred series. But I wouldn’t hold it for long. Gantu showed up. We fought. Somehow, I lost. Gantu flung me into the ocean.

I would stay underwater for almost two and a half hours until a scuba diver would find me unconscious and drag my lifeless corpse up onto the beach. I lost the pod that day, and I almost lost my life. But what I gained was so much more.

I went home of my own initiative that day. This surprised my family. It surprised Lilo more than any of them. They were so used to me just waiting for them to find me. They held me up crying out apologies for things I don’t even remember them doing. But I forced myself out of their embrace and told them not to apologize. I told them I ran away only because I was being selfish, and that I neither needed nor deserved to be compensated for what I had done.

This confused them. And it frightened them, I think. I wasn’t surprised really. They had never seen me act like that before. I never did act like that before.

Oh, if only I could tell them what happened to me than I know they would understand. But how could I? I had the lingual skills of a child, and Shakespeare could scarcely describe what I went through!

I did tell them some of it. They knew about the fight with Gantu, how I almost drowned, how the locals saved me, but that never even touched on what I really went through.

If only they could speak Turian than it would be different. Turian was one of those languages that could be learned in less than a year, but would take longer than most lifetimes to master. I, of course, was born a master of Turian. From my first conscious moment in this universe I such vast and perfect knowledge of every inane facet of the Turian language that I could write the book on Turian poetic articulature.

But they only spoke English. The English I knew only allowed me to convey basic feelings and desires. It was nowhere near enough to tell then anything.

Maybe I could tell Jumba. He was the only one among my family who was fluent in Turian besides myself. But I knew what he would say. He would say I suffered from too much oxygen depravation to the brain. He would say I was imagining things. Or he would say I was just plain going crazy.

The only other thing that could understand both Turian and English at any appreciable level was Jumba’s computer.

Of course!

Jumba’s computer! It could translate Turian into English! If I couldn’t tell my family what had happened to me, I could show them. In writing! I locked myself in closet for the rest of the day, and through most of the night. I wrote feverishly, page after page. I rewrote, again and again, trying to get every last detail perfect.

When at last I was done, I hit ‘translate’, and then I hit ‘English’. I saw my masterpiece perverted into pages of strange squiggly, swirly symbols I couldn’t recognize. Then I hit ‘print’.

I went back up to Lilo’s room and tucked my now stacked and stapled letter beneath my pillow. There was only four more hours left to sleep that night, but it was still the best nights sleep I ever had, or ever will have for that matter.

When Lilo woke up in the morning, she went about her usual routine. Brushing her teeth, combing her hair, changing into one of three outfits that she insisted on wearing every day, a red mumu, a green mumu, or a pair of khaki green shorts with a blue t-shirt.

But when she was done, and came to the elevator to go downstairs, she found me blocking her path, with my letter in my hands.

“What’s that?” she asked me.

I answered. “It is a letter. I wrote it, in Turian. I made Jumba’s computer rewrite it, in English. It is for you Lilo.”

I handed her the letter, and she skimmed over it quickly before looking back up at me in awe.

“You had a near death experience!” She gasped out at me.

I had no idea what she was talking about. Was that what they called what happened to me? If so, the fact that it had a name must’ve meant there were others, no matter how few, who went through the same, or at least a similar, thing.

But that could all wait for another day. There were more pressing issues at hand right now.

“Please read it.” I asked. “It is important to me.”

Lilo nodded her head, and read the letter, much more thoroughly this time. I could tell where she was by the movements of her eyes, and I reread my work to myself, in conjunction with her eye movements.

This is how my letter read.

---

I sat on the bottom of the ocean for almost two hours before my head finally gave way. This was it. I thought, This was the end. I was going to die. As I held my breath for so long, my mind getting hazier and hazier, the one thing I remember distinctly was that I wasn’t all that scared. I was apprehensive yes, but the abject terror that I thought would be associated with coming to grips with the fact that you’re going to die at any moment was strangely gone. It was slightly confusing and almost humorous that I wasn’t all that frightened. The last truly coherent thing I remember thinking before I lost consciousness was disappointment over, of all things, you Lilo. I thought to myself, If I’m going to die, it should be in a way where people clearly know I dead. That way, Lilo could get some closer about my disappearance, instead of having to worry herself into premature gray hair over where I was and why I left.

After that, I blacked out.

I woke up to a blur. I was so relieved. It was all a dream! I thought to myself. I never drowned. I never died. It was all just a bad dream except for… just where the hell was I?

I woke up looking down at a beach. It must’ve been about twenty or so feet below me. I stood up and walked some distance. It never occurred to me to wonder why I was so far above the sandy ground of the beach, or how I could be walking if there was nothing to walk on except air.

I walked for some time until I noticed a small crowd of people hovering over something. I walked directly above what they were looking and peered straight down.

It was an experiment!

It was totally lifeless. It looked like a dead fish! Everyone was gathered around to see if they could do anything to help it. The local pizza happy stoner was trying to resuscitate using CPR and mouth to mouth.

It must’ve been in the six hundred series. It was always impossible to tell what a six hundred series was designed for just by looking at one.

I was so saddened by what I was seeing. One of my cousins had just lost his life, and I was never there to get to know him well enough to even merit saying goodbye. I wished I could’ve been there at that crucial moment, whenever that was. I wished I could’ve been there to save him from whatever it was that sucked the life out of him. I felt so loathsomely guilty for not having been able to be there when I could’ve made a difference.

Boy that thing sure looked like me though.

Wait a second…

THAT WAS ME!

How could this be possible? How could I be the one down there dead on the beach if I was twenty feet up in the air looking down on the whole scene?

What the hell!…

I was twenty feet up in the air! What was I standing on!

I looked down at my feet. I wasn’t standing at all. I was floating! How could I be floating? I was never designed to do that?

Somehow or another, I was floating twenty feet in the air, looking down at my own dead body.

None of this should’ve been possible. Not unless… not unless…

Not unless I was dead.

I was dead! I was a lost, wondering spirit looking down at my own deathbed!

The realization hit me like a ton of bricks. This was the most hilarious thing that ever happened to me! I was dead! And I was looking down at my own body, which had the expression of a blow up doll! Look at those people worried about how badly I was hurt! Look at all of them trying to wake me up! Just look at them! The poor bastards had no idea how pathetically futile their efforts were. They ran about like confused little children at a piñata! Like I said, it was the most hilarious thing that ever happened to me.

I fell onto my back and rolled over laughing hysterically. I couldn’t help myself. The irony was just too much.

But my laughter was quickly stymied by the strangest sensation. I opened my eyes again and found myself to be rising upward. I was being pulled upward like a magnet. It was as if the realization that I had died was causing me to ascend. In fact, I was sure that the realization that I had died was causing me to ascend.

Faster and faster I went, until there was nothing left of the beach except a white line like you see from an orbital photo. And I was still rising. Faster and faster. Soon, the whole Earth came into my view. Faster and faster, the Earth grew smaller and smaller in the distance. Faster and Faster. Eventually there was nothing left. I was alone, immersed in…

I was immersed in The Dark.

The Dark was an infinite nothing. No sound, no smell, no sight, no heat or cold, nothing of any kind to stimulate the senses. I was just utter stillness in an infinite void of this Dark.

From the physical experience I had first imagined that I would be drowned in indescribable loneliness. But to my shock and delight, that’s not what I felt. The Dark was oddly… comfortable. It was total relaxation and limpness of both mind and body. It was like being suspended in Jello. I realized then that The Dark was the perfect place to go when you just wanted to get away from it all.

Is this what it’s like to be dead? I asked myself. This isn’t so bad. I could just fall asleep here and never wake up. I suddenly couldn’t possibly understand why anyone would ever be afraid of death. What was there to fear, if all it meant was floating in this endless, comfortable, relaxing, smooth, gelatinous Dark.

But I still couldn’t get past the feeling that this wasn’t the end. The Dark was only middle ground between my former world and something else. How did I know this? There was only one possible way I could’ve known this, and that was if I was still rising. I was still rising! Rising upward! Not that I knew which direction upward was in The Dark, but I was still rising somewhere.

And I was still accelerating.

At last I saw where I was headed. It was The Light. It was so bright that any earthly equivalent would’ve instantly vaporized my retinas. But despite how bright it was, it didn’t at all hurt to look at. More and more, it actually began to hurt when I tried to look away!

Once I stopped accelerating, I knew what had happened, I was moving at the speed of light. I knew from theoretical physics what was bound to happen. I would arrive at my destination before I was done traveling, and for a time, I would be both at my destination, and heading toward it simultaneously. This was going to be an awesome experience to say the least. Unfortunately, this was an experience I would not have, as I blacked out again just before I was sucked into the light.

I awoke on a beach. It was a strange feeling, waking up, even though I had done it countless times before. But before, I had always woken up to a blur and disorientation. It would take a minute for me to compose myself and bring myself fully alert to the world around me.

This time was different. This time, alertness and acuteness of senses was instantaneous. In fact, I was even more alert than normal. My attention span and my focus on the world around me were absolutely perfect. In the world of the living, all my attention would be paid to what I was doing or thinking, and all other sensory input would be ignored. In this place, I took in, processed, and understood everything simultaneously. If I were reading a book, I would read every word on both pages at the same time, instead of going from one word to the next.

It was not at all overwhelming, as the capacity of my mind seemed infinite. In retrospect it probably wasn’t infinite, but it sure as hell seemed that way.

And then there was the beach.

To my left was the most perfectly still, and perfectly clear blue ocean that I had ever seen in either my life, or my dreams. To my right, was an incredibly dense jungle of tropical trees, grasses, reeds, small flowers, giant flowers, fruits of all shapes, sizes and patters, and leafy shrubs. It all shone in so many colors that I would get dizzy if I stared too long.

In the middle, where I was sitting upright, was the beach of the most perfect, brightest, highlighter pink sand you could ever imagine. And above me, the starlit sky, with three moons, one red, one blue, one green. There were nebulae of all shapes and sizes and colors to look at, and there were rings. I remembered looking out from the surface of several planets that had rings, but none of them were nearly as large, or nearly as brilliant as these.

Everything from the water, to the sand, to the sky glowed like luminescent gel. The blues were bluer, the reds were redder, the greens were greener, and all the colors were so much more… colorful than anything I’d ever seen on Earth or any other planet for that matter. It was so bright here that I thought I would go blind at any second. But like before, the brightness didn’t at all hurt my eyes. It didn’t even obscure my vision of the landscape and the sky. Despite how bright it was I could clearly tell that it was the middle of the night.

My body was utterly weightless. The total lack of gravity and substance felt like I had just been released from the constriction of a vice. Strangely, I was still being held to the ground.

This beach was infinite. It stretched forever in both directions. I knew this, though I didn’t know how I knew it.

Allot of things about this place didn’t make sense. But I didn’t care. This place was more beautiful than I ever imagined could be possible. And I had never felt this good before.

This was when I became aware of two being walkings toward me, side by side, from a distance down the beach. They looked human, but as they came closer I could tell that they were only humanoid. Their skin was made of pure light. If they had faces at all, the light obscured them. This confused me slightly, because all the brightness of this place did not obscure my vision, but the brightness of their skin did.

As they got closer to me, I could tell these beings were friendly. I don’t know how I could tell this, I just could. So when they were standing right in front of me, I just reached my arms out to them as one picked me up and cradled me in its arms, while the other would stroke my neck and chest.

But there was something different about this. There was something very wrong. I had been held and stroked before, and it felt very much different from this. I slowly came to realize that these beings were not touching me in the classic sense of the word. Their hands did not stop at my skin, but went right through it. Their hands sank right through my flesh, and were touching me on the inside. The one that held me was gently squeezing the inside of my belly and spine, while the other ran his hand up and down the inside of my throat and chest.

How could this be possible? I looked at my own hand and saw something extraordinary. I could see through myself. My own flesh was translucent like some sort of gel. And I too glowed just like my surroundings. My body was no longer solid, but was now some kind of plasma.

The feeling of hands touching me from the inside out frightened me for the briefest moment. But after than, I felt only pure exhilaration at this incredible sensation I had never felt before. Once I had gotten used to it though, I found the touch of these beings to be the most incredibly warm, soft, soothing, and harmonious feeling I had ever experienced. I went utterly limp in their arms. I was unable to do anything else.

The waves of warmth, comfort, and bliss flowing into me from their touch were otherworldly, almost magical. I was ready, willing, and able at that moment to give myself up to their embrace forever.

But then it stopped. The one stroking me pulled his hand back out of my chest. I didn’t want it to stop. Why did it have to stop? Why did it ever have to stop?

It had to stop so that these two beings could speak to me. They spoke to me not in words, but by beaming ideas, images, and feelings directly into my mind. They told me that just how thankful they were to me could never be expressed, not even with this kind of telepathy they were using. They told me that the debt of gratitude they owed me could never be repaid. Not ever. Not even by any means available to them in this place.

Why would they feel such gratefulness toward me? I had never done anything for these beings. My life had no connection to them.

But the other soon plunged its hand back into my chest. Massaging such incredible warmth and joy right into me, I no longer cared. I never wanted this to end. I wanted to stay in this place with these beings forever. I would’ve given anything to stay with them forever, to feel their touch on the inside of me forever. I never could’ve believed that such heights of loving comfort and joy could ever exist anywhere.

But again, the other one pulled his hand back out of me. The one holding me then raised me to its face, and at last uttered an actual sound.

It began to sing to me. I use the word sing very loosely here, because what came out of what I can only assume was its mouth was not music. It was not any kind of voice. It was no sound that came from nature. It was unlike anything I had ever heard before. But it was more beautiful than anything that could ever come from the world waking, of dreams, or of pure imagination.

It was unreal. It was so wondrously beautiful. The agonizing, excruciating jubilance this sound welled up inside me was just too much for me to stand. My mind shattered. I burst out crying. I cried like a little baby.

My crying only made this being hold me tighter, and sing to me softer and more sweetly. This only made me cry harder. That only made my captor sing softer, and hold me tighter. And the cycle just perpetuated itself.

Eventually, the singing lessened. It lessened until it was no more. And the one who held me lowered me back down.

Again they spoke to me in my mind.

They told me that nothing they could ever do could come close to expressing the kind of thankfulness they felt for me. Nothing in all eternity that they could give me could ever pay off what they owed me.

This made no sense! How could these beings owe me so much when I’ve never even met them before? How could they feel so indescribably grateful to someone who had no connection to their existence? I had never done anything for them. Why would I deserve their thankfulness?

The curiosity almost got to me this time. Almost.

Before I could ask anything. The one holding me wisped me up to its face once again and told me not to concern myself with anything right now. Right now was the time for rejoicing and delight.

The other one covered my eyes with its hand. All I saw was pure white light until it pulled its hands away again.

I now found myself floating on the perfect blue ocean, inside an unequivocally perfect tubular wave. No… I wasn’t floating. I was on a surfboard! I was sitting on a surfboard made of pure, solid light. I was sitting at the very front of this surfboard. I looked behind me and saw them. They were sitting with their legs dangling off the sides of the surfboard into the clearest water imaginable. I looked over the side of the surfboard to get a better view of this water. It must’ve been a thousand feet down and yet I could see all the way to the bottom as if it were less than ten.

On the bottom of this ocean was an endless array of colors, from what, I could only guess. Golds, silvers, reds, blues, greens, all shimmering like gems. I looked back up.

I noticed something just then. Like the touch of these strange beings, surfing here felt strange. It was entirely unlike what I remember. It took me a few seconds to grasp what this experience was really like.

It was soft. There was no harsh pounding of the waves. There was no eventually being thrown from the surfboard when the tubular wave would begin to die down. When the water splashed against me, it didn’t feel wet. Instead it just soaked through to my bones with the most amazingly clean and refreshing sensation that I simply cannot put into words.

The tubular wave I was inside never began to close, it just pushed me along inside it for what had to be almost half and hour, bobbing the board up and down gently for the ride. I had the distinct feeling this would go on for all eternity if I simply wished it so.

All in all, it was less like surfing and more like laying in a waterbed. It was surreal, but it had to be real, given the state of hyperalertness and heightened senses that this place seemed to induce in me.

To prove this, I fell down onto my back, intent on laying down on the surfboard and watching the tubular wave roll over above me. But I didn’t fall back onto the surfboard, I fell back into the lap of the being of light that sat just behind me. Not that this was something I at all minded. This being, me laying in its lap, reached its hands down to, and through, my belly, and rubbed my belly from the inside. The warm comfort and sheer bliss that the caresses of these hands inside me gave was almost overwhelming. Again, I wanted to stay here forever. Again, I would’ve done anything, given anything just to stay here with them.

Then the surfboard took a sharp turn downward. Before I knew it, I was underwater, being pushed forward through the water on the surfboard of light. I was frightened beyond reason, until the being I was sitting in the lap of wrapped its arms half around me, half inside me, and spoke into my mind. It told me that in this place, I could breathe the water, and it wouldn’t hurt me. So I did. I released my breath, and inhaled.

It was incredible. It was indescribable. It was like breathing pure cleanliness. But as soon as I had gotten a taste of this bizarre water in my intangible lungs, the board turned upward sharply, and I was flung into the air.

I found myself flying what had to be hundreds of feet above the highlighter pink sand of the magical beach, and then I started falling. I was falling! I didn’t want to fall onto hard sand from that far up! I knew that even in the material world I came from, such an impact wouldn’t hurt me, but it was still quite unpleasant, and not an experience I particularly cared for.

But when I landed, it wasn’t hard at all. It was astoundingly soft! It was like falling into cotton candy.

After I landed, I was immediately scooped up into the arms of the being of light who had held me before. And once again, the other one reached its entire hand into my chest, and gently stroked me, up into my throat, and back down into my chest. I was utterly helpless but to lay in their arms and indulge in the warmth and bliss that their touch would bring me.

As if that weren’t enough, the one holding me, again began to sing to me. Such an inconceivably beautiful sound, it was mind-boggling. But I think I was a bit more used to it this time, because although tears poured from my now ethereal eyes like streams, I wasn’t wailing out loud like I had before.

It went on for how long I couldn’t tell. Being caressed from the inside out, and sung to by the most beautiful voice in all existence. I had to stay here! I had to find a way! I didn’t care what it took! I didn’t care what I had to do! I just had to find a way!

When it all stopped, I looked longingly into the obscured face of the one that held me. The two beings spoke into my mind once again.

They told me that nothing, not in this world, not in any other, could ever possibly repay the debt they owe me. They told me that the thanks they felt for me could never be expressed, not to me, not to anyone else, as it was beyond any form of communication.

This at last became too much for me. I had to ask, and I did. I have nothing to do with you! Our lives are not connected in any way! Why do I deserve such gratefulness? What did I ever do for you to deserve all this and so much more?

More than you can ever imagine. They told me.

The one holding me set me back down on the sand, and they took a few steps back.

This was when I became aware that the light that was their skin, was in fact not their skin at all. It was some kind of mask. A veil to keep me from seeing who or what they really were.

The light began to shrivel, and peel back from them, much like plastic saran wrap would peel back from a hot plate. The light veils then fell down and flopped against the sand, and then faded away into nothing.

I looked back up to see who could possibly be behind those masks of light.

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

I knew these people! I had seen them so many times before! Though I had never seen them in person, I had seen them countless times in pictures, in videos, in old portraits, in journals and legal documents.

---

This must’ve been where Lilo was at. I could tell because her hands were shaking and her jaw was quivering. Her eyes went wide and she began shaking her head. No! No! No! I’d bet anything that’s what she was thinking.

She dropped the letter and put her hands to her temples, again shaking her head. She must’ve been in a state of total disbelief at what she just read. She had to read the rest! There was no point in any of it unless she learned what I had to say at the very end.

I walked up to her and wrapped my arms around her. She didn’t seem to react, but I went on anyway. I whispered in her ear.

“Please, keep reading. Keep reading. It is important to me. Very important.”

Lilo looked at me, and after hesitating a bit, nodded her head.

I released my grip from her and backed away. I picked up my letter and handed it back to her. It took her a while to find where she left off, but she continued reading once she did.

---

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

I knew these people! I had seen them so many times before! Though I had never seen them in person, I had seen them countless times in pictures, in videos, in old portraits, in journals and legal documents.

They were Lilo’s parents!

They were like me though. Their bodies were translucent, and glowing. They too were not solid, but a kind of plasma.

Lilo’s mother looked off toward the ocean. I turned my own head to face that way. But what I saw wasn’t the ocean. It was Lilo’s hula school. I was back, right outside Lilo’s hula school! No. It couldn’t be. It looked like Lilo’s hula school, but the brightness was still unearthly. This was only an image.

Lilo’s parents spoke into my mind. They confirmed that this was just a picture of Lilo’s hula school. It was a recording of things that had already happened.

Then, there she was. Lilo, or her image at least. I saw her running up the path to her hula school, soaking wet. She burst through the door in a panic. I followed inside.

I watched as she quickly got into place alongside the other students, Myrtle, Elena, Yuki, and Teresa, as well as extras who were there for the day. She scrambled to try to remember just where in the dance they were. When she was finally able to synchronize herself with the others, everyone slipped on the floor, now wet from Lilo’s dripping hair.

It seemed funny, at first. But a conversation ensued that would soon change this. I couldn’t hear what was being said. Their lips moved, Lilo, Moses and Myrtle’s, but everything was silent. I supposed this was just an element of the recording. But as the silent conversation went on, I could feel an anger building inside me. As the conversation went on, the anger grew. It boiled up inside me until I could no longer control myself, and I had to unleash it somehow.

That anger was released in the image of Lilo jumping ontop of the image of Myrtle and attacking her like a rabid monkey. I looked at this, and realized that it wasn’t my anger I was feeling, it was Lilo’s. Or rather, the anger I felt was what Lilo felt at that time. As I tried to analyze that anger more and more, I came to know just how deep it went. It wasn’t a spur of the moment fit, Lilo honestly wanted to kill Myrtle. But then again, that anger wasn’t directed at Myrtle at all, she was just a scapegoat for it. Who or what was that anger directed toward, could it be, herself?

I couldn’t stand the thought. I tried to scream but I couldn’t. So I just wrapped my head in my arms and closed my eyes as hard as I could. When I finally opened them again, I was inside my old house. I was in the living room. But there was something different. The bamboo floor wasn’t bamboo, but hardwood. Familiar scratches and tarnishes were gone. In their place were other scratches and tarnished I have no memory of. This must’ve been what Lilo’s house looked like before it was destroyed in my fight with Jumba.

And there was Lilo, lying on the floor, lip-syncing to some Elvis record on her antique turntable. A bent nail flew by me. I turned around to see Nani’s head through the dog door, her face beaming with rage and shouting screaming what I could only imagine was a slur of threats and obscenities, while she tried to pry so many nails from the doorframe with a hammer win her hand.

I turned back to Lilo and her feelings invaded my brain once again. This time it was total apathy, total apathy and despair. She knew what might happen to her. She knew her behavior may lead her to be taken away by the state and put in some foster home for raving derelicts and juvenile criminals. She didn’t care though. She no longer had any concern for her own life and prosperity. Hate had made her this way. Hate, sorrow, vengeance, none with any target in particular, had taken away any sense of self-preservation she once had.

I turned and ran, trying to get away from this scene. I ran into the kitchen, but when I got there, I wasn’t in the kitchen. I was in Jumba and Pleakly’s room. It was nighttime once again. But this certainly didn’t seem like Jumba and Pleakly’s room. It was relatively clean, there was only one bed, and a rug, and curtains, and… scrump laying on the floor?

I remembered this was before the house was destroyed. This was Lilo’s room now. Lilo sat in front of the window. She looked out at the stars. I covered my head, hoping that I wouldn’t feel what she felt this time, but it was no use. I was flooded with fatigue, not physical, but emotional. She was burned out, there were no feelings left inside her. None except emptiness and regret.

Anger, apathy, despair, hate, sorrow, vengeance, emptiness, regret. These were feelings I once relished, but now they frightened me. They frightened me more than anything had ever frightened me before.

How? What? What could make anyone feel so horrible! I screamed out with my thoughts, hoping that someone or something would answer.

I fell down onto my back, and that familiar warm, soothing, and blissful sensation had at last brought me out of my fit of temper.

I opened my eyes. I was back on that heavenly beach. I was laying down looking up at the faces of Lilo’s parents. They were sitting down cross-legged, facing each other. I lay with my head and torso on Lilo’s mother’s lap, and my legs on her fathers.

Lilo’s mother’s hands were inside my cheeks and jaw, and were gently massaging the inside of my face. Her father’s hand was inside my chest, and was rubbing back and forth. I winced and sighed at the comfort and reassurance their touch gave me. But not even that was enough to fully bring me out of what I had just seen.

What could make anyone feel so horrible? I thought outloud again. Lilo’s parents spoke into my mind. They told me it was loneliness. Loneliness brought about by their deaths. Loneliness was the worst feeling in any and all worlds. They told me that they could bare seeing Lilo like that just as little as I could. But then something happened.

I was looking up at the night sky on Earth. I was back inside the image of Earth, and Lilo’s parents were nowhere to be found. No! I thought to myself. I can’t go through this again!

Something then caught my attention. It was a green smoking meteor. It crashed into the ground with a great explosion some distance away. I got up and ran toward it. I was met with a black, stinking crater, in the center of which lay the wreckage of a familiar hijacked federation police fighter. The dome opened and I leapt out of it! My image that is, my recording. All four of my arms were extended, along with my antennae and quills. I wore the red uniform given to me by the federation wardens.

I stood up, cackled maniacally, and bound off into the night.

I next found myself at the pound where I first met Lilo. I was in the hallway with the kennels in the back room. I turned around to see my other self hugging Lilo. I did it then just to manipulate her, but she seemed so pleasantly shocked by the action, she knew she had to have me.

Then, in the briefest moment, I watched everything we ever did together. Hula lessons, birthday parties, holidays, experiment catching, mingling with the townsfolk for no good reason, causing island mayhem and interstellar intrigue. Everything was there; I experienced it all in only a flash. And what amazed me most was that, in all that time, Lilo was happy. She was happy because she was with me.

I turned around slowly, knowing exactly what I would see. I was back on that heavenly beach standing in front of Lilo’s parents. Their thoughts invaded mine, but I knew what they were going to say before they said it. They told me that after they left her, Lilo was broken. But then I showed up. I became a part of her life. I showed her the love that they no longer could. That’s what I did for them. And they told me that if they had no other choice, they would gladly give up their own lives in this place of otherworldly happiness just so that I could continue to be part of hers.

Suddenly I became sick to my stomach. Even though I knew I didn’t really have a stomach in this place, I was still nauseated by the fact that I once wanted to stay here. I felt so incredibly dirty from the very thought that I once considered leaving Lilo behind for this place. No one gets left behind! That’s what she taught me.

What would happen to her? What would happen to Lilo if I left her too. Would she become like she was before, overcome with rage and despair and emptiness? Would she become even worse? I couldn’t bare the thought.

As if on cue, my question was answered.

I was inside of a small, square white room with dull gray carpets. There was very little in this room except a full sized bed, a plain looking office desk with a laptop computer on it, and a whicker rocking chair that an old woman was sitting in.

Who was this old woman? It was Lilo, far into the future. It had to be! I was seeing Lilo in a recording of the future. What was this place? Was it an old folks home? How could anyone bare to live in such conditions? I looked over at Lilo, the old woman, and then I felt what she felt. It was the most horrible thing I ever experienced. It was worse than loneliness. It was nothing.

Lilo felt nothing. She had no feelings. She had no personality. She had no beliefs. She had no opinions. There was nothing left of her. She was a lifeless, soulless husk of a human being. Everything she ever was, she had killed voluntarily. She wasn’t hiding herself, herself just wasn’t there any more.

Lilo motioned as if to stand up out of her chair, but she did this just to reach back and pull something out of her back pocket. It was a photograph. I walked up behind her to get a better look. It was an old photograph of me! She looked at it for only a couple seconds, and then she tore it to pieces and dropped it down at her side.

Why did she do that? Not even looking at that picture brought anything out of her. She could stare at that photo of me forever and feel nothing. It was a meaningless gesture, so why did she do it? I don’t think even she knew why she did it. But it made me feel horrible, as if I had done something unforgivable.

The old Lilo leaned back in her chair and drifted off to sleep. She slept for a few minutes, and then I noticed something. She was no longer breathing. Lilo was dead!

This is how Lilo would die if I left her here and now. She would die a withered old husk of a person who had won the battle so long ago to kill everything inside her that ever made her human. That’s not how she should die! That can’t be how she would die! Lilo had to die in her own home! She had to die smiling and full of feeling and expression! She had to die surrounded by her family! She should die surrounded by all the experiments she and I saved, knowing all the while how grateful they were to her for giving them new lives and new found belongings in society. Most of all, she should die with me curled up in her lap and purring, not as a photograph ripped to pieces on the floor.

I couldn’t let this happen! I would be dragged willingly through a thousand hells and back again before I would let this happen.

I took off running. I ran outside the door and back onto that beach that I once thought of as paradise, but now only wanted to get away from.

I had to get the hell out of here! I had to find a way! I didn’t care what it took! I didn’t care what I had to do! I just had to find a way!

I ran down the beach as fast as I could. I ran faster than I ever thought possible. I knew it was useless, as this beach was infinite, but I ran anyway. I didn't know what else to do. I could only hope that some miracle would deliver me from this place back to where I came from.

That miracle came to me.

It was the most horrible sensation. It was like being stuck in a blender and frapped, and then poured down the drain of a sink. But even as I plunged into this drain, I could sense Lilo’s parents watching me, waving goodbye to me. Just before everything blacked out, they spoke to me one last time. They told me that when it came my time to return to that place, I would be welcome.

And then I woke up! I woke up to such incredible pain and cold. I heaved over and vomited liters of water out of my lungs. I looked up and saw so many familiar faces looking down at me in worry.

I was back! I was back in Kauai! I was alive! And I could go at last go back to Lilo.

---

Lilo was shaking uncontrollably and breathing erratically as she finally finished reading my letter. She dropped it to the ground and looked up at me with tears streaming down her face.

“You came back for me?” She barely got out in her raspy voice.

I nodded my head at the question.

Lilo threw herself at me and wrapped her arms around me, squeezing me as tight as she could. I wrapped my own arms around her far more gently.

From now on I will never let Lilo doubt for a second just how much I love her. I will cradle her to sleep every night. I will kiss her awake every morning. I will never again run away from her. I will never again break anything that could possibly be important to her. I will never be too busy to spend time with her. And I will never, EVER, let anything trivial come between us again.

My only regret is this. I wish I could reach my hands right through Lilo’s body, and hug her from the inside out, so that I could make her feel the same way her parents made me feel.