Time had ceased to exist for Laney. Her life in the cabin deep in the woods didn’t require clocks or calendars. As far as she knew, she was the only one left. The days all melted together with one sunrise no different than all the others. It seemed that the birds were her only company with their busy chattering and mournful morning sonatas. Occasionally, late at night, she would hear the eerie songs of the timber wolves echoing through the darkness of the woods. She thought that at least they had others of their own kind to give them comfort and warmth during the long, lonely nights.
 
  Laney had pondered getting into her 4 x 4 and leaving her home in search of others who might have survived the bloodless holocaust of the new weaponry that killed humans, but left the cities standing, empty and lifeless. Except for the vermin and other wild creatures that now filled its streets, there was not much else. She saw no point in leaving her home. Before the television stations stopped broadcasting, she had watched in horror as reporters, reduced to tears and almost incoherent in their blubbering, told of massive deaths in countries all over the world. The perfect weapon had worked so well that not even the ones who perpetrated the ugly deed were exempt from its destructive power. Laney shook her head in disgust. It didn’t even matter who was the first to make the strike. There was no one remaining to care. The powerful and mighty in their horrible arrogance had undone the world and themselves in one fell swoop.
 
  When Demetrius had kissed her good-bye on that Thursday, the fifth of May, 2005, she had had a premonition and asked him not to go on the flight to New York City for his conference. He had looked into her eyes and kissed her again saying that he would be back in a week and that they would be together again and all would be fine. Laney had wanted to hold on to him, but  she knew it would have done no good. Laney watched in numb surrender as he got into his truck, waved good-bye and drove out of her life forever. Six months had passed and the world had moved on, changed, turned over a new leaf. Laney stayed in her cabin waiting, floating through the mundane chores of life.
 
  Laney had prayed that Demetrius had survived and would find his way back to her. Her belief in God soon eroded as she thought of the earth covered in the fermented stench of human flesh rotting in the streets in countless cities and towns. Laney didn’t blame God for the foolish acts of man, but refused to believe that a God whom she had been taught was all about love would have permitted this abomination. Laney lost her faith, gradually moving away from all that she had believed in. It seemed as if her spirit had turned to ice. The tears came unabated for days as if she had been crying for the entire population of earth who could no longer shed their own tears.
 
  After two frightening and desperate months, Laney considered suicide, but decided that to do that would be an abomination because after all, despite billions of deaths worldwide, she had been spared. Whatever purpose was to be served by her survival, she was determined to live out whatever time had been given to her. So, she set about living her life in the way that she had always done. Laney cleaned the cabin, set a good amount of wood on the porch for the approaching winter, checked her food supply that was abundant and started to write a journal. Once she started, the words poured out of her on the neatly lined pages of the Avery notebooks. She wrote of the tension leading up to the holocaust, of countries wielding threats at each other and then she wrote of the day that a third world country launched its ill-gotten technology at their enemy. That was the day when reason was trampled by ego and arrogance and a deadly thirst for power. It was the day when hatred took the throne in all of its ugly glory. Laney wrote the words as they bombarded her brain:
 

hatred
oozing from every molecule
Venomous purification of the heart and soul
pushing back the Light
that gives us Life
sinewy sickness grabbing hold
burying the spirit as living death unfolds
let it go before it devours you
gorging from the inside out
hatred
suicide of the soul
murderer of the heart

  No one could stop the ever increasing march of hatred once it was given free reign. It was all so clear to her, as if a door of enlightenment had opened in her mind. She felt compelled and driven to write the thoughts that bombarded her mind with clarity and logic. Laney wrote for days without stopping, trying to capture the wisdom that flowed through her like an aphrodisiac. After seven days and seven notebooks that Demetrius had purchased in bulk for his many projects, Laney put her head down on the table in total exhaustion. The Notebooks were neatly laid on the desktop. Their colored covers looked like a rainbow in a crescent around Laney’s head.

Fifty Years Later:

  Captain Alex Smith stood outside of the cabin door, pondering whether to go in. It certainly didn’t look inhabited, but his curiosity about this planet and its former occupants was peaked. Nowhere in the great libraries of Earth or in their data bases could he find the answers that would satisfy him. He had always loved Earth with its oceans and fervent green meadows. His ancestors had lived on Earth and established colonies ages ago. Those that stayed behind helped strengthen the race, but their history had long ago blended with the population that followed. Only their surnames had remained, their meanings lost in time and space. He had been watching Earth for centuries and knew of the penchant for skirmishes and wars that its inhabitants seem to possess, but he wondered what could have precipitated such mass annihilation? He had had such high hopes for the planet and its people, some of whom had carried the same genes that made Captain Smith the man that he was.

  He pushed against the swollen wood of the door and when it finally opened, he found himself in the kitchen. Dust and cobwebs covered the interior. He saw a broom in the corner behind the door and used it to clear away some of the cobwebs that looked like gray veils hanging from ceiling to floor. The kitchen, except for the dust of the years past, was neat and well kept. Captain Smith walked into the living room and looked at the  photographs of people that were hanging on the wall.  Perhaps they were images of the people who had lived in the cabin.

  As Captain Smith walked toward a stone fireplace, he saw the desk under the window. The skeletal form, with head resting on the desk and bony hand on what appeared to be some sort of books, was still dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt. Captain Smith noted that it was probably a woman who had died while writing. Long auburn hair, still fastened in a red ribbon hung down on the back of the flannel shirt.

  His eyes were drawn to the notebooks under the skeletal hand. Very gently, he removed the stack from under the hand that had protected them for fifty years. They were common school notebooks with covers of different colors. He took the notebooks into the kitchen, used the broom to clean off the table and a chair and laid them out. They were numbered on the cover of each,  one through seven. Carefully, he opened the notebook numbered with a one. The handwriting inside was in a neat, flowing script, done in black ballpoint ink. Although the edges of the sheets inside were yellowed and brittle, the paper was still readable and quite intact. Captain Smith sat down and began reading.

  "I, Alaina Smith-Hansen, write this testament of my own free will guided by the voices of the souls who were victims of the hatred that stole their earthly lives. Let this truth not be lost to the ravages of time and memory. Whoever finds this testament of the events of May 2005; you hold the truth in your hands and bear a grave responsibility in its proclamation and dissemination so that others may learn and not repeat our mistakes…."

  Hours later, Captain Smith finished Alaina’s testament. Tears streamed down his rugged face and his heart was heavy with sadness and grief. He had found his answers within the notebooks and knew that these books were indeed sacred. He thought of the burden that Alaina must have carried being the lone survivor of an entire planet. He knew in his heart that she had spoken the truth when she wrote that the voices of the victims had dictated the words to her.

  Reverently gathering up the notebooks, he walked over to Alaina’s desk, covered her bones with a quilt that he found folded neatly on the old sofa and said, "You have fulfilled your destiny, Alaina."  He was a man of honor and would make sure that Alaina’s testament would be preserved and made known to all who would listen.

  "Your words will be known and the truth put to light. Rest easily, dear Alaina, you have done well. And, I swear, these testaments will not be lost or forgotten!"

  On his way to his transport vehicle, the beauty of the mountains awed him. The various and majestic trees, the flora and fauna of this place took his breath away. As he looked back at the sturdy cabin, now surrounded by overgrown gardens, he imagined Alaina standing on the porch looking down the dirt road, hoping to see Demetrius’ truck bringing him home to her. What a solitary and daunting task had been given to the slight woman in the cabin!

  He had always loved the determination, imagination and spunk of the people who inhabited Earth. Their capacity for compassion and caring could not stem the tide of hatred and greed and his heart became heavy with grief at that realization.

  As he boarded his transporter, he looked again at the land that was greener than an emerald and he said a prayer for the people of his planet who had volunteered to make the long journey to Earth. They would be Earth's New Hope and perhaps Alaina's last testament would be the words that could guide them through generation upon generation of peace on Earth. Maybe,  it could all come together, but this time, compassion and love would defeat hatred and greed.

"After all," Captain Smith thought, "How could they NOT learn from the words that Alaina had left behind?"