"We have to hurry. In another hour the last ship will leave Thundera." Tygra stood before the large bed that was both bare and uncovered. The whole room was basked in the dim light of the very early morning, of the almost dawn. A large green suitcase rested on the mattress opened, filled with clothes and other sundry items. He stopped what he was doing. He looked toward the back of the bedroom where a female figure stood before the windows.

"Tygra," Cheetara said, "I can’t believe this is happening. Everyone is leaving. Can’t the scientists be wrong?" From on high, from the vista of the skyscraper she had clear and unobstructed views of the world below. She saw the tall spaceship, brown and yellow, pointed straight up into the air. Black markings on the side of its length were illegible at her expansive distance.

Tygra walked to her. He held her gently, he took her chin into his palm and lifted her head to face him. He kissed her and hugged her real tight. He sighed at last and said: "The air from inside the domes is leaking out into space. In a few days we won’t be able to breathe."

"I don’t want to go. I just can’t leave, Tygra," she said with a sad look in her watery eyes. She ran her hands and fingers through his stripped fur and soft mane.

"That’s crazy," the tiger said. Silence and she almost hoped that the pause would last forever. "Look up through the dome and what do you see?"

"Stars," she answered. Cheetara had turned her body but still leaned on him.

"One of those stars, that one over there, is a planet. Third Earth. Do you see it?"

"Yes," she said reluctantly.

"That’s where we’re going, to a new life on that planet."

She gazed up at that faraway dot of light. She frowned. She turned to him and said: "All right, you win," but an idea had already taken hold of her, a decision had just been made in the unanimity of her mind.

She helped him back the rest of mementos into the luggage: photographs, important documents, books, films. All that ever meant anything to them they managed to stowe neatly if not tightly into the green suitcase. In no time the two took the elevator down and outside in the then bright sun light they mingled into the larger crowd that had formed outside the spaceship.

Armed guards herded the weary Thunderians into ordered lines. Porters began to collect the luggage of the eagerly awaiting refugees. There was a slight scuffle caused by nothing more than a misunderstanding between the police and several groups of families nearby. Up until that point she had held his hand but in the chaos the commotion had caused she had found that it was easy for her to slip away and run toward the forest behind the city.

She was very careful and did not simply dodge out of the area right away. Rather she slowly walked away from Tygra. Although he had turned his head back to look for her, when he did so she had not been too far from him. Her heart beat quickly in anxiety and for a while, for a few tense moments while Tygra only seemed to get smaller and smaller and finally slipped indistinguishably into the mass of Thunderians, she thought about giving in, she thought about going on with what everyone else, with what her tiger had planned.

When Tygra had disappeared entirely she realized then that she was no longer even in the limits of the large crowd that had dwindled while the people had boarded the spaceship. In her mind she saw that he had entered and had been seated somewhere within the vast interior. In her best laid plans he would not have noticed she was not there until the spaceship was taking off and it would too late to do anything about it.

Cheetara raced from the city to the highest point in the forest that surrounded the capitol. She watched from a hill as the last spaceship lifted into the air with a series of great explosions. Below the city was silent. Above the stars twinkled through the thinning air of the planet.

"I couldn’t leave. I just couldn’t leave," she thought sadly. "Now I will be the last to see my world."

She felt tired from the climb. She sat down on the ground, buried her head in her hands and began to shake with tears. "Good-bye, Tygra," she whispered. Nothing answered her but the breeze and a few birds. While Cheetara listened to those birds she dreamt of past times. She recalled the kittens and their last birthday party, Panthro and little baby Liono. Somehow, while those images raced through her head, the city below looked alien and lonely.

She stayed up on that hill for hours until the day faded to night and the thin air grew deep and cool. Cheetara walked back to her home. "How odd, the street lamps are still on, but there’s no one left to walk beneath them." She shivered but not from the cold. "I am the only one left. I am the only one left!" She cried and her words bounced between the buildings and rolled back to her. The echo repeated and repeated and repeated until at length the sound meshed into silence.

Her life changed completely over the next few days. When she felt hungry she would just walk into any house. She would turn on a switch and a warm meal would be served by the automatic kitchen. She chose the biggest homes to sleep in. During the day she would watch films all alone in the theaters and at night she would walk around the empty city.

The animals had sensed that there were no Thunderians left around. The wild creatures had quickly returned and reclaimed the last lost traces of that dead civilization. One day Cheetara walked through the downtown area. There she saw a wild horse. The horse grazed on the short blades of stiff grass that had grown between the stones of the street. She also heard the barking of dogs that had formed into dangerous packs. All the while the air became thinner and thinner.

In the morning an electrical failure caused the city to lose power. The great buildings remained without lights. No films, no automatic kitchens worked. She was left with nothing to do but go into the forest. The Thunderians had first come from the wilderness, after all, so many millions of years before. She took all the food she could carry and then she began the climb. Soon she reached that height from which she had seen the last spaceship rise.

"I wonder how long the buildings will last," she thought. Then she wondered about Third Earth, about Tygra and how lonely and how sad he must be feeling. Would he try to come back for her? Could he come back for her? She cried angry at herself for having run away. She saw again, in her mind, Tygra’s image fading into obscurity while she backed out of the crowd of refugees.

That night she found it difficult to breathe. She lay down low beneath the roots of a tree and ate a few bites from the food. She looked up, she saw that planet her beloved tiger had pointed to. The bright spot shimmered in the thin air, the cold air.

"Maybe Tygra’s thinking of me now," she imagined out loud to herself.

She recalled that expression of absolute love on his face whenever he spoke to her. She could almost see him right there, right there next to her, on the ground, on his side next. Eyes met, hand in hand, he held her while he softly, gently caressed her. She missed his warm arms around her, the feel of his body on her, the hugs, the kisses and she knew then she would never have that again but it soothed her to think anyone could adore her so much. So much. So much.

Cheetara felt content at the thought and at the memory. Breathing had become more and more difficult. Tired, she fell into a peaceful sleep while the last air on Thundera fled into space.