“How much longer are we going to suffer? This has to end now!” Casond yelled to the crowd that had gathered to hear him. I had never heard him this distraught, in all my years as his best friend. This was unwonted, but it made sense.
Casond stepped down from the stage, and came to stand next to me. “How are your parents doing?” I asked him.
“Fine.” He responded with celerity. He wouldn’t look at me. I grabbed his hand, and he looked me in the eyes. “Sarama, I’m thinking of doing something…dangerous.” He paused to make sure no one was watching. “I’m going to find a cure.”
I was excited. We were going to find a cure to the disease that had devastated our planet. We left summarily the next morning, and boarded my ship. Like Dante in the Divine Comedy, we were heading for places unknown.
“What do you expect to find?” I asked Casond when we weren’t manning the ship.
“I’m not sure.” I was about to propound an idea, when his eyes lit up. “I’m going to find the universe’s Holy Grail, immortality.”
I thought that was the least coherent and plausible idea that he had ever thought up, but I said nothing. Days passed and we saw nothing but space, until one fateful day.
We were sleeping, when I awoke to find something bright blue outside my window, a planet. It seemed to be a simple halcyon planet, but Casond saw something else. He saw the perfection of the universe, a utopian world. He was sure he would find immortality here. We landed so fast; the ship undulated on the way down. What we found was different than he expected.
We found a city where people still fought for stupid reasons. Casond was devastated, but he tried not to evince his feelings. The world was only primordial compared to our own, but he expected more. Before I knew what had happened, Casond had opened the door to the ship, and was out on the surface of the planet. People turned to look; the humans looked at us with curiosity. Then, Casond pushed a button on his remote and a thousand people were dead. I tackled him to the ground, and the remote flew out of his hand. That’s when five humans grabbed us and locked us up.
“Why?! Why did you do it?!” I yelled at him from inside our prison.
“It was nothing.” He simply said. I never knew Casond had such a myopic view on things.
Just then, the prison door opened and two armed humans came in. They had an overt anger towards us. They asked us who had pulled the trigger, but I held my tongue. Before they had come, Casond and I had made a covenant to stick together. We stood quietly as they looked at us.
“One of you will die tomorrow for what you’ve done, and if you don’t tell us who did it, you’ll both die.” The human told us, trying to get us to talk.
“She did it!” Casond exclaimed, as he tried to dissemble his lie. They quickly grabbed me and pulled me out the door. Casond had betrayed me. My best friend had betrayed me. I felt sick. I shook the guards off me, and ran for it. I found my ship outside and flew off. I put it on autopilot and headed home. I quickly went to the back of the ship, so I wouldn’t change my mind and make the ship go back. Now that Casond was the only one left, they would surely kill him for what he had done.
When I arrived back home, I learned that Casond’s parents had died the day we left. He had lied and betrayed me for nothing. His parents had already died. In my heart, I felt glad his parents didn’t know what he had done. As I listened to the eulogy at their funeral, I realized nothing had been gained from our trip. But two planets had lost their people, and I had lost my honor for Casond. I sat down and watched our suns set.
“Sarama, honey, are you coming inside?” A voice asked from behind me.
“In a second, Mother.”