Epilogue

"Home sweet home." Hugh commented lightly as they arrived back at the Tower.

Kasumi chuckled. "I could use a nice cup of tea." She commented. "Good thing I have a new set."

"I thought Kit was going to tie herself in a knot trying to get the exact color of your teaset right on her painting." Hugh commented. "She's a talented artist."

"Megan's teaset. And a thousand year passion for something will do that." Kasumi prodded him playfully. "So. Now that your daughter isn't watching?"

"Your tea will always be superior to Biggs' coffee." Hugh replied dutifully.

"Mm." Kasumi pulled a box out of the back of their Auto. "Of course, next time you're alone with Megan, I'm sure your answer will be the opposite."

"I'm clearly going to lose my daughter to her future husband one day soon. Let me score what few points I still can with her." Hugh quipped, taking the box from her. "Megan tell you what's in here?"

~~/*\~~

Back in their module, Kasumi looked through the box. "Our wedding album." She noted. "I thought we packed that already."

"Must have missed it." Hugh agreed. "My sketchbooks. I thought I burned the early ones."

Kasumi laughed. "I kept one. Megan was feeling a little… inferior when she was twelve years old. Your later work was too good to encourage a little kid. I had to show her you were hopeless once."

Hugh scoffed. "Hey, what's this?"

Kasumi took it from him. "Oh! The clock. Remember this? You had this around the five hundred year mark. It's our-" Her voice faltered. "-countdown clock."

"Huh." Hugh blinked, memory coming back, as Kasumi set the clock down on the counter, and came over to join him. "Speaking of time flying."

"Yeah." Hugh observed faintly. "It sounds strange, but… I'd actually forgotten about the… end of the story."

"Stories have been ending all over the place for the last century or two." Kasumi said, her voice going lower. "Hugh…"

"I know, love." Hugh said softly, putting an arm around her. "Stories end because it's how new ones start." Almost without thinking, he reached out and switched the screen on.

The countdown showed less than two hundred years left until the Thousand Years were up.

Hugh looked at the numbers. "Huh." He said again. "Doesn't seem so… long."

Kasumi nodded. Their voices were hushed now. "They told me this world had a thousand years… It seemed like a long time when I was a tiny little thing, finally out of her hospital bed." She pulled closer to her husband. "Not long enough."

"No." Hugh agreed. "But there's a solution to that." He said softly. "It's the same solution that could have saved Vano, and Erica; and… And did save Megan, and Nick; and us. It's the same solution that made the Red Sea part, and the Ark float. It's the same solution that got Alec and Beckah and Rachel and Biggs through the… The last time a countdown hit zero."

"We weren't there for that, babe." Kasumi said quietly.

"No, we weren't. But that's true of the vast majority of people." Hugh agreed; and turned off the clock.

"One day at a time." Kasumi said softly, and took his hand. "Let's call it a night."

Hugh was still looking at the blank clock as he switched off the lights. "Yeah."

And though the clock was invisible in the dark, Hugh knew it was still counting down.

~~/*\~~

Revelation 20: 7, 8: "Now as soon as the 1,000 years have ended, Satan will be released from his prison, and he will go out to mislead those nations in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Maʹgog, to gather them together for the war. The number of these is as the sand of the sea."

To Be Continued In:

Released

***

If you've enjoying this book, you can help support the Author by ordering the book on Amazon, or spreading the word to others you feel might enjoy it.