His Voice by Suzy

It was over. The terminator was smashed in scraps of metal, flattened like a pancake like the ones she used to serve at the local diner. Different shapes and sizes of him covered half of Cyberdyne’s main catwalk. She closed her eyes and remembered the explosion, the force of the impact knocking her down, and the horrible, heart-ripping ache she felt after she found Kyle Reese dead.

Her protector. Her savior.

It was over. It was all over.

“Sarah!”

Sarah snapped her head up, slamming against the metal wall at her back. She ignored the pain, and listened for the voice that screamed her name.

Kyle?

Was he alive? Was she finally losing her mind after all this horrid adventure? The terminator’s skeletal fingers dug into her shoulder, into an open wound, and she bit down on her bottom lip. She was just imaging Kyle’s voice. He was dead. She saw him with her own two eyes. His eyes were wide open in death—body beaten and bloody. She wouldn’t allow herself to think he was alive because the pain of losing him all over again would be her complete undoing.

“Sarah! Where are you?” the voice came again.

Sarah opened her eyes, and stared straight ahead. The dead endoskeleton’s shiny body glittered in the high lights of the factory. She took a moment to get her head straight, her tears under control, and grasp the concept of being completely and utterly alone. She would not let herself think Kyle was alive.

“Sarah!”

She cried out, and slapped away the terminator’s hand and crawled beneath the hanging limp. Kyle was alive! She maneuvered her way around the bend of another catwalk leading straight where she left Kyle, and crawled on her hands, pushed off with her elbows, and used what she could of her good and bad legs with all her strength.

He was alive! He was alive!

With tears in her eyes and clogging her throat, she managed to answer him. “Kyle, I’m here! I’m alive!”

“Sarah!” his voice vibrated through the large factory coming straight to her ears. Oh, she was so happy she cried out with pure joy!

“Kyle, I’m coming! Thank God.”

He didn’t answer her again, but she was so busy trying to get to him she wouldn’t have heard him. All that mattered to her was that he was alive. They survived the terminator, and she could get back to a somewhat normal life. She had so much to show Kyle, so much love to give him. They both had so much more to live for, and somehow—someway—they would make it through this next chapter of their lives. She wanted to take Kyle’s hand and guide him just as he would guide her so she could become this legend he talked about. Still doubting her abilities to be the legendary Sarah Connor, with Kyle’s help and knowledge, she would become that woman without question. She was determined to save the world, and born and raise the man who was meant to lead the survivors. All with Kyle’s help.

“Kyle, keep talking to me!” Sarah cried out as she crawled her way closer and closer to where she left him. Up ahead she could make out of his body still in the place she last saw him. But as she closed the gap between them, her heart began to pound harder—and not from the strain on her arms and legs.

Kyle wasn’t moving. It didn’t look like he had at all. He still lay sprawled on his back, his head crooked to the side, his face bloody and hair matted down to his skull. What was going on? Was he horribly wounded where he couldn’t move, and he had to yell for her to come to him? Was he paralyzed? Did he break his neck? Was he about to take his last breath and wanted to make sure she was still alive and know that he did his job by keeping her alive?

“Kyle!” Sarah cried out. When she was in reaching distance, she grabbed his long coat and pulled herself the rest of the way. What she saw stopped her heart completely.

Kyle hadn’t moved. He never did call for her. He never reached out to her. He was just as dead as he had been when the terminator blew up—killing him and wounding her. His voice calling out to her was all in her head—just like Sarah knew it had been, but she didn’t want to believe what her brain was telling her. She wanted to listen to her heart, and believe Kyle was still alive. But he wasn’t. He was dead.

Gone. Lost forever.

“Oh, God, no.” Sarah cried, hiccupping on her tears. His green eyes, once so full of rage and anger but only a short few hours ago filled with love as he made love to her, were wide open and empty. Crying so hard now, she put her hand over his eyes and closed them forever. Unable to control her pain anymore, she grabbed two handfuls of his coat and cried out on his still chest.

Then a hard, cold hand grasped her ankle and Sarah screamed. She turned to find the endoskeleton up and running again, and her fears kicked alive, and she screamed so hard her throat burned.

Sarah closed her eyes tight, and kicked as wildly as she could to get to free from the monster that killed Kyle, and tried to kill her. When she opened her eyes again, she stared up at a dark, white ceiling. Frantic, she snapped up in bed and discovered the whole scene had been a nightmare. One of many, she thought. Her bedroom glistened with moonlight peering through the open blinds. She stared at the moon to calm her breathing, and get her heartbeat back to normal. God—what a horrible dream. It was so real—had in fact been her life—that she couldn’t shake the shivering memories from her mind. She swallowed back a sob, and rubbed her swollen eyes.

Damn...she had cried in her dreams again. No matter how many times she trained herself not to cry, she could never stop the tears from coming in her dreams.

But another cry erupted from the other bedroom.

John.

With trembling hands, Sarah untangled the white sheet from her legs and ran through her darkened bedroom to her son’s just across the hall of her new apartment. She popped down the crib gate and reached inside for her son, sitting up, crying his little eyes out. She held the boy to her, bobbing him up and down to calm him.

“I know, baby, I know. It’s okay.” Sarah whispered. John stuck his thumb in his mouth, and she thought that would stop his wailing, but it only worsened it. She smoothed her hand down his back, patting him, as her other hand cupped the back of his dark head and massaged his scalp. God—he was so small and looked just like Kyle it was almost scary—except with dark hair. And she loved her little boy so much her heart broke all over again because he would never truly know his father. He would only know a name and all that she remembered of Kyle, but John would never get to walk on the same earth as him without destruction and death all around them. They’d never get to throw a football, or talk about girls. All that was taken away from him, and it wasn’t fair!

Sarah took a seat in the rocking chair she had put in John’s room for her use on these dark, lonely nights and slowly rocked her crying son back and forth, whispering sweet words of love in his ear. It was only when John quieted down a bit that she—herself—began to cry.

For a reason she couldn’t think of at the moment, it felt good to cry. She hadn’t cried since that night at the factory. She let out her pent up emotions about Kyle’s death for so long she was unable to stop the tears from brimming in her eyes and falling down her cheeks.

Sarah held her son Kyle Reese had given her, and cried as hard and as long with John, for her first love she would never get to see again.

THE END