Emilia and Hyr are whispering about sothing in their other language, the one Astra taught how to introduce myself in. Hyr gave a funny look when I did, though. I thought maybe I’d gotten sothing wrong, at first, but I don’t think that’s it—they give that look sotis, like I’m a puzzle piece they can’t quite place.
They used to look at like that, anyways.
My lips twitch against the soft skin on Hyr’s neck. I feel like I’ve known them forever, and the way I think definitely seems to give that impression, too. They used to, like we didn’t et for the first ti only a few hours ago. They used to, like for more than half the ti we’ve known each other, they haven’t been looking at like they want to save and know they can’t.
Emilia is looking at that way now. Her eyes are so wide—so scared—and when she reaches out to ruffle my hair, I lean up into it. A little touch of love, more love than I’ve felt from almost anyone, even my own parents. My mom and dad like , sure, but I’m work and I know they don’t love the way they wish they could—the way I wish they could.
We’re moving again, Hyr tugging Emilia along as we go, and they continue to argue in Hyr’s strange language, sounds I’ve never heard registering only as other to my ears as Emilia speaks. I suppose Hyr might be speaking back to her in her normal language, and every so often as we wander through room after room, Emilia says the sa thing: ⸂vy mor’k.⸃
Every ti, without fail, Hyr’s chest will rise and fall, a small puff of air brushing over my cheek. I think they’re laughing, but also a little exasperated—I think that’s the word, anyways. Exasperated: annoyed, done with. My parents are exasperated with a lot—so were a lot of the adults in Livery, at the Risen Guard compound. The only ones who have never seed done with are Emilia and Hyr. V, a little bit, and I think if we hadn’t been trapped together for so many days, he would have been okay with ? Mostly, I just think sotis he wanted to rest, but because we were trapped, he knew he couldn’t leave to go crazy and annoy Gale and Astra.
Astra, who is dead and gone, even if that’s not completely true: she still exists outside this world.
No one told that—I can’t hear Hyr, and Carne doesn’t really speak to —but I know. I know a lot of things now, since I got too close to the universe.
It was an accident, mostly. We were gonna die, was the thing. Astra tried her best to teach V how to use his core the way she and her family did—or was it her entire… Free Colony?—but he wasn’t learning fast enough.
The ice was coming for us.
It was going to kill us—kill Gale, who had been trying to be so nice to since we left Livery. Sotis, she wasn’t so good at it—especially when we were trapped together—but she was trying. So I wanted to try for her.
Whatever I did… it wasn’t right. I don’t know what I did. I don’t rember a lot of those monts, just the ice coming for us. V saying he couldn’t. I rember knowing that this ti he wasn’t wrong—this ti, it wasn’t just in his head. He really couldn’t save us, and I figured, well, if we’re gonna die anyways, I might as well try to save us.
I did save us, but I don’t really rember how.
There was red—blood, but not blood. There was a pounding all around , like a heartbeat.
Pound.
Pound.
Pound.
I knew I was sowhere I wasn’t ant to be. I rember thinking that I’d gone too far—gotten too close.
It was such a strange thought to have, and I still don’t know where it ca from, or what it ant, or even where I was. I do know it was right: I got too close to sothing, and now, I’m going to die for.
I know I’m going to die, and mostly, I’m okay with that. I’m going to die because I saved my friends—because whatever I did, it saved us from that guy who was chasing Key. I blasted his attack away. I did that, and then Astra tried to kill him. Sothing went wrong, though. I don’t really know what it was. V said sothing about a seizure, but I don’t know what that is. I think it must be whatever caused a black spot in my mory? There are bits that are blurry, when I was saving us, but afterwards, there’s just a big black spot.
Whatever happened, we couldn’t stay, so we ran, and the world blurred by, and I knew, even in those first monts of consciousness, that I was going to die.
I was seeing too much, and I knew from Carne and the holess grannies’ lessons about reading the universe that seeing too much was dangerous—was a bad on. I was seeing—now see—too much. Sothing is wrong with , but I don’t think that’s what will kill .
No, it will be my own actions that kill . I know that. So do Emilia and Hyr, I think. Hyr, definitely. Maybe they haven’t told Emilia as much yet, this inevitability—that’s another word that I think I know the aning of, but I might be wrong. People in Livery were always saying it was inevitable my parents would get sick of one day, if I didn’t calm down.
I guess they were right—the first chance they got to let go, they did. I’m trying not to let that hurt. So people just aren’t ant for each other. I wasn’t ant for my parents. Sawyer once said sothing like that—said that the universe must have given to them for another reason, because it definitely wasn’t that I was the perfect kid for them or anything like that.
I think… if I had been able to choose, I’d pick people like Emilia and Hyr to be my parents. Hyr, always calm and soothing, and Emilia, just like , if a little subdued. I could see it when she used her hand signs. She’d be talking about one thing, using simple signs we could kinda understand, then sothing would distract her, and off she’d go, hands moving too fast for us to even pick up the ones we knew. So much passion. I really wish I could have asked what she was talking about.
Emilia would be a good mom. She took care of us so well, but, I don’t think she thinks that. I saw how sad she was, looking at Kelly’s arm, thinking that she’d failed him. She’ll probably think that about , won’t she? That sohow this is her fault.
It’s not. If anything, it’s my parents. If they hadn’t left with the Risen Guard, I wouldn’t be here—I wouldn’t have ended up with that terrible woman for a babysitter and run away from her and the whole compound.
When I tell her as much, during one of the brief monts where she and Hyr are quiet—or, I assu Hyr is quiet because I can’t feel their throat vibrating against my nose—she doesn’t seem to believe , and then, she’s being pulled back into Hyr’s arms. I think she’s crying. I can’t hear her, but I can feel her shaking.
Will my own parents cry when they learn I died? Will anyone even bother to tell them? A part of hopes no one will, that one day they’ll realize they can’t just leave with the Risen Guard forever, but their questions about what happened to will go unanswered. They’ll be left to wonder what happened, forever. Will they make up kind stories with happy endings in their heads? Or drown their guilt in imagined tales of my death at the hands of the Risen Guard or the visitors?
Most likely, Boundary will just tell them, or send soone else to tell them. I wonder if they’ll be nice about it, and say I died trying to save this world. I wonder if they’ll be an about it, and say I died because they left alone too many tis.
Regardless of what Emilia thinks, this isn’t her fault. I can see it now, the path of my life—a thousand, million decisions that led to this mont, so many of which I had no control of. It's strange, and comforting, in a way, this knowing of how uncontrollable my life has been. All the little pieces, laid out before my eyes in a thousand fragnted images of the world and my past and future—my very short future.
I’m okay with that. Before coming here, before getting to close to the universe, I would have been sad. Now… I’m a little sad, but mostly, I’m not. Everything is so heavy now, every flick of my eyes a vision I don’t have the capacity to understand or rember.
It’s all so much.
Maybe, eventually, I’d get used to it, the way I think Hyr is. If Hyr was with , their soft energy sliding through and softening the strain of the universe's visions, I think I’d be okay with going on. They won’t be with , if I find a way—a will—to live. They’ll leave, and I’ll still have Gale, maybe.
A thousand fragnts of Gale’s future shatter through , her grumpy and snarky with Key, the two of them with the Risen Guard, helping to guide the future along. Gale and Mira eting, awkward and strained. Blood, but no curse. Tears, but not for a death—is it a death? did Mira die? I can’t see that right now—but for a lost friendship.
Sohow, it won’t matter to Mira that Emilia, V and Hyr will help change this world. She will go on, bitter and angry, hoping to create a world where the next batch of visitors will be snuffed out of existence the mont they set foot in this world.
For Gale, it will be the opposite, and she’ll be happy, eventually. She’ll et back up with Sawyer and Benny, at so point. Things are blurry where they’re concerned—like they are part of a future with too many options, too many paths. I think they’ll be happy… at least for bits of ti. Sad, too, but that’s life, isn’t it? Love and friendship, grief and heartbreak and hatred that runs bone deep.
I don’t think I would fit into their future, not like this. I see too much, I will be unable to help myself from reaching out and touching the future and past, from lding myself into them and trying—failing—to change the things that are already set.
It doesn’t matter. Such a future will not co. My future is already set.
Maybe. Probably.
There is a bit I cannot see—that I don’t think I’m ant to see: the after. What is there after death? I don’t think I’ll completely cease to exist, but there is sothing there, so block I cannot get past.
It’s strange, but that’s okay. I always loved the unknown, and this—knowing the perfect mont to reach up and unpin my {Blood Hairclips} and snap them into Hyr and Emilia’s hair instead, the mont I need to move, hurl myself from Hyr’s arms and reach back into the universe and pull—is a little anti-climactic for .
There’s no pain, at least, when the god kills . There is only light, and Emilia’s sob, a flash of her being held back by Hyr, safe behind the barrier I created for them in the seconds before my death, so much grief spread over their faces that as I die, my only regret is that I was born into this world, with parents who perhaps won’t be happy I died, but will not be able to mourn the way even these two people I barely know will.
That’s a little comforting, as the universe consus . At least soone will rember .
At least soone loved , even if I wish they could have loved a bit longer.
✮ ✮ ✮
“Hello, Caro.”
My eyes flutter open, t not by the red of the universe, which had greeted as it sucked into it, intent to consu my everything. Instead, the world is white and pure, empty save soone I know and yet do not.
⸂You aren’t—⸃ I try to say, but I know my words aren’t coming out.
“You won’t be able to speak that way here,” she says, shaking a lock of short silver hair back from her forehead. “I doubt you’ll be able to speak like here either.”
She smiles, holds out a hand. “Do you trust ?” she asks, and how could I not?
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