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The shock sends her reeling.
Standing right beside her, smiling that breathtaking smile of hers, was the love of her life, less than a minute ago. In the present, what remains of her lies still on the floor in a pool of crimson. And Mizi’s mind erupts into panic.
Her neurons fire restlessly in erratic, abstract shrieks, barely coherent, barely distinguishable from the roaring of the crowd, and somewhere in the midst of the chaos she kneels, unable to so much as lift a finger in response. She is collared and dragged away, but the touches barely register because all she knows now is Sua, Sua, Sua, why isn’t she—what have they done—what, what, what—
She is in shock for weeks to come.
~~~
Luka knows how to take her apart. He tugs and twists at the weakening threads of her composure, tipping her this way and that as they dance as if she’s a glass of wine and he’s the commanding hand that holds her—he seems to take pride in tilting her too much and watching the redness spill out in an angry waterfall.
She’s never felt so furious. She’s never felt so scared. She’s gone feral, a thrashing creature ridden with a violent disease. Rage creases valleys her into her face, her eyes are devoid of reason, and it continues even as she’s pulled away by hands that feel a bit too human, and she collapses and trembles, fragile and friable as a butterfly wing in spite of her bloodstained fists.
Her stupefaction ebbs on the second day in this unfamiliar place she was brought to, and replaces itself with a horrible grief. Sua is everywhere.
Mizi sees her in the sky, breathes her in the air, feels her within the wildlife, all real and authentic and beautiful. Under different circumstances, she’d be blown away by the merit of true nature, fresh and flawed and free, but now all she can think about is how Sua would have adored the little white flowers that blossom on the side of the road.
Mizi sees her in the shadows of her flimsy metal room, her corpse lying still and unmoving wherever her eyes land, and in the midst of the gray night she sobs silent tears that never serve to make her feel better. When she rises in the morning, the world is as colorless and confusing as before.
Sua’s loss maims her heart so intensely it feels like she’s being torn in two every second of the day. The pain is excruciating, it never gets better, and when she can sleep she dreams of her, holding her hand, singing beside her, smiling that gorgeous smile that meant the universe to her.
She loved her like a god. How does one carry on after losing everything in a night?
How does one even function?
~~~
The rebellion.
That is what they call themselves. A group of humans, larger in numbers than Mizi initially thought, all united in their freedom and hatred for their alien oppressors. Their parties and raids leave her amazed; she can barely fathom the wild celebrations and noisy declarations of unrestrained self worth, expressed in loud melodies she’s only ever heard from Till’s guitar that he stole when they were little.
She didn’t even know humans existed outside of captivity.
They say they know loss, and Mizi believes them to an extent. Obviously, such independence requires sacrifice, and most everyone here only laughs because they have cried, only possesses joy because they have suffered, but the fact that they are able to laugh and dance and sing like this, unburdened by guilt and shock, says something.
Whatever their losses have been, it clearly doesn’t affect them to such a level as Sua’s did to Mizi. Hyuna and Dewey and Isaac can say whatever they wish about grief, but they can’t understand what she’s going through. No one can.
The loss of a friend is a terrible thing, and the loss of a lover is devastating, but to call Sua either of those would be an understatement so severe it counted as a lie, a sin. With Sua’s presence fled everything Mizi once knew and cherished, and there is nothing in this galaxy that can make such a loss feel better.
Nothing to make the pain go away.
~~~
Their functions are rich in booze and illuminated by bright light, and for a second Mizi doesn’t quite feel better, but forgets herself and bobs her head to the beat despite the circumstances. Hyuna looks pleased.
Forgetting is fun, Mizi decides, and she understands why it’s common practice here to drown one’s sorrow out with drugs of any sort. She observes as conversations grow slurred and dances grow sloppy throughout the night, and by the time the sun comes up she’s gathered that alcohol, smoke, pills, and whatever else was being ingested by the partiers are all categories of magical substances that ephemerally melt the brain into a loopy, giggling sludge.
Less than a month ago, Mizi would have found the very notion horrifying, but now she only wants to experience it for herself.
She attempts to take a bottle of what the rebels call “vodka” back to her quarters one night, only to have it snatched out of her hands by an uncharacteristically serious-looking Hyuna.
“The hell do you think you’re doing with this?”
And immediately, Mizi feels like a child getting caught breaking a well-established rule.
“I want to get drunk,” she says, but holding her own only serves to make her feel more immature.
“Absolutely not. Not by yourself.”
“But you do it so often!”
“And I regret it every time. Mizi, consider this an order from your superior: you’re not to drink unless you’re with other people, and you’re not to lay hands on a cigarette unless you’re with me, Dewey, or Issac. Actually, scratch that, me or Issac. Yeah, you’ll be pissed now, but believe me when I say none of this will make anything better in the long run.”
Mizi bristles. “Isn’t the point of this whole thing freedom? You have no right to police what I do with my body.”
“Listen kid, you don’t know what this stuff can do to you—”
“I’m not a kid, I’m a capable adult. You should treat me like one.”
Hyuna’s face drops into an expression that almost gives her pause—before it’s covered by her signature wide smile and colorful laughter. “But you’re just so small!”
She ruffles her hair, kisses her cheek, and walks away with the bottle in hand.
And Mizi could chase after her, could continue the argument and prove her own autonomy, but for a second there Hyuna looked so old and jaded that she decides that it’s best to comply, just this once.
(Hyuna almost always has a lollipop in her mouth, despite claiming to dislike overly sugary things. Mizi would wonder why before she caught her staring at a cigarette like it was a ticking bomb. Neither of them spoke of the temptation visible just under her shades or of the willpower that wavered for a slight moment, but did not collapse.)
~~~
Mizi gets unreasonably angry at the children that exist in her memories.
Sua, Ivan, Till, Acorn, Roy, Jia, Durian, Gigi, all of them, with their tiny bodies clad in white and their bare feet pattering against the too soft, too green grasses of Anakt. Occupying themselves with blindsighted games, painting a prison as a paradise with saccharine laughter and viridity. It’s both embarrassing and nostalgic to think that once upon a time, she had been one with them. Hiraeth fills her veins while hatred runs rivers in her gut.
How many of them had known? How many of them lived with fate lingering in the back of their minds, bearing the impossible heaviness of the truth all while counting stars and memorizing dates for history class? How many of them had kept that secret from her?
It’s so terribly cruel. She was forced to watch as reality tore and desecrated everything she’s ever known and possessed like a black hole, and she was never granted the chance to stop it, to avoid it, to even prepare, all because of the cowards in that stupid slaughterhouse that couldn’t bring themselves to tell her that the world isn’t what she thought it was.
Sua was one of them. Sua was a coward.
To call the other half of her soul such a thing is a sin worthy of punishment, but it’s true. Countless hours spent by each other’s side, and Sua never told her a thing. Sua doomed herself, eternally ripped herself away from Mizi without giving her so much as a chance to save her.
How could she be so cruel? Why would she do such a thing to her?
(Internally, Mizi repeats questions like these several times, because passing the blame on to the dead is easier than acknowledging the fact that the true nature of the system was never really all that hidden to her.
She refuses to recall the way the teachers would constantly drone on about how death was nothing to be afraid of, how a pet human’s main purpose in life is to be a beautiful singing spectacle to pride their owners, how blissful ascension would feel after death.
She refuses to recall the blankness in Ivan’s eyes, the fact that he would never know his own birthday, the way he’d sometimes whisper to Sua about the excessive amount of effort she puts into her studies, saying there’s no need for it because none of it will matter in the long run.
She refuses to recall Till’s poorly hidden bruises, his open hatred for all Segyein, the way he’d flinch and stiffen at any sudden physical contact, the brief flash of fear in his eyes whenever someone would mention a doctor or laboratory.
She refuses to recall the way Sua’s smile would go tight at the mention of Alien Stage, the fact that she never seemed to want to talk about the future, the way she’d stress over impressing her guardian like she had a limited amount of time to do so.
She refuses to acknowledge that she noticed all of these details and brushed them aside, that there might have been some repressed part of her that knew everything was going to end badly, that she’s not a stupid girl, just one that deliberately closed her eyes in the face of cruelty so she could continue living in peaceful ignorance.
She refuses because she knows if she confronts it, she will crumble under her own self-loathing.)
~~~
If the parties are chaotic, the raids are anarchic. Caught in a pandemonium of tumultuous bombs, engines, commands, and signals, Mizi can only grasp onto Hyuna’s waist for dear life as she races through the crumbling building on her small hover-scooter, and she watches from this position as the world erupts into color and sound.
Nevermind, Mizi decides. Anarchic isn’t the right word for this, because she sees structure in the chaos and she knows this is all an elaborate plan, that in the violence there is a goal being achieved with the utilization of unpredictability, numbers, and sheer spirit as tools for success. It terrifies her, but she’s so entranced that she can’t help but wish she could absorb it all, be a part of the rush, feel the adrenaline course through her as she adds to the frenzy.
Hyuna whips her head around, accidentally smacking Mizi’s face with her hair as she yells, “This is true human spirit!”
And by God, is it beautiful.
Mizi didn’t even know humans existed beyond captivity, so all she beholds at this second shatters everything she thought she knew about anything. And she can’t even complain.
~~~
She learns about Hyuna in bits and pieces.
A beloved brother, a devil wearing angel’s skin, a guardian that didn’t bother to tell her of the fate of Alien Stage losers. Perhaps it was self-centered of her to assume her suffering was worse than everyone else’s.
Mizi begins to understand why she, of all people, was chosen to be rescued. She approves of her leader’s reasoning in the way a silent crowd speaks to a preacher desperate for closure.
~~~
It takes Mizi a little over two weeks to remember that she will never see Shine again.
That seething, loathing, part of her, that same part that resents her classmates at the Garden, that rotten part of her that she didn’t even know she had prior to the fifth round, is pleased. Truth be told, she detests her guardian as well for keeping her so sheltered; never telling her the true nature of the universe they live in, coating a death competition in sugar and honey in order to maintain her innocence, to keep her purity pristine and her happiness blind.
Her memories have been tainted by the knowledge she has now, and if her childhood joy was a visage sculpted of porcelain, it has shattered with Sua’s transient smile and cut open her skin, wasting away inside of her with the lifeblood of the girl she once loved. And for all those tainted memories, for all the extra hurt, she blames Shine even more than the children in white.
Except for when she doesn’t. Except for the part of her that still calls her “Mom,” silly as it is. Except for the part of her that grieves her rosy radiance, the light she would emit in the dark waters of the maritime planet that was once their home, the stupid toys and trinkets she would receive from her so she’d never grow too lonely in her time at Anakt Garden. She’s always been a maudlin girl.
Along with Sua, she mourns the maternal creature that could never quite raise her, but loved her nonetheless. She mourns the girl she used to be, beloved and pure and laughing with her eyelids shut. She mourns the days she lost, and she finds that the little girl that needs Shine’s protection will remain in her mind forever, a perpetual burden, a vulnerability she can’t cut away.
The realization is sweet at first, but then she lets it roll around in her head for a moment longer and it turns into a sour, sour thing.
~~~
In one month and eight days, Mizi’s traitorous mind condemns her.
She dreams of Sua’s cold corpse on a colder metal floor, lying on her side in her pretty white stage outfit, but her lifeless body has no face to define it, and none of her memories seem to fill in that crucial gap quite right.
She bolts out of bed, trembling, trembling, and rushes out of her quarters in her sleep clothes and tangled hair. The morning drowsiness in her system refuses to let her register where her feet are taking her until she’s already at her destination, and she’s still shaking with fervent desperation.
She slams open the door to the rebellion’s computer lab, the only place in which she can freely access the internet (she does not possess her own personal device, nor does she want to: the internet as of late has been blowing up over the newest season of Alien Stage, and she doesn’t want to watch her friends show face in that place, not anymore) and rushes over to the nearest computer she can get her hands on.
The room is empty and dark, the only sound being her labored breaths and the high-pitched beeping of the device as it powered on. The holographic screen bathes her surroundings in a calming azure hue, an infuriating juxtaposition to the frantic neurochemicals bursting and overwhelming her brain with stress.
She fumbles with the projection and stumbles her way into an internet browser, opening the keyboard and wildly punching in the divine, damned characters of a corpse once deity, and is met with photoshoots of a doll befurbelowed in snowy frills and shining pearls, embellished in a flawless, blank expression, pretty, puffed lips and dull amethyst eyes—
—but that’s not right. That’s not right, it can’t be, because she could’ve sworn those eyes were a deeper violet, like the regal mist of a nebula, and it must be the camera lighting messing it up, only she can’t remember the exact shade it’s supposed to be and it’s driving her mad, and it’s so, so shattering because once upon a time Mizi would stare into those intoxicating eyes for hours, convinced that if she gazed long enough she could get lost in them. (The fact that she’s lost them instead will taunt her soul for the rest of her days; it is an irony so bitter she can feel it in her bones.)
The bright light of the device casting overwhelming images of a girl she would never see again suddenly burns her retinas as she stares at it. She looks away, rubbing at her swollen eyes with stiff, robotic hands, and in her throat a sob boils painfully, scratching away at her windpipe and leaving her insides too dry and too wet, and a broken noise escapes her lips, and then she’s sobbing like a baby in front of the screen.
She once had a stained glass exterior that, in a mortifying instant, fractured on what was meant to be the best day of her life, and now the honed fragments sink deeper into her flesh, reminding but never piercing, scratching the surface of her memory but never allotting her a full image to keep.
She is a fisherman that has lost herself at sea in search of a prize she once owned, but slipped from her grasp, and she is beginning to forget its beauty. She is a leper, blinded and astray in dark catacombs, yearning for that muted and mellow light that had once guided her to salvation. She is a starved creature, hungry, hungry, hungry for a food she’s forgotten the taste of, and oh, how it hurts, and oh, she is lost, she is lost, she is lost without Sua.
Boot-clad footsteps sound from behind the door with all the stealth and grace of a spacecraft launch, and Mizi doesn’t bother to look up until Issac gently grasps her shoulders with his large hands, mumbling to her in his quiet voice that hey, it’s alright, you’re safe, to which Mizi wants to respond no, that’s not the issue, I’ll never be alright again, but she is incoherent, inexplicable, in her wild cries.
It gets better, she distantly hears him say. It won’t always hurt like this.
But because Mizi wants it to keep hurting more than anything else, she snaps her head up and her voice resonates as a quivering shriek, “I don’t want it to get better! I want- I want her back, Issac, I don’t know how to function without her.” She doesn’t want the grief to go away, she doesn’t want to move on, because Sua was once her joy, her universe, her everything, and the very thought of moving on is a transgression towards her that lies beyond repentance.
“Well that just sucks, doesn’t it, ‘cause you’re gonna have to either way.” Mizi gapes at his nonchalance, but he continues, ruthless. “Just what did you plan on doing? Sulking forever? Crawling away into a corner to die? Lot of good that’ll do, you’d make both her life and her death worth nothing.”
“No, no—”
“Yes, Mizi. Listen, she died so that you could live. So that you could fight for her, and for the sake of everyone else still stuck under that system. There’s still so much to do, and you’re a damn coward if you give it all up.”
“But it hurts.”
“Then for her sake, use that pain. Turn it into power. Or you never really loved her that much in the first place.”
~~~
With her back against her hard mattress a few nights later, and a thin, scratchy blanket over her salt-stained face, the aimless devotee learns that the most important instances with her closest comrade will remain eternally sewn into her skeleton, inviolable by the weathers of time and memory.
Mizi may not remember the exact shade of Sua’s eyes, but she will always remember the revering way they once looked at her.
She may have forgotten the exact size of her hands, but she can perfectly recall how they felt entwined with hers: soft and delicate, fingers interlacing like puzzle pieces made to embrace.
She may have forgotten the exact shaping of her face and she may not trust the public images and videos of her to encapsulate her beauty accurately, but the way Sua’s expression scrunched up in joy when she gave her a true smile and the way her eyes teared up in childish laughter at the little stunts Mizi would pull by the simulated river in their simpler times will forever be cherished in her memory.
Mizi may not recall how her lover felt in her in her arms that starry night, sobbing into her shoulder and telling her in a crumbling voice how she knows what love is only because the pink-haired girl showed her; she may have forgotten she specific way she held her trembling form, but she knows that she held it, knows that she once cradled divinity in her embrace, drinking in her tears like water to the roots of a flower, caressing her horrid sorrow and taking it far away from her, because of all people who deserve it, Sua should have led a happy life.
Sua will grow formless over the years to come, face and body eroded and carried away by the relentless waves of time passage, but she will never escape Mizi’s heart. Her being will be carried like an extremity until the body that it is sewn to eventually breaks down and drifts away into the cosmic void of lifelessness. Mizi considers this, and the hurt burns good.
~~~
“It won’t be easy. You’re asking us to steal away the second and third most popular pet humans in the known universe. Super high risk, especially since Till’s surrounded by guards and kept on a tight leash basically twenty-four seven. That kid never learned his lesson, did he?”
Mizi tilts her head. “You knew him?”
Hyuna chuckles. “For a little while. There was a period of time in Anakt where the teachers thought he was so musically talented that he deserved to skip grades and compete in the forty-ninth season instead of the 50th. He was put in our class for like a week before he was taken out for being too much of a problem. Loved that guy, never a dull moment with him.”
Mizi thinks back to a stage turned bloodbath, a boyish grin that would have been innocent save for the manic in his eyes as he looked at her and the green and red mess of gore, carnage both alien and human alike, mixing, intermingling, becoming indistinguishable—and finds that she has to suppress a shudder. “You’re right about that.”
“I don’t know about that black haired boy. What was his name, you said?”
Two syllables, a wave of nostalgia, “Ivan.”
“He might not live past this next round, unless Till straight up throws it. Considering the stunt he pulled last round, that doesn’t seem very likely.”
“Ivan’s extremely talented! He’s perfectly capable of holding his own in any competition. But the thing is, he won’t have to. We’ll go rescue him, and we’ll rescue Till, and then it’s all going to be okay.”
Hyuna looked lost in thought. “I just don’t know if—”
“I’m not leaving them there!” Mizi interrupts, breaths shrill and shaky. “They’re all I have left from the Garden, my only childhood friends left alive. I need them. More importantly, they need each other. If you had seen the way they were attached at the hip back in Anakt—”
“Woah, Mizi, I never said we were going to leave them behind. I was just wondering if Ivan wants out of there or not.”
She pauses. “Why in the galaxy would he not want out of there?”
“It’s just… people like him, those pet humans that are too kind to their alien owners… sometimes it means that they’ve been tricked into thinking the enslavement of humanity was a good thing. I’m wondering if Ivan’s one of those people.”
Mizi glares at her. She can read her expression so well, even under her sunglasses. Sheepish, guilty, haunted by something only Hyuna’s fox-like eyes can perceive. Whoever she’s remembering is nothing like Ivan, and Mizi’s offended on his behalf that she would even suggest something like that without so much as meeting him.
“No. Ivan… he’s one of my best friends. Believe when I say he wouldn’t…” Oh, but why should she be believed? How much of Ivan did she really know? “...He’s not like that.”
Her awkwardly executed point seems to have some impact, however, because Hyuna’s smile looks weary for a second. (“Ah, I’m doing it again, aren’t I,” Mizi hears her mutter just under her breath. She decides not to comment on it.) “Okay kid, I trust your judgment. Let’s get on with strategizing, why don’t we?”
~~~
The shock splits her ears and the recoil slams her arm backwards, straining her shoulder blade painfully. A high-pitched yelp escapes her lips and she’s struck by the sudden urge to squeeze her eyes shut and look to the side, even though all she’s firing at are empty bottles tactfully placed several feet away.
“You’re shaking, Mizi.” Hyuna calls from a nearby bench. “Steady yourself.”
“Do I have to do this?” Mizi’s voice is wobbly as she chokes out a response. “I’m really not used to all this violence stuff. I’m a gentle soul!”
“I can think of a certain Alien Stage contestant that would beg to differ,” Hyuna retorts, and Dewey chokes on his sandwich from the other side of the bench. They had volunteered to supervise and tutor Mizi in her now-mandatory-firearm-practice, an unavoidable demon since she was to aid Hyuna on the front lines in their upcoming mission to breach the Stage and rescue her friends (they had decided on saving them on stage; it was the only place they catch the two of them in one place and unleashed from their guardians, making it worth the risk despite the short time interval and number of witnesses.)
“I think it’s my hair! It’s too long, it’s getting in my face.”
Hyuna quirks an eyebrow at that ridiculous excuse as her own long hair flows in the wind, and Mizi twitches nervously.
“No excuses. Again! Aim for the one on the far right this time!”
Groaning internally, Mizi raises her aching arm once more.
~~~
Long and pink, her hair surrounds her face, blue tips fluttering in the night breeze. Sua used to love running her hands through it, styling it, interweaving artificial red petals that she’d try to keep in for as long as possible.
She supposes it should have some sentimental value, but she can only think of how much of a hassle it is to maintain, how inconvenient it is to have under the sweltering heat of the planet’s atmosphere.
She twirls a lock around her finger and feels nothing. It scares her.
She rolls over and huffs. They will mobilize tomorrow.
~~~
Seeing Hyuna freeze is like watching a hurricane stand still. It’s unnatural. It’s frightening. It should never happen, but it did.
She should’ve noticed something was off by the way the rebel leader tensed at the sight of Luka’s face up on the billboard, the way she twitched and slowed like a robot powering down, her horrible silence, odd and unorthodox for the howling wolf Hyuna was always known as. It wasn’t long before she fell unresponsive, vacant beneath her sunglasses.
The guards seize her body, and its only response is going from stiffly still to utterly limp like a cadaver. Mizi watches from behind a wall and her brain is at a loss for a solution—but her body isn’t.
Before she can make sense of what’s happening, she’s out in the midst of the battlefield, grasping the gun at her hip and shooting, shooting to her heart’s content.
Blades and bullets whirl toward her, and she’s certain that she’s at least grazed by some, but the pain goes unregistered over the sound of her thumping heart and the blood rushing through her being. It’s a melody of its own, she muses distantly. A song with a powerful beat and piercing lyrics, screaming I am here, I am alive and standing and angry, I am so angry and this anger is the one thing you will never take from me.
Sharp, earsplitting noises reverberate through the cluttering of machinery and metal armor gives way to fast, passionate bullets, synthetic crumbles in the face of authenticity, and Hyuna’s glazed eyed snap wide open. Mizi slaughters her way through the room like a war tank, not stopping to question why her head suddenly feels lighter or the breeze that now tickles at her nape.
Two strong, tan arms reach over to hug her from behind and Mizi fucking squeaks despite her admittedly very cool display of badassery, her senses regrettably returning to her as she begins to panic.
Laughing like a maniac, Hyuna guides her onto the hover-scooter and grins at the way tremors of adrenaline and fear wrack her body. Her hands make fists in her hair and holy smokes, Mizi thinks, something is definitely wrong up here.
“Always knew you had it in you!” Her arm is slung carelessly around her shoulder and her smile is wide and free. Hyuna’s acting like nothing’s happened at all, and Mizi can’t bring herself to question her about it. She’s got enough of a hunch, anyways.
She drives the scooter out into the dry planet and into another entrance closer to the stage, where they’re set to meet up with Issac and Dewey before the performance begins. The sunset is beautiful, the wind is cool, and there are fifteen minutes before she loses one of her friends forever if she doesn’t act fast. She grits her teeth—but the moment is ruined by Hyuna pressing a loud kiss to the side of her face. Never a serious moment with her, is there?
~~~
The event definitely changed something about her. It’s inexplicable, but in a way there is a new sturdiness to her fibers that make each of her steps more purposeful, and each of her movements more formidable. Her hair is short now, wildly shorn just above her ears. She’s spent her entire life growing it out. She can’t find it in her to mourn her efforts.
Her brand-new potency doesn’t seem to go unnoticed, as Hyuna’s looking at her with a new air of admiration and respect (and contentment, Mizi notes distantly), while Dewey and Issac go slack-jawed when she stands in front of them again. She suppresses the urge to sneer at their astonishment.
Hyuna and Issac report their gatherings to each other, confirming information, assuring for the last time that there are no plan changes to be made before they go on to infiltrate the show.
Dewey pulls her aside for a second. Or, well, tries to. There isn’t much room in their cramped hiding spot.
“Well done,” he says, sporting a wide grin. “Been rooting for you this whole time.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve changed, and it’s not just your hair. I can tell by the way you carry yourself, the look on your face. You’re stronger now.”
“I’m angrier. It doesn’t mean I’ve moved on.”
“You’re not supposed to. You’re supposed to carry what they gave you and let it drive you forward, and that’s exactly what you’re doing. You don’t ever really get over the pain, Mizi. You live with it, because sometimes it’s all you have to motivate you.”
Those words should have felt like a stab to the gut, but then and there, Mizi smiles for the first time in what feels like a century.
~~~
In body, mind, and soul, Mizi is not and never again will be the same.
This sort of alteration burns like a restless white flame, stings like a thousand killer wasps feasting upon her flesh, and it leaves her changed forever. Her metamorphosis is complete once she is empty, hardened, and raw inside, with nothing left to do other than to get back on her feet and run with her hollow bones and swollen soles.
Just a month ago, Mizi was hurtling through space, trapped in the shattered space between halcyon and hell, with no friction to slow her careening and not an object in sight to grasp onto. Now, it’s pretty much the same thing, except she’s developed a bit of a tolerance to the speed. Her situation hasn’t changed, but she has, and she’s finally okay with that.
Time will feed on her like maggots to a carcass, and she knows the more she struggles, the faster she will decay. So wisely, Mizi opens her eyes and lets herself transform, kissing a bullet before driving it into the skull of the girl she used to be.
But now is no time to reflect.
In her newfound strength, she slings Hyuna’s arm over her shoulder and hurdles for the nearest safe spot as alarm bells pierce their ears and Round Six plays on blindingly bright screens all around them. Hyuna’s free hand is pressed tightly to her side in a hasty attempt to mitigate the bleeding; her breaths come in short, strangled huffs before she collapses onto the smooth silver beneath them.
The area is large and secluded, albeit temporarily so; it won’t be long before they’re found by some of the countless guards in the facility. From here, there’s no view of the ongoing round, only a slight glimpse of both of their profiles.
If they don’t act fast, one of those images will flicker and go dark, and Mizi will lose one of her closest friends forever.
She lifts Hyuna’s arm to check the severity of the injury—and blood comes gushing out in crimson waterfalls, matching the color of the small rivulets dripping from her own cheek. The rebels were advised to carry first aid supplies on their person at all times, so she stands up to pat herself down for medical equipment just in time to catch Ivan’s profile going dark.
An all consuming, irreversible, devastating dark. Hyuna says something, but it sounds muffled and distant over the ringing in her ears. She can hear the dark. She can hear his death.
And once again Mizi is aimless, shooting through an empty void with nothing to hold onto, no way to make sense of anything, she’s crashing to the ground like a malfunctioning spaceship, and what a fucking fool she was to think that she could’ve saved anyone, that someone as pathetic as her could possibly even dream of saving anyone, and her efforts are useless, and her rage is useless, and her passion is useless, and she’s useless, and—
And then Hyuna splutters beside her, and she’s reminded of the current dire state she’s in, and the horrible feelings are pushed aside to make way for desperation because she cannot, will not lose anyone else.
Her mind goes blank and her hands ghost over the gushing wound, trembling with adrenaline, with the furious hurricane that brews just beneath her skin. It’s not the same this time. It’ll be different this time.
Ivan’s absence joins Sua’s and it hurts like two billion white-hot needles; she grieves the losses of the inky haired boy and girl that both no longer exist in this universe, but there is still so much to do, and if she falters here it will all be for nothing.
So she swallows her fear and hardens her glare, making a silent promise that, to her, rings louder than the alarms that scream through the speakers and flashes brighter than the red lights that paint the room a perilous ruby.
Mizi steels her jaw.