❛ the ground. that's the dream. ❜
On the list 𝘓𝘺𝘳𝘢 𝘑𝘶𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳'𝘴 𝘛𝘰𝘱 𝘛𝘦𝘯 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘔𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘖𝘧 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦, getting arrested is definitely up there. But, hey! At least there's a silver lining ━━ getting shoved into a drops...
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EVERY TIME SHE THINKS SHE'S HAPPY, she feels like it will last forever.
It never does.
Her back against the earth, Lyra looks to the sky. Long gone are the colours of the flares. Even the stars are fading now. It's almost dawn, that weird purgatory where the midnight sky fights a losing battle to the burning sun. Branches twist across her vision, gnarled and disfigured with shadows, as if trying to block her view of the crescent moon tethered to the sky.
Sometimes she feels so much that she thinks her head might explode. It used to happen a lot, back on the Ark. Sensory overloads when she could hear people breathing and then couldn't stop focusing on the sound. The most minuscule tasks could drive her crazy some days, structure sometimes felt like a prison. Once, Lyra felt so overwhelmed when Sinclair told her to patch up a minor circuit overload in Block B that she'd had a panic attack. Don't ask her how or why that happened. She wishes she knew. All she does know is that her brain doesn't work properly ━━ sometimes it just shuts down.
She got that feeling again. Like her head was too full. It won't go away.
So she snuck out of the camp walls and came. . . here. Wherever here is. Just a few yards away from everyone else. And now she's laying Eagle-spread on the ground and looking up at the Ark and trying to figure out when everything went so wrong.
Don't get her wrong, she doesn't miss the Ark. Too many walls. A noisy labyrinth crammed with people. Suffering trapped in the walls. She could run forever and she wouldn't go anywhere. No escape.
But she misses space.
There are no problems in space. No misunderstandings. No chaos.
Time stretched out in front of you.
Endless.
In space, there are no feelings.
Hundreds of silver bolts streak across the azure. Boiling supernovas that drench Lyra in what seems like moonbeams for a blinding moment, then a meteor shower. The air feels staticky and sticky and it buzzes against her mouth as she watches.
