Our Existence Is Scandal

✦33✦

T E M P E S T (B.E)

His child was growing in me.

My stomach how grown round and my feet were swollen, the morning that I threw up for the first time was when the people in white came to take me. The cornered me in my cell and darted me before I could use my wings to protect myself.

When I woke up my wings were bound to my back and there were so many things piercing my flesh at once that I didn't know what else to do but scream. Even then my voice was swallowed by a tube down my throat and if the people pressing and prodding me had noticed I was awake they didn't show it.

For what felt like forever they continued to touch me and place foreign objects wherever they pleased and all I could do was lay there as they stole my dignity. When they were done they announced something that came out muffled in my ears due to my rushing blood being all I could hear and in the next second there was a thunderous sound.

Clapping, they were clapping.

A tear rolled down my face as the sound of flesh hitting flesh continued for the next few moments. I wanted to hide from their eyes, beg them to at least cover me and not leave me bare for everyone to see. Ask to have the metal removed from my flesh, to shift the blinding light from my eyes but most of all, even in my lowest moment all I could think about.

Was how desperately I wanted my Ambrose.

S O L

"So...he did use it for scrap metal," I concluded with a sigh.

"This," Astra tilted her head, "This is it?"

I nodded, "Underwhemling right, all of this fight and we're not even going tto be able to get it off the ground."

"No, I mean," She frowned, "Where is the rest of it."

"Covering all the corners of this dome I assume."

All that was left of the ship that had supposedly brought all the humans here was gone, the remains consisted of what i would desicribe as the exoskeleton of the ship. Basically there was enough metal that one could understand this was once a ship but no where near enouggh material to get it to fly.

Noticing a sign near the door we came from I went to go read it, realising it was a fire alarm. On the instructions below it, it read that if the glass was broken an alarm would begin to sound all throughout the dome and the whole dome would go into lock down as the vents opened and the air was sucked out.

I'd seen similar signs around the dome but had never looked into it until now. Astra was startled when I used my elbow to smash the glass and like clockwork a siren-like noise echoed throughout the building.

"Hey!"

We both turned to see a human in uniform running around the side of the building with a flashlight in hand. "You're not supposed to be here!."

Noise continued to wail from the speakers as a monotone voice announced repetitively that the building was going into lockdown and everyone should put on their suits as the oxygen would be sucked out. Yellow lights then began flashing in circles, drowning our surroundings in a yellow and making the rather dark room even harder to see in.

"Astra go downwards."

She looked up at me bewildered, "Downwards?"

I began to bounce on my toes slightly as the human approached, ignoring Astra who looked more confused than anything. "Low Astra, go low."

Noticing my stature she leaned down a bit and squeaked a bit as I moved quickly with her forward, using our handcuffs to swipe the man of his feet completely by aiming low and catching him off guard.

"Oh that's what you meant," She breathed, before jolting our hands backwards to hit the man in the back of the head before he could get up. We stared at him for a while before I nudged him with my foot and then slowly turned him over. "You think he's out?"

"Depends, how hard did you hit him."

This made her eyes widen, "Not that hard," She frowned looking down at him, "But they do tend to be quite sensitive back there," She told me, gesturing to his head. She leaned down to pick up his flashlight. "He'll be fine, let's go check out the ship."

"You seem to really be interested in this ship," I noted out loud, tired of her dragging me around it before frowning and pulling me in a compeltely different direction. "Not at all bothered with the fact that our only means of escape is useless."

She looked back at me, her skin almost pink as the warning red light continued to flash over our faces. "It's just... don't you think it's a bit little?"

I looked around us at the large vessel that made me feel almost like an insect with how big it was compared to us. "No it's pretty massive."

"But they said they did a one trip kind of thing, as in, they only left earth once."

"It would be pretty weird to keep going back when there's nothing to live for there," I reasoned, as she continued to look around the captains deck where we were, eyeing the controls. "If you're worried about if they were comfortable I'm sure with the size of this thing they travelled like royalty."

She rubbed at something with her hand before blowing at it repeatedly, "But look at this!" She turned around to pull me closer, "Look! Right there! It says that the ship had a capacity for around seventy billion kilograms, seventy billion!" I eyed the sign she was looked at skeptically. "That makes no sense because the average human already is about," She frowned, "Eighty? Ninety kilograms give or take and considering they also took food and building materials and-

"Astra."

"And luggage in general because there have clothes and furniture and all of it certainly wasn't light," She rambled on before grabbing my shoulder.

"And they all managed to get here," i said slowly, "So what's the confusion about?"

"No you don't understand, it's not scientifically or even physically possible that they all managed to get here."

I ran a hand through my hair, "Astra, there's so much space here-

"Space for a thousand people? Sure. A million? Definitely with leg room to spare but Sol there were around ten billion people on earth when I left," She pulled me out of the captains deck and to where we could see the many layers of the ship as there were no walls to divide them, "This ship did not carry ten billion people."

The blood drained from my face as I remembered something that I'd seen on Kofi's desk about the amount of human bodies they had to bury after the war and added it up to the list of numbers on his food rations sheet. "Astra, only five hundred million humans left earth."

Her head snapped to look at me, 'What are you talking about, that doesn't even make any sense."

"It was on some files in the hopsital and Kofi has some shit on his desk and even if I'm getting the math completely off, it doesn't even slightly scrap one billion much less ten billion."

She began to shake her head and so I continued taking steps closer to her as she took steps away from me. "You thought there were ten billion people living in this small dome?" I asked slowly.

She stuttered, "No." Her eyes welled up, "Obviously some of them died in the war but like I thought enough survived to-

"There are only about a hundred thousand people living in this dome Astra," I told her honestly, "And that's rounding it up," I reached for her and she flinched away from me, "And like you said, there's a trend with the people in here."

The siren burned into our eyes as the red light made Astra's milky white tears look a dark red as they rolled down her face, her shaky hand lifting to her mouth. "They left them."

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