Author Games: Brave New World

Semifinals: Sydney Morristan

There was fire all around her; the sky was dripping crimson. She sat in a field of blooming flowers that resembled roses, the only difference being that the flora's petals produced tiny droplets of blood every few minutes that splattered onto the earth before disappearing into the dirt. If it were not for the pained groans of the wounded and dying that floated up towards the air or the smell of smoke that stung her eyes and burned her throat, she might have cared. But no, the flowers, the cure – it all didn't matter to her now. The only thing that still mattered to Sydney Morristan, the one thing she still cared for, was the silent body of Lucia Paula Fernandez lying still beside her.

Dead.

Deep inside of her heart, she knew that her reaction to Lucia's death was wrong. She wasn't crying. She wasn't screaming. Instead, she just sat on the charred, smoking grass, lifting her head up to stare at the tainted white clouds to avoid staring into the glassy brown eyes of Lucia, her friend. Her dead friend. Her murdered friend. Her friend who had been attempting to do her job by collecting the alien flowers, and had ended up with a bullet in her heart because of it. Around her, the colonists of Eden yelled orders at each other over the crackling flames that slowly ate away at the trees of the forest. Though Sydney knew the orders applied to her as well, and that she should stand up and fight for the cure like she had been instructed to do so, she couldn't.

Because Lucia was dead.

She kept her eyes fixated on the clouds above, at the saturated sunrise of molten yellows and oranges and gold. If she squinted hard enough, Sydney could just make out the last glimmering lights of last night's stars that sparkled and shone before the day swallowed them whole. Once upon a lifetime, she had believed that those very stars were there to guide her, to show her the path to success so that her name would be passed down from generation to generation, and her legacy written in the stars. A coarse, bitter laugh escaped her lips that could almost be mistaken for a choking cough, as Sydney turned her head back to Lucia's for the first time since the nineteen-year-old's death and whispered, "I was so stupid, wasn't I?"

Perhaps she was waiting for a response from Lucia, or perhaps she asked the question for no one in particular – it didn't matter. She knew what the stars truly were now, and she almost wished that the truth had remained buried, and she had kept on blindly worshipping them like she had always done. Undoubtedly, it would've been easier that way, with less heartbreak and more hope for her soul to feed on. After all, in the midst of destruction and death, what more could Sydney do but hope? Yet, the truth would never remain buried, for it would always dig its way back up the surface, in due time. And the truth was that the stars were no longer beautiful, nor were they wise and should be respected.

No, the stars were now a being of evil, an angel of death. Lucia was a prime example of that.

The shrieks of whistling bullets pierced her ears, but once again, Sydney ignored it. Instead, she swallowed forcefully, blinking back her tears and holding back her racking sobs. One hand found its way to Lucia's limp ones – warm fingers entwining with cold as the woman began to softly murmur in a strangled voice, entire body trembling, "You loved them so much." Subconsciously, she tilted her head to one side to get another view of Lucia's icy body, with the popping blue veins that showed clearly underneath her transparent skin. Her free hand gently caressed the girl's cheeks as the first tear squeezed out of Sydney's eyes, slipping down her porcelain cheeks as she brought Lucia's hand up to her lips and kissed it, half-hoping that the Venezuelan would wake up from her everlasting slumber like sleeping beauty. "You loved the stars so much, didn't you, Lucia? They were..." her voice trailed off when she saw that her friend did not make a move, before letting Lucia's hand slip out of her own to slap the sodden dirt around them. She sniffed, wiping away the tears from the corners of her eyes and whispered, "They were your everything."

And they failed you, she wanted to say, but the words died in her throat. They let you die.

They let you die.

I let you die.

"Goddamn it," a multitude of tears began to fall, liquid diamonds that caught the light as they fell from her eyelashes and down her cheeks. Shaking hands gripped the damp fabric of Lucia's uniform – wet with blood, sweat, and Sydney's tears. She couldn't bring herself to stare directly into Lucia's eyes, for those eyes were the ones who had sparkled with laughter and shone with warmth. They were full of life. They weren't glassy and blank in death. No. They weren't. They couldn't be. Yet, the truth had uncovered itself to stare her in the face, and no longer could Sydney Morristan deny the inevitable fact. "Goddamn it," she repeated, and this time she could hear the cracking of her heart amongst the screams, shouts, and whistles of bullets. "Why did you have to die, Lucia?"

There was no answer, nor would there ever would be. For, as Sydney Morristan knelt over Lucia Paula Fernandez's body and howled out her grief to the skies, she knew.

She knew.

The stars had lied, and the stars had killed.