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WHAT SHE'S DONE
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LYRA JUPITER is haloed with blood.
She catches sight of herself in glass, her reflection contorting and wavering. Scarlet staining her half-naked body as she moves lifelessly through the deserted halls of Level 5, soaking through the white gauze bandaging her upper chest and lower torso. Her teeth are stained an ugly, callous red. Ruby is stiff, crusting her collarbones. Whether it's Vincent or the man she shot in the head or her own blood, she does not know.
She forces herself to keep moving. Her eyes flicker to her wrists and she blanches. They are still stained with crimson, half-scarred, covered in soot.
She feels as if she is wading through a nightmare.
None of them speak. Not Bellamy, not Clarke, not Monty. There is nothing left to be said.
The mess hall is littered with corpses.
Bodies mutilated beyond belief. Scattered across the tables, slumping over what had become their last meals. Countless. Life had once resonated in this chamber; Lyra still remembers how alive it had been when she'd first seen it. Families talking, friends laughing. And now it is silent.
No one has been left alive.
By her feet, blood smeared cards are scattered across the floor. And the child's hand stretching out to them. . .
Tears streak listlessly down her cheeks, intertwining with the ash and the blood. Clarke starts to forge forward through the sea of the dead. Monty is at her heels. Lyra lets Bellamy tug her along. She can hardly feel his touch.
Then, breaking the visceral silence, she hears something: Jasper's sobs.
They find him cradling Maya's body as if she is a limp doll. Her face is battered almost beyond recognition, but Lyra would have recognized her no matter what. Besides, there is no one else Jasper would have cried as hard for.
"What did you do?" He splutters, squeezing her dead body tightly, crushing her to his chest.
Clarke answers. "We had no choice."
"I was gonna kill Cage," he manages, lifting his dark eyes to them. They are manic with rage and damp with despair. "If you'd just given me one more minute, it would've been over!"
"Jasper," says Bellamy in a barely-controlled voice. He looks defeated. "They never would've stopped."
"We have to go to the dorm," says Clarke quietly.
Bellamy nods. He grips Lyra's hand. "C'mon."
Lyra lets him drag her along listlessly. They leave Jasper and Monty alone in the room full of corpses.
They move soundlessly through the deserted space. Everything is dipped in shadows. It's almost as ━━ just barely, if you narrow your eyes just enough ━━ it's almost as if nothing has changed. When Lyra's eyelids flutter shut, she can still hear them, the children roaming through the halls, the neighbors chattering as the circadian lights drift off into twilight, the laughter of young kids, the quiet chastising of their teachers and parents. But now it is nothing more than a hollowed out void.
The dorm is frantic with noise as Octavia frees their people. Lyra ignores them. She bolts from Bellamy's grasp, runs straight into her dads arms, already bursting into noisy tears.
I didn't want anyone to die, she thinks furiously, unable to do anything but splutter incomprehensibly. She didn't. She didn't. She didn't.
Her voice is raw, wretched, and her knees start to buckle. She is warped with despair. Her dad is the one who holds her up, with Noah clutching her so fiercely that she thinks he might break her.
"It's OK," Noah says immediately, his voice tight with pain. He smooths her hair back and holds her tighter still, his shoulders shaking. "It's OK, you did the right thing, there was no other way out of this — you saved so many lives, you're the hero, Lyra."
I didn't want this, she thinks, broken. Her tears are still falling. I didn't want any of this. . .
͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙
THE RETURN TO Camp Jaha is a blur.
Abby had stitched Lyra's wound while they were still in the mountain. There was no anesthesia.
Not a single word blooms across Lyra's lips as they begin the death march back. Her dad did not stay standing long after their conversation ━━ after Clarke had killed Dante, Cage went to put Abby on the table. Raven had protested, taking a beating, and then her dad had apparently sort of just. . . lost it. He'd managed to get close enough to a soldier to bite him in the neck before kicking him in the stomach, swinging his other leg around to the soldier who'd stormed towards them. It had taken three batons to finally knock him down.
"Don't tell Noah I said this," Kane had said quietly as Bellamy and Sergeant Miller carried her dad to the stretcher. "But. . . well, he saved Raven's life. He's a hero."
Lyra had just nodded. She already knows.
Then Kane had shuffled around for something in his pack, pulling out a familiar cassette. "He brought this with him. He wanted to give it to you himself."
It was the Walkman. Lyra had taken it uneasily.
Kane had looked stricken by her silence. He even looked like he wanted to say something, but then Abby was calling his name, shouting Noah needed help, and then he was gone in a flash.
Now Bellamy is somewhere up ahead, enshrouded by the swarm of people staggering into the gates. Lyra is straggling near the back, her shoulders hunched low and her head hanging. Clarke is the only one who marches beside her.
"I'm leaving," Clarke says abruptly.
Lyra's eyes widen. "What?"
It's the first words she's spoken to anyone since they irradiated the level. Her voice is a stiff croak, and she stares at Clarke from raw, dry eyes.
"Seeing their faces everyday. . . it's just going to remind me of what I did to get them here," Clarke admits to her quietly, not quite looking her in the eyes. "And I think you understand that. You haven't spoken to anyone since you. . . since we. . . "
Slowly, Lyra seems to realize what Clarke is getting at.
"I killed your best friend," she reminds her.
"I know," says Clarke. There's a beat, and then she finally meets Lyra's gaze. "The choice is yours. But if this is what you want. . . I'll be waiting at the ridge."
Lyra remembers what she'd done to Wells and her heart clenches. She will never forget the look on his face. And she remembers his dying breath ━━
Just look out for Clarke for me, alright? Please. . .
Lyra nods and she hears Clarke start to turn away. But she doesn't watch her go. Instead, her gaze focuses on Bellamy. The last of the stragglers have fallen behind the gate and now it's just them on the outskirts. The afternoon sun seems to set him ablaze. The wind toys with his curls and make them dance over his eyes; Bellamy looks like some divine creature hurled down from the heavens, like a god fallen from Olympus.
She takes a cautions step towards him. His lips tilt at the corner.
He rakes a stray strand that's fallen loose from her ponytail, tucking it gently behind her ear before grasping her hands in his own. "Hey, stranger."
"Hey yourself," she says quietly. Too quietly.
His loose smile wavers. "Hey, Lyra. . . we'll get through this, just like you said. Together."
"Three hundred and eighty one people," she whispers, unable to look at him. "One hundred and eighty two men, one hundred and seventy three women. Twenty six children. That's how many people died."
"You're not coming back."
Bellamy says it quietly, but uncertainty roars beneath his words. As if he won't allow himself to believe them. He clutches her hands tighter, more desperately now, as if somehow he can convince her to stay.
"Then let me come with you. If you don't come inside, then neither will I — "
Lyra hides her eyes from his. She doesn't want him to see the shame welling within her. "And what? You'll leave Octavia?"
They both know he cannot.
The storm in his own eyes intensifies. "Come on, don't do this, Lyra. We can get through this. Together. It wasn't just you in there, OK? What do you need, for me to hear it? I'll do it. I pulled the lever, not you. I'm the one who did it, let me take all the blame — "
She backs away from him. There is a lump in her throat. "I won't let you do that to yourself."
"And I won't let you do this!" Bellamy exclaims sharply. She winces. "God dammit, Lyra! What is it that you want, forgiveness? Because I'll give it to you, OK? Even if you don't need it! I forgive you. For everything that you've done. I forgive you, Lyra Jupiter."
Words die in her throat and she turns away. She cannot look at him. She doesn't miss the irony in his words ━━ she'd said the same things to him once, hadn't she?
"Please. . . " he nearly chokes out the word, glass stretching over his irises. "Please just come home."
She feels as if she is breaking all over again, her features dissolving as saltwater wells in her eyes. "I can't, Bellamy. Please. I can't."
All at once, cold, horrified realization seems to wash over him. Bellamy sucks in a ragged breath. "And what about together until the very end, huh? Those were your words."
"I'm sorry," she breathes out tearfully.
Silence roars between them. He seems to have run out of things to say. Still, she cannot look at him.
Shakily, she whispers, "May we meet again."
And so the girl with matchstick bones and a supernova for a heart, the girl crafted from moonbeams and cosmic entities, finally lets herself become the battered girl on the ground. The girl walks forward across the beaten path, begins her death march one more time, turning her back on the one thing that she has had since the dropship crashed onto the radiated planet. Letting the dying daylight swallow her whole, swamped by the shadows as she straggles across the dirt, vanishing like a star from the night sky. Engulfed by the flaming sunset.
They are one foot apart. Then five. The distance grows. No matter how badly she wants to, Lyra does not let herself turn back.
Even when she thinks she might hear Bellamy murmur, We will.
In this world, there are no happily-ever-after's.
͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙
YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.
You know what you'd die for. You know what you'd live for. You've lain there in the darkest night, engulfed by the harsh cold, and you've fought bitterly for survival. Your own thoughts trapping you. Caged by your own mind. Loneliness halving you, carving your very soul into two, hollowing a hole in your opal bones. You've become loneliness in every sense of the word. But that doesn't matter now.
Who you are is what you've done, isn't it? And what you've done is monstrous.
Screaming at deaf stars, on your knees for worthless gods, all dying universes and exploding supernovas. You didn't think this would happen, did you? But it did. There's no changing it. Time only ever moves in one direction and you can't take back what you did. It's here to stay. Staring into the vast emptiness of space where the darkness stares back at you, screaming ringing in your ears until you feel like they're going to bleed out and you're rocking back and forth with your head in your hands sobbing.
You feel too much. You feel too much. You feel too much. YOU FEEL TOO MUCH!
But you can't get rid of it. This is who you are now. And you will bear it alone.
Deliverance comes at a cost.
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END OF BOOK ONE.
mebi oso na hit choda op nodotaim.
͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙ ✩ *̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙
🤪
*I think of the night in the park it was gettin dark and we stayed up for hours...
... what a time
what a time
what a time... *
2k words