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genre: sci-fi, fantasy au
word count: 3.3k
a/n: probably a final post before yet another hiatus, enjoy!
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"Come on, y/n!" Felix grabs my wrist and pulls me harshly into a dark corner. I gasp, my back slamming against a wall as my partner traps me with both hands, shielding me as the enemy zooms past the space station in their shiny silver space-bikes.
The year is 2503, and Earth as we know it has been evacuated, most people choosing to live in the high-tech modern space stations now littered throughout our solar system. Felix and I are currently on Iyllea, spies on a mission to uncover the truth about the explosion in the neighbouring (now demolished) station.
The greasy neon lights of the enemy's space-bikes flicker across the corridor, almost exposing our hiding spot. Felix does not take his eyes off mine, and I stare back in them - russet brown and twinkling with the very stars that light up our galaxy. His gaze is glossed with fear, but underneath the anticipation I see a hint of a mischievous smile, and my heart flutters.
After all these years, you haven't lost your hunger for adventure, have you Lix?
Finally, darkness and quiet returns, and we both release a breath. The air in space has a nice, clean kind of taste, the smell of helium and other gases. Over the decades, humans have evolved and grown accustomed to the milky way's climate, the freezing temperatures and low pressure.
I don't think I even feel cold here now. Not when Felix's face is barely an inch away from mine.
But he pulls away like nothing happened, ruffling his own dirty blonde hair. He has grown it out recently, no longer the short-haired playful boy I have known since my sweet sixteen. I like him like this, I decide.
"Chan should be here already, what's taking him so long?" Felix mumbles, peeking his head out the door opening to the midnight black sky.
I step out of the corner, tapping twice on the transparent earpiece plugged into my right ear. "Nothing. Perhaps we need to go to the other exit? They may have seen the troops patrolling over-"
"Shh, y/n, stop talking."
I halt, and we are plunged momentarily into silence. Felix furrows his eyebrows and takes a subconscious step protectively towards me, a habit he had developed over the years of training as my battle partner. I don't hear it at first, but then it gets louder, and louder, and louder. A high-pitched scratching sound, that sounds like an amplified version of a burning wick and metal on metal. The peculiar noise is coming closer to the space station - causing us to plug our ears before our eardrums start to bleed.
The space station then starts flashing red, a signal that danger is imminent. I panic, instinctively groping around in the dark for Felix's hand. He reaches out, and our fingers brush, warmth spreading through me once again. Through the flashing lights, I see his alarmed expression, every 1.5 seconds that the red glow illuminates his face, every moment the noise gets closer and more unbearable.
He is shouting now, though I cannot hear his unintelligible words. Flash. Felix is pointing toward the door. At something outside. Flash. I am being pulled away, towards the second exit. Flash. I see it - a giant asteroid hurtling toward us, unnatural and killer, a man-made weapon. Flash. I turn and run with Felix, our steps irregular, haphazard. Flash. I see his hand in mine, our fingers interlaced. The asteroid is near us, the panic is overwhelming...
Flash.
It is not the anxious flashing of red lights. It is the blinding flash of a camera. I stand in a puffy cameo pink dress, its corset, its lace, its embellishments - suffocating. A stiff smile is plastered on my made-up face, and I wave at the reporters, the eccentric paparazzis who snap and smirk at every movement I make. My parents look like they are having the time of their lives, the researchers who opened the 7th habitable space station, saving another million.
Flash, flash, flash. I smile and wave. Smile and wave. Y/n, will you follow your parents' footsteps in the near future? Y/n, you're turning sixteen soon, would you consider working as a researcher? Y/n, y/n, y/n...
At the reception I sneak away. I am an absolute mess, tears of stress threatening to mess up my flawless mascara. This is not the life I have asked for. My future - predestined and predicted for me, my days a drone of putting on a mask and hiding my blemishes. If there was one loophole in this new utopian world - it was that our culture never changed for the better. Its ugly, distorted ideal of beauty and perfection - it strangled me.
"Are you okay?" I have escaped to a far end of the 7th space station - soon to be named after my family's last name, and pressed my forehead against the cool aluminium walls that restricted us as much as it provided shelter. A deep, accented voice greets me, and I am momentarily startled. I look up, and spy a lanky, unruly boy around my age staring at me curiously. He does not look at me like the other boys, sick with fascination, or the adults and kids that expect me to grow up and be what they told me to be. No, this boy looks like he has come from another planet, his untucked shirt and uncombed hair such a stark difference from the ironed suits and dresses I have been surrounded by all my life. I am overcome with the crazy urge to smile at his image - inquiry and boredom lacing his features.
"Yeah, I guess so. Who are you?" I say quietly. I can still hear the blaring music and the white noise of laughter and small talk - but over that, I am intrigued by his unique voice as he replies to me.
"Oh! You can call me Felix. I assume you are Y/n?" He grins, the freckles on his cheeks prominent and proud.
"Yeah, you here for the ceremony too?" My tone falls. Is he like the others?
"Naw mate, ceremonies are boring. My friend is though, he dragged me." He scrunches his nose.
I soften and let out a giggle. "Guess the party's gonna go on for a while. So, you planning on escaping too?" I joke.
"Thinking of it." He crosses his arms and cocks his head toward a back door where various spacecraft are parked. "You wanna come? We can swing by Earth and come back in a jiffy."
I stare at him incredulously. "Earth? Isn't that just... rubble and wreckage and fire - that kind of thing?"
He laughs, a melodious sound, and I feel a comfortable blush colouring my cheeks. "Naww, looks like you'll have to see for yourself!"
Without asking, he gingerly reaches out for my hand and ushers me to his mini spacecraft, his carefree heart brimming with passion for adventure. I remember the rush of adrenaline, the foreign emotions that fill my body with a thrumming sense of excitement. My pulse has accelerated, following this strange boy on a spontaneous expedition.
I clamber in, forgetting all teaching to be proper and hold myself with dignity. His ship is almost a mirror image of his personality - annotated maps and scrawlings scattered about the floor, an old plushie, gizmos and gadgets peeking out from every nook and cranny. It is the most natural thing I have ever seen in my life of files and neat clinical cliches, and another smile spreads across my face.
Felix and I talk as he steers towards Earth - the mysterious planet I have never set foot on before. I let down my hair, ripping a layer off my ridiculous gown, and drown my worries in the liquor of his stories, his voice, his ever-so-constant touch. He tells me about his friends on Earth - lost boys, stray kids that came together as a family. Together, they made sense of their broken worlds, pieced their incomplete lives together and made a compass of friendship and allegiance that spurred them on.
He tells me about their missions, their adventures, and I am sucked into their world. Felix reminds me of Peter Pan - a pixie from a fairytale. His Neverland, his family of lost boys, youthful, brave, valiant.
He stops after a while, before his ship breaks through the ozone. Will you be my Wendy? He seems to say, through his eyes that sparkle like the stars.
Yes. I will run far away from my past, live the future for myself, live young, wild and free.
He looks at me once again, this beautiful boy, a gift from the universe. Are you ready to see Neverland? I nod, letting the flash of warm light consume me as the ship dives into Earth.
"Felix, the ships! The ships!" The psychedelic lights are causing a bubble of nausea to rise up within me, and I try to suppress it as I yank my partner towards the shipyard at the West end of the station. Unfortunately, the exit door is jammed shut, or locked shut. To keep danger out? Or to keep us in...
"Damn it!" I curse under my breath. The asteroid is accelerating, we can tell by the sound. My futile attempts to bust the escape door open causing new waves of worry to wash over us.
"Here!" Felix fiddles with something on the ground. I am panting from the effort of trying to break open the door, but I squint at his crouched figure, making out a small latch on the floor. He clicks it, and thankfully, the trapdoor creaks open, the sudden blast of wind and gas blowing through the hole.
A rusted spaceship lies dormant some ways beneath us, but we make do with what we have. Felix meets my gaze before courageously jumping onto the top of the spacecraft, his body jerking with the sudden impact. But his balance is amazing, as always, and he steadies himself before he tumbles off. Me, I am frozen, a sudden terror of heights, the fear of falling to my death in a scrapyard of mechanical discard causing my muscles to stiffen considerably.
"Y/n!" Felix stands on the ship and looks up at me peering through the circular trapdoor. I cannot respond. He shakes his head and tries to open up the spacecraft, his arms tensing as he pries open yet another latch.
Jump, y/n you idiot.
My knuckles are white, clutching the rim of the trapdoor. Meanwhile Felix has made it into the ship and somehow jacked the old engine to life, pressing a button to open the hood. He then glances up at me once again.
"I'll catch you." He reaches his arms up. Other ships are starting to leave the station - the people of Iyllea now refugees, because of the inhumane creatures that vowed to destroy all the spies.
On three. I breathe. One, two...
The asteroid crashes into the East wing, a mighty lurch that sends the whole station rumbling with a beast of a force. The movement is dizzying enough to momentarily blind me, and I scream as I lose my grip, lose my footing, and fall down, down, down, clawing at the air until I feel...
His strong arms catch me, like he promised, but not in the same way I was expecting. I dangle off the ship, legs flailing in distress before I realise I am still alive. Felix yells, his body almost entirely bent over the side to save my life. The turmoil around us is insanity - the violent shaking and cacophony of sounds - ships zooming away, unlucky civilians getting torn into smithereens by the ruthless man-made asteroid. "Felix... I" I want to tell him - I love him. I always have, and now that it seems impossible for us to be together, I want to tell him this, my last words, but maybe not his.
But he senses my will to give up, and a newfound anger burns in his chest. "Don't you dare let go." He rasps, voice hoarse and strained. He yells again, a pained and agonised sound, trying to heave me up, our fingers slipping, slipping.
T-minus 10 seconds to self destruct.
"THIS CAN'T BE THE ONLY WAY!" His words are thick with desperation. He is getting tired, and I am losing hope.
"LET GO YOU IDIOT, I LOVE YOU." Defeat, I scream at him, my first love, my last love.
"NO!" Rage boils. His rage at the unfairness of the world, the same rage that brought me to Peter Pan, the one that led me to Neverland.
T-minus 5 seconds.
With a final cry, he swings me, a dangerous risk for the both of us. But it worked. The power of his movement, fueled by the tornado of emotions pent up inside of him, sent me almost flying into the ship, my head smashing against the glass.
Colours burst in my vision, but not before I see Felix recover and stagger towards the controls, the ship's almost-busted engine firing up, blasting us into the night sky as Iyllea explodes with a deafening, final battle cry.
I see stars around me, and I can't tell if it's the fiery balls of hydrogen in our sky, or the ones I dream of - his eyes. A red liquid is trickling down my head, the movement of the ship lulling me to sleep. How can the afterbattle be so calming, so peaceful? Or am I simply dying, on the bridge leading to heaven?
But if my heaven is right here where my love is, why am I walking this path?
Cold hands are pressed against my face, my head, my shoulders. A blur of blood on skin, droplets of sweat, glistening tears, all mingling into one. I smile in spite of the pain, for I know that we are both safe. The ringing in my ears does not stop, but it subsides low enough for me to hear him whisper, I love you too. Please don't leave me.
I feel the bridge of his nose, trailing my face, the curve of his lip, cracked and trembling, kissing my neck. The soft caresses, bringing life back to the apples of my cheeks, the brush of eyelashes against my face. My head, cradled in his lap, as my heart breaks over and over again with the fragile and anguished strokes of his hands.
Entering Earth's atmosphere, I hear the ship's in-built announcement system say, matter-of-factly.
Entering Earth's atmosphere.
I hold my breath, expecting Earth to look like a mangled mess of toxic waste and scorched land, but as the spacecraft emerges on the other side of the grey clouds, I am startled to see the surface almost submerged in seawater, plants still growing at odd patches of dry land. I can see why it may be inhabitable - icebergs melted and the ocean swollen, barely any land to make residence, not to mention the unimaginable heat. Even inside Felix's ship, condensation has formed on the outer surface of the glass, fogging up the windscreen.
"Whoa..." I am speechless. Earth is a far cry from the dystopian world I had been expecting, and its apparent vulnerability to the unpredictable climate makes me like this planet maybe a few times more.
"This, is just the surface. You see, there are tribes and clans still sticking together, adapting in this environment to live, and might I say, we may be thriving more than you astronauts." He explains with pride. I laugh again. I have never been called an astronaut, but the way he says it is almost comical.
"Where do you stay, then?" I survey the waters, probably wondering if there are any islands these stray kids live on.
Felix looks at me, a mischievous expression taking over. Cute, I think, then bite my lip to clear the thought.
"Well, y/n, I trust you. You must not tell anyone about this, for I might get punished for bringing you here. But, here it goes. Welcome to Earth!"
I squeal as the ship speeds towards a particularly dark spot of the ocean. IT'S A TRAP, I realise too late, and start to shriek, tempted to break the glass to escape. Felix is amused at my terror, and drives the ship until it breaks the surface of the water...
I brace myself for impact, but it doesn't come. Instead, the world morphs into a new scene, a metropolis shimmering before my eyes. I rub my eyes in disbelief. There are skyscrapers of every shape and size, half-buildings that allow people to run freely around, technology that lets them walk sideways up buildings, bright colours that pop out splattered across the city. There are even exotic plants that grow in the most random of places, everything a quirky organised mess.
The whole place looks so raw, yet so ethereal, it moves me to tears. While we were busy finding new ways of building stations in space, these orphans, these amazing people salvaged the dying Earth, built a sustainable, beautiful haven of dreams and freedom.
"So, are you surprised?"
"I- I don't know what to say," I clasp a hand over my mouth. "This is everything I ever dreamed of, and more. I am never going back. Never." I vow resolutely.
"You want to live here?" Felix arches an eyebrow at me, though his eye smile tells me he is pleased.
"Yes," I breathe, in awe of this world that didn't exist just an hour ago.
"Welcome, y/n! You're going to love it here, I know it. You have to meet my friends, go to these stunning places and hideouts - ah, so much to do! Don't worry, we have all the time in the world." Felix seems to glow as he speaks, a radiant beam of sunshine lighting up my gloomy world. I must have been a good person in my past life, to deserve someone like him, to deserve to meet a person I am so comfortable with, who accepts me just for who I am, and not what I have to become.
"Will you stay with me, then?" I am aware of my flushed cheeks, my unladylike demeanour. But I don't care anymore. I will never care about what others think of me anymore, not when I can have all this.
Felix is quiet, and I am afraid he will not agree. But he breaks the silence, turning to me and taking my hands in his. The moment is intense, and I feel the familiar rush of anticipation rising up within my body. The blonde-haired boy then bends down, pecking my forehead, sending sparks rushing through me. Who allowed him to make me feel this way?
"Forever." He whispers, easing me into an embrace.
~
Epilogue
Felix sits beside me in the spaceship he first picked me up in, nostalgia filling the small space between us. It has been 5 years since Iyllea, and though I don't remember much of what happened anymore, the emotions remain an ardent flame.
Felix scoots closer to me, closing the gap between us. The first fireworks start to light up the sky, the panoramic, close-up view of these flares breathtaking, commemorating the defeat of the enemy. For us, these miniature explosions commemorate our first love.
He cups my face in his hands, leaning down to catch my mouth with his. Hovering above land, lost in the midst of the fireworks display, he kisses me, the trace of a smile soft against my lips.
"Will you stay with me?" His arms snake around my waist, pulling me to his chest.
I lean against his steady body, remembering the same words he said to me when we first met. "Forever." I promise, as the last flashes of glittery light rain around us.