Four gardens surrounding a pool of starlight. Three ancient stone benches, a fourth crumbling. A streak across the night, moon to moon. Then, a flower of gold and red blooming on the nearest satellite.
She carves. Glances up, pauses, returns to work. Rough wood, pulled from the floor of the nature sanctuary. A small piece of something greater. She seeks what is hidden within. The hidden thing. The hidden memory.
Beyond the gardens and pools, harsh lights. A naked night on a naked world. Over the stone paths through the sanctuary to the gates, and then into those piercing stabs of blinding white, onto bare streets and bare homes filled with bare faces, watched over by the men in helmets and visors and grey.
She remains in the sanctuary. This thing, this something, claws itself from the wood, from the inside out. She only helps it along. She is its muse. Its guide. Its teacher, perhaps.
A face begins to appear in the wood, almond eyes. She wonders what it will tell her.
But then boots on stone. The faint whine of weapons waking from sleep. Three lights appear on the path.
“It’s time.”
###
Grey tower looking over grey city filled with grey faces. In the square below, a ship, men with helmets and visors and anger around it. Preparations for departure .A crowd around the square. Gasping. Wanting to howl but afraid of the consequences.
She watches from the window above, half-discovered wooden secret still in her hands. Door slides open behind her. She slips the secret into her pocket. It should not be seen.
“You know the attack has started?” he asks.
“I know.”
“You can’t be here anymore. It’s too dangerous.”
“This is where I should be.”
“The council won’t let you stay.”
In her pocket, the secret wants to crawl out. “I know. They’re wrong, but I know.”
“We leave shortly. I’ll send your escort up.”
She does not respond. There is nothing to say.
###
From the tower to the square, a corridor of people. Faces gaunt. Fingers long and reaching. Need in their eyes. She does not look, though she wants to. Helmets and visors and weapons keep them at bay. They are suffering. Soon, they will suffer further still. The thought hurts.
Her eyes forward. Always forward. If she lets them wander, linger, see, then she is lost.
Through the corridor of people.
Through the eyes.
Through the grey, grey faces.
Through the long fingers reaching, reaching for something they will never grasp.
Into the ship, and it rises, and it is gone.
The faces look upward. The grasping fingers follow.
###
Again, a streak across the sky. One moon touches the other with a thread of light. Another bloom of gold and red.
The world spins.
The moons fall out of view.
###
She is taken to a room wrapped in banners of red. Screens hang below them. Images on each, death, flames, death, numbers, death. Someone is talking. A statistician, maybe. War tallies. Numbers that are people she is not permitted to acknowledge. She appears to dutifully listen, but the sound is just a buzz. On the screens, people are dying. Back home, people die in a different way. All end in the same place.
A voice.
She is startled to attention, though she does not show it.
“I said are you ready to begin?”
She nods.
“The transference will only take an hour. I’ve spoken to our people. It should be less uncomfortable this time.”
She smiles. Wonders for a moment if this time will be different.
But it never was.
The stars smeared and she was gone.
end part 4 – part 5
