❛ the ground. that's the dream. ❜
On the list 𝘓𝘺𝘳𝘢 𝘑𝘶𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳'𝘴 𝘛𝘰𝘱 𝘛𝘦𝘯 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘔𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘖𝘧 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦, getting arrested is definitely up there. But, hey! At least there's a silver lining ━━ getting shoved into a drops...
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EVEN AFTER HER TEARS DRY, her hands are still wet and sticky with his warm blood.
After she'd done it, she'd twisted onto her stomach, then pushed herself to her feet. Her eyes were closed shut the entire time. She didn't open them until she'd started running and she hasn't looked back since. She'd been unable to hold the knife any longer, so she dropped it.
She cannot bear to look at what she's done.
She'd slit the throat of her friend. Never mind the fact that she'd only done what he'd asked her to do, that Wells was dying anyways, that this was what he wanted, what he begged her for. Lyra still cut into him. Ruby sin stains her soft cheeks, innocence curdling across the star-girls sun-kissed features like curdled milk. How many times has she fought so that her friends could live? How many times has she defied the stars so that she and her friends ━━ children marked for death ━━ could survive?
And yet now it feels like it was nothing at all. Half of her friends are trapped in a mountain like pigs waiting for slaughter. The other half are a world away from her ━━ she is lost beneath the earth.
The mountain tunnels miles above her head, sprawling in every direction. Pale torchlight sliced down from alcoves in the rock, shadows poisoned black. Everything is delirious as she lurches through the sticky shadows, blood buzzing on her mouth, oozing across her fingertips. Scarring scarlet, red as the blood splattered meadows that cradled the members of the one-hundred who'd died in battle. Childhood's slow death. Lyra's lungs burn with incarcerated sobs, her throat scream-scorched as grief and sorrow and guilt and sickness of it all threaten to consume her. She persists through the chest-crushing gloom, yet in her own head, she is crumpled against the earth. In her own head, she is curled into the blood-drenched earth instead of wading through this fever dream.
Do you not have the heart for this, Miss. Jupiter?
Her head rings with soundless voices.
We all have great expectations for you, Miss. Jupiter!
