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SEPT 27, 2149 DAY FIFTEEN ON THE GROUND
DAKOTA GRIPPED MILLER'S HAND UNDERNEATH THE TABLE AS SHE GAVE HER PRACTICED SPEECH, the spiel rolling off her tongue while she did her best to ignore the devastated sobbing coming through their headsets.
"I can promise you that his time on earth was nothing short of incredible. He was happy here, and he got to see and experience things we dream about our whole lives on the Ark." she calmly told Diggs's mother, who through the slightly blurred screen, was tightly clutching her chest as if the immeasurable pain was physical; inconsolable wails tearing from her throat as she gasped ruggedly for oxygen.
Dakota didn't expect her carefully rehearsed words to ease the suffering of losing a child, nothing could be of comfort when being told your son was dead, but she hoped maybe down the road the woman would think of him on earth with sunlight kissing his cheeks and rainwater dousing his hair and that would be her image of his final day. Of course, Dakota knew the reality of his final day; certain she'd never forget the fear that remained frozen in his eyes despite having already been turned into a corpse.
Her gut-wrenching cries were the desolate kind of sobbing that only came from someone who felt they had lost everything, the Thompson girl only having heard such extreme anguish once in her life besides this. The first time she had heard it had been from herself, reduced to a heap on the cold, hard floor when she watched her mother get sucked out into outer space; ravaged screams echoing through the execution chambers on that afternoon. She remembered how it felt like her soul had been bleeding on that day, and as she stared at the broken woman on the tiny screen, she could tell it was happening to her too. Miller's voice beside her pulled her out of the wretched memory.
"Again, we're so sorry for your loss."
The lady didn't speak, she couldn't, she just stayed as she was; bawling with a loss for all hope. A loss for meaning of life. Abruptly, the monitor turned off and went dark, signaling Diggs's mother had ended the chat. Immediately, Dakota and Miller both dropped their rigid shoulders and let out gigantic breaths they didn't know they'd been holding; allowing their forced poker-faces to vanish once it was just them in the tent, which Raven had named comms.
"That one was harder." she mumbled dejectedly, letting her head fall to Miller's shoulder beside her; who rested his cheek on top of her head in return. They both felt oddly exhausted, like they were being drained of all energy as they delivered the world-shattering news.
"Yeah." he exhaled in the same spent tone, the two staring ahead with drooping eyes at the black screen.
John's father hadn't cried; he had screamed. A rage like the two had never seen had gained instant control of his brain upon the news that his innocent son had been murdered, a bloodthirsty desire for vengeance on all grounders coming out in seething yells; his face having been drenched a bright red.
