Stars Align

Goodbye Sunshine

Ever since her father died a few years prior, Lucy had lived alone in the same apartment she shared with him as a child. It pained her to sell the spacious flat, situated with a view above an expansive, glossy man-made lake always dotted with little boats with shores lined with fishermen. She loved to get up early and watch the silhouette of the city take form against the backdrop of a glowing orange sun.
This was what she was doing this morning, sitting in a rocking chair that sighed when she leaned back to stretch her arms heavy from slumber, she wrote in a small notebook in her lap, taking long pauses to gaze longingly at the sun as pink clouds drifted across its surface. Tears began to form at the corners of her eyes as the sun fully awoke and became blinding. She turned away swiftly, blinking away the imprints of light the sun had left to drift across her vision.
Lucy sighed and ripped the page she had been writing in out of her notebook. She drifted over to a nearby writing desk and pulled out an enveloped. Pausing to let a yawn float past her lips she then neatly folded the torn-out page and sealed it inside the envelope.
On her way to her bedroom, she threw the envelope in a cardboard box next to her bedroom door. It was decorated completely with a childlike painting of the night sky. On one side was a hand painted sign that read "Heaven's Mailbox".
The young girl took a brisk shower then picking up the pile of clothes she had lain out on her bed to get dressed. She also picked up her ring of keys, each of which carried memories of her parents she constantly kept close for security.
It was as she was latching her keys to her belt when she heard a raucous banging at her front door. Muffled yelling could be heard from outside, and in her curiosity, Lucy was tempted to open it.
She cautiously wandered over to the door and stood on tiptoe to look through the peep-hole. She gasped and reached down to grab her keys, her breath slowing at the cold metal touch against her palm.
Standing outside her door were three City Guards, enforcers of the new Law known to take those who practiced witchcraft away for the protection of the city. Most of those in the city despised them for their behaviors as well as their cause, often raiding an innocent college student's home to look for evidence just because they had shown interest in mythology in school, leaving them to clean up the rubble if they left at all.
Lucy suspected this was one of such false calls, and racked her brain for what she possibly could have done to provoke these people.
After coming up with nothing, she finally opened the door in response to the loud banging of the guards that had gradually increased in volume as she pondered at the door. Lucy figured it would be much better to play innocent and not resist than get immobilized and have to pay for a broken door by waiting any longer.
Before she knew what happened, she was surrounded by the guards, one already grabbing her hands to cuff behind her back.
"E-excuse me!" Lucy yelled at the forceful intruders. She began to panic realizing she could not possibly grab the keys handing at her waist and talked fiercely.
"Listen to me! I am innocent! I don't even know how to practice witchcraft! What does it even mean?" At this point they were preparing to immobilize her; she noticed as a mattress was drug out and placed behind her and the biggest man pulled out a menacing metallic rod.
Losing all her fear to desperation and anger, she kicked the woman who had cuffed her in the chins. "Tell me what you are arresting me for! Or are you not working for the city?" Lucy opened her mouth and began to scream as she received no immediate reply.
Yelling over her, the woman, with bright crimson hair swinging about her face, replied,"You are under arrest for suspect or witchcraft, girl. You are an astronomer, and your parents are dead. You especially excelled at astronomy in school it seems, and became good friends with a certain Levy McGarden enrolled in the same classes?"
Yes, I had always enjoyed the night sky as did my mother, but I was no witch. And what did my friend Levy have to do with this, the wise girl?
I didn't know what to say as I watched the metal rod come crashing over my head. I tried one last time to struggle, to protest, but the energy had been drained out of me as her name repeated in my head, my old friend from college, Levy, a lively bookworm, had already been taken and now she was dragging me down with her...
The last thing I thought of was of the woman who had finally answered my desperate question, there was sadness in her eyes as she watched me fall, some mix of pity and regret.