Mother Earth.

Chapter 18: Golden Mirror.

 Lydia Armageddon, Lisa Huo.

Lisa's factory,

The year 2173.

Moments zip by, cropping into one another like a ruined film reel. A piano's keys ring in a distorted, out-of-tune melody through the dark abyss as a projector's lights flash rapidly. The shutter of the film reel downing Lisa's ears as corroded frames of people are thrust before her. Black ink stains their faces in large X's, as blood dripped down while carrying flames washed over the projector light, staining the frames in scarlet red as she came on screen. It shuddered as the film reel jammed, yanking up and down-
-Jammed on the image of little Lisa in that red button-up with a black eye, scrapped knees, and in tears.

A golden mirror presents itself, carried by the firefly, and she turns away.

Click.

Lisa's eyes fluttered open slowly, and she exhaled deeply. She stretched open her hands, extending her arms as she did, rolling over on her right shoulder. The high was gone, and the headache returned as sunlight peered through the holes in the brick walls as it crept up the horizon. Lisa's face felt damp, and her eyes did too. Swirling anxiety began to brew in her stomach upon waking. Being awake means thinking, thinking leads to remembering, and remembering leads to anguish.

She inhaled, her dry lips cracking and stinging as she opened her mouth, and exhaled.
"Ow." Lisa groaned as she felt her nose with one hand, it wasn't broken, but the aching pain remained. Each wound on her face was scabbed over as well. She moved her legs slightly, and the feeling of coarse fabric rubbed against her skin, wrapped bandages where the shrapnel had torn into her. In a haze of mind, she reached for her bedside table, a vial of berserk was calling to her.
"No."

A hand pushed her to reach down, and someone was sitting down on a stool beside her mattress.
"That isn't how you deal with things."

Lisa saw her in the corner of her eye, the orange eyes. Fireflies.

She reached again, and the same hand pushed her reach down.
"Lisa, stop."
"Fuck you."

Turning her head to the left while she still lay on the mattress, Lisa could see her, it was Lydia. She looked different. Her face was dirty with dust, and the bags under her eyes were prominent. The bridge of her nose was bruised with a scar crawling up the side, her shaggy brown hair fell over to cover the scabbed bruise on her forehead and her hair rested just past her shoulders. She sat forward, resting her weight on her arms in a black long-sleeved fleece shirt, wrapping over her large shoulders and arms, a rare commodity to come by these days. That shawl wasn't wrapped around her. In her hands was a bottle of water.
"W-What are you still doing here?"
"You're injured, and had a feeling you wouldn't take care of it yourself."
"I don't need your help."
"Bullshit."

Lydia put out her hand with the water bottle.
"Here." She offered.
Lisa stared for a moment, feeling something wrong. She sat up, her wedding dress getting tangled around her legs. It was a crawling up her stomach, something churning.

It was bile.

She threw herself to the left side of her mattress and hurled onto the concrete ground. Her abdomen spasmed violently, tightening as her body dumped out all of the poison in her body, she clenched the edge of the mattress with her hand to exert the pain outwards somehow.
"Lydia... just fucking... go!" Lisa shouted at the ground as the tears began to build, slowly. She inhaled and exhaled again, and again, then spat out all the sludge infesting her mouth.
"I won't, please. You need water."
"God... why are you just... just..." Lisa stammered.

Turning over, she was facing her nightstand while she sat up, her eyes locked on the berserk. Lydia was barely visible in her peripheral vision, blurred and shaking with her eyes. The smell of the vomit on the ground set in.
"Leave me alone."
"Lisa, just take the damn water and get rid of that vial. Just, listen."

Lydia held out the water again for Lisa, leaning over to grab her hand and place it in her grasp-
Smack!
-Lisa backhanded her instantly, bone colliding right into bone, sending a shock up Lydia's face as it snapped to the right.
"You don't know a damn thing about me, I just..."

The vial, it beckoned her. The blue light calls.

"The blue light."

Lisa threw herself toward the blackened bedside table, her hand slamming into it, shaking everything on top of it as her fingers barely grazed the vial.
"LISA!" She shouted as she grabbed her wrist, throwing her hands away from the table. Lydia's teeth clamped down on themselves as she strained, her nose scrunching up as she pushed her away from the bedside table. She kicked the stool away as she stood up to gain leverage. Lisa kicked at her stomach, throwing punch after punch at her arm-
"JUST LET ME DO IT!"
"I WON'T!"

In a rush, Lisa kicked again, this time driving her heel into her abdomen, she could see the shock of pain on Lydia's face as her eyes shut-
Smack!
-She threw her leg to the side, throwing her weight on top of Lisa to stop her from reaching the vial. The tears burst from her eyes, as her right hand pushed against Lydia's left shoulder, her nails digging into her flesh.
"I won't... let you do it again...!" Lydia's strained voice said again, looking right into Lisa's bloodshot eyes.
"LISA!"

Flames brewed on the palm of her left hand, and in an instant, it engulfed in fire. It was the only thing she could focus on. The only part, her hand and her shoulder- her flesh searing, and her voice slowly turning into a low, strained scream.
She was branding her hand onto her shoulder.

Lydia's vision began to spin as the biting, burning agony swept over her shoulder cooking her nerves, hearing the sizzling searing her body. The polyester shirt began to melt with it, melding with her skin-
-Lisa's tears were all she saw.
"LISA, PLEASE!" She screamed, her jaw seizing. The cacophony of the discourse of her mind was all hers. Lisa's mind was all hers. Her tears were hers, the blood she spilled was hers, her pain was hers, this noise and this unravelling chaos rupturing her ears was all she had as Lydia's words reached out in a hand, begging with suffering bleeding hands, and-
And-
-She just stopped.

Lisa took her hand off Lydia's shoulder, leaving a bubbling, blistering, melting mess of flesh mixing with liquid plastic, and Lydia threw herself away. Lisa just sobbed, unblinking, looking to the ceiling. Lydia took the vial of berserk-
Smash!
-Throwing it out of a hole in the wall, smashing into smithereens onto the outside ground.

Slowly, Lydia calmed her breathing, and Lisa continued to cry, her head in her hands as she lay on the mattress.
"Why won't you just let me go?"

Lydia tore off her ruined shirt, the molten polyester peeling off her blistering hand-shaped burn, sending shivering stinging pains all over her skin.
"If I left you here, you'd be hurt and alone. What kind of person would I be if I let that happen?" She answered, turning her back to the flaming bride. Lydia knelt, wincing in pain as her shoulder shifted to reach inside a backpack she didn't have before. Lisa saw six scars across her back; there were six circles- six holes left by injectors that had once been buried in two uniform vertical columns. She zipped the backpack shut, her muscles rippling as she did. A tattoo was embedded on her arm, it said: Project: CONVERGENCE.
"The water is on your bed. Drink it, now." Lydia's voice boomed. She turned around, with another bottle and bandages in her hands.

With a shaky breath, Lisa swallowed reflexively, grabbing the water bottle on her mattress at her feet.

The shuttering film reel unjammed, only for a second, then began sputtering out.
"Why." Lisa's thoughts murmured.

Lisa unscrewed the bottle cap and gulped back the fresh, warm water. The dryness of her mouth faded and steadily rehydrated. Wet teeth, a shallow breath, the dress tangled around her legs and falling off her shoulders. Lydia picked up the fallen stool, setting it back up. She sat down as she placed the water and bandages on the bedside table, pushing the syringes out of the way.
"T-Thank you," Lisa muttered, eyes locked on the folding fabric collapsing in her lap.
"You're welcome," Lydia responded, unsheathing a knife from her belt.
"Hey, do me a favor will ya?"