AstroHarmony: The Height of Rebellion

All But The Memories

"No-! Please, no-"

My vision is black; the voice cutting through silence, broken, as I felt it coming from my own mouth, though my brain does not comprehend the process of speech. I feel myself fall silent.

It is a new voice this time, commanding, dominant in every aspect.

"He housed a criminal," for some reason, I knew the criminal was me. "He 'rescued' you multiple times in the past. He has fought against the Upper Elites and he is being held with charges of three cases of grade-two manslaughter."

Suddenly, there is a brightness in front of me. I try desperately to close my eyes, but nothing I do seems to work. After a moment, its brilliance dies and I can make out a figure.

He is dangling just inches off the ground, arms held above him with wrists shackled in shining chains that suspended the entirety of his weight. His tired hair hangs in his broken eyes, the brown in his hair pale; the blue in his eyes dull. As I watch, he coughs up a pool of blood that spills down his bare chest.

Who is this man-?

"Stop hurting him," I feel myself say, though I wondered why I cared. "You found me, you captured me. So do it. Punish me already!"

My vision is gone once again, ripped away from me as if I was not worthy of bearing such a thing.

Voices surround me, engulfing me as a feeling of pure weightlessness grasps me tightly, throwing me down so it felt as if I was falling. Air rushed past me, sucking the oxygen from my lungs as I gasped in attempts to breathe, able to hear nothing over the roaring of the figureless voices surround me in the darkness.

"Guilty."

"How do you plead your terms?"

"Guilty."

"Guilty!"

"Tell us the truth, pretty boy!"

-:-

I wake to someone violently shaking my shoulders. The sudden feeling of falling leaps from my dream to the sour air of reality, tugging at my stomach and causing me to jerk under their firm grasp. Opening my eyes to darkness, I am just able to make out the outline of their figure before I feel fingers digging into my arms once again.

"Hey, Ashten, wake up!" The voice was feminine, all but a harsh whisper; hurried in the otherwise silent air. I try to form a response in my mind, muddled with confusion, unable to form a solid thought. I try to roll, to get out from under the weight on my shoulders. My body aches, the blood pounding through my veins with a constant beat, steady in my ears and almost drowning out the woman's voice.

"Ashten. Ashten, I need you to get up, we have to leave now."

The sound of raw terror in her voice instills nothing but fear throughout my whole throbbing body, confusion out ruled as I rush to sit up, convincing myself that this, this person, whoever they were, would have the answers to the hundreds of questions forming in my clouded head.

My head is instantly lighter than air at the sudden movement, as if it's about to up and float away without me. I clench my eyes closed to the dim lighting, aware of the person releasing my upper arms and hearing them shuffle their feet before me as she stands.

"Hurry." The whisper draws my mind back to the present, energizing my exhausted body and giving me the instant strength to stand. My eyes are just adjusting to the darkness, able only to make out the woman's silhouette. Her lighter hair is pulled back into a braid, eyes glimmering in the dull light though still lacking color in my current state of vision.