Sector-33 | ✓

a scream // zuandro's death

Dear _____ ,

My mind was a million miles away last night. It travelled over mountains, seas, rivers, all the while searching that peace my dad had sought so long ago.

All of it, in the growing anticipation of what will happen in two days' time.

I don't think I can formulate quite what will happen - we are expected to protect each other, out there, but there's no guarantee of what'll happen. An official came to visit us yesterday, to check on how we were doing, as well as to update us on what these Things really are.

They're an alienoid species that pose a threat to Sector-33. Nobody knows why they're here, nobody knows where they come from. If only I could be directed to the Satelite compartment to aid them in their mathematical studies to calculate their origins - but no. I made a pledge to myself, and I won't go back. I will not go back.

I can't, actually.

They wouldn't let me, and if I came home, what would Mum think of me? What would Sara think of me?

I hope they think of me when I go out on my first ever proper mission.

That's all, for now. Zuandro and a combat session await me - I might write something more later on.

Love,

Felix

***

Dear ______ ,

I loved him painfully and miraculously.

Yours faithfully,

Felix

***

They threw me into the lion's den as I was sleeping. When I woke up, I stood on a great, grassy plain, the city far behind me. Zuandro was nowhere to be seen. I panicked, naturally. What if this meant I'd failed? What if-?

I have to get back. I had to get back, and that was the only thing I told myself.

I got to my feet and started running, my only comfort the feel of my handgun banging against my hip in its holster, the clink of shells in the pockets of my coat, the slight graze against my skin from my throwing knife in my sock, pressed flat against the side of my leg. I simply ran.

This was a cowardly thing to do, and believe me when I say it brings me no joy to reiterate these happenings.

In my own defense, I was supposed to be out here with Zuandro, not on my own.

The more I ran, the more tired I became, and the glass city I call home was no closer than it had been ten minutes ago.

That was when I heard it.

An ugly screeching noise filled the air, like a thousand ravens had landed, and my whole mind went blank as I turned around to face something I had only ever seen once in my life - and that had been a two-dimensional projection on a laboratory screen.

It was hideous. It looked like a giant insect, almost, with four legs in total and multiple tentacle-like projections pushing out from its skin. The whole of it was coated in what seemed to be a protective eiderdown of mucus - it practically dripped with the stuff; which protected it against ultraviolet radiation. Now that, I'd been taught. The technicalities of it all came to me with a sudden rush of information, of processed and thoroughly revised data, as it let out a piercing shriek.

Come on, then, come on. I thought. You want to be a Guardian, Felicius? Do you want to protect all the people you've ever loved and cared about? Sector-42 is gone. Sector-50 is gone. Sector-73 is gone.