The Most Important Girl In The Universe

Chapter One: Magnolias

Sitting at my father’s desk, I look through the pictures of my mother and I when I was a baby. There were only a few, when I was first born. When I was being fed for the first time. Her changing my diaper. She’s been gone since I was little, but the love for Magnolia Spencer, my father’s wife, my mother, is there still in my heart. It aches and warms all at the same time.

My dad’s been trying to bring her back since she was gone. I know he’s been trying, I can see it in his eyes. The way his eyes glass over could kill me, because I know it’s pain and sadness and betrayal and hatred for the way she died.

The Chief of Forces sent my mother in the Darez empire to be a spy. She offered white lies and information in return of alliance with them. Her knowledge was their benefit, and when she had come to them, they were sure they would win the War of Worlds. The Empress, after finding her secret, took it upon herself to execute my mother and anyone in her path in the field of battle between our atmospheres. Many died, including the Empress, as soldiers flew forth to retrieve my mother. But when she was returned, she was gone, along with all the other soldiers. It drove my dad insane. My doctor.

We’ve been in this war for so long, and now I’m a part of it. I always have been. My dad was just a part of the prophecy.

“The Universe will be eclipsed in darkness and your wings will spread as you fall from the atmosphere of our planet, and that is when you will decide.”

I’m supposed to destroy an entire race of Darez. My dad has been strapping me down to tables since I was young and injecting me with things that alter my internal structure. I no longer feel physical pain, I no longer technically need to breathe—but, I do breathe. Because it’s the only thing that reminds me that my heart’s still beating. That I’m still alive. Alive and breathing. I’m guarded, I have very few friends, and I’ve never really done anything reward worthy. I’m just here.

I shake out of my mind as I hear a few knocks on the door and I hurriedly throw the pictures back in their drawer. I hop up, and one of the scientists on my father’s team, Eren,  greets me with a nod. “It’s time to put you down in the CT scan to see if anything in you has changed.”

“Well, it’s a ritual by now. All you had to do is tell me to come along,” I smile falsely and lace my fingers together in front of me as I follow her out of the room. “Is that a new lab coat? Your old one had acid erosion on the back of it.”

“It is,” she answered simply and raised her brow, clasping a file in her hand. “Your father isn’t doing well today.”

“I don’t want to see him like this.”

“No child wants to see their father like this. What do you want me to do? I’m just warning you.”

“I know. I just wish… I wish you could put me under some anesthetic or something. Block me out completely. All he ever does when he’s like this is get so angry, asking me if I remember her. And I don’t,” I sigh, running my hands through my white hair.

“I know, Iris, you’ve just got to bear with him. Therapy doesn’t seem to get his mind to budge anymore, he just keeps going back to square one,”  Eren’s tone is judgemental.

“I’ve tried,” I protest, crossing my arms in a huff, “You wouldn’t understand.”

“No, I wouldn’t understand, but at least you’ve got a father to love and help, to cherish, when both of my parents were drafted into the war after I was born,” she snapped at me.

“Don’t make my feelings and issues seem like they’re below yours. Don’t make them a goddamned privilege, because they aren’t. You’ve got no parents? Great. I’d never put my issues above yours,” I pick up my pace and walk through the lab door and slam it behind me, causing my dad to jump and the rest of his team staring me down as Eren came in after me. I looked at her stalely and noticed how puny and ashamed she looked. And with good reason.