Acorns

~ACORNS~ A short story

Black sky. Streaks of red, shooting over like bloody shooting stars. Dead trees scattered over gray, dry, cracked ground. Explosions. People fighting, dead bodies, blood spilling out of them.

Yet people take no notice as the person fighting next to them gets shot down. Every man for themselves. In the center of this all. A sphere, hovering and blinding anyone who comes close to it, powerful waves of wind emitting from it. The only color in this bloody, barren place.

Four corners of this war clearing. Four girls, one in each corner, fighting their way to the center. To the gold sphere.

They catch eyes. All four of them looking at the golden light. Then look up, up at the other girls-these are the girls they each played with, trained with, died with, fought with, bled with. But none of that matters now. All that matters is that they get to the golden sphere. And do not let any of the other girls get to it first. That is each of their goals. Friends become foe, lovers become rivals, sisters become enemies. They have all convinced themselves of that. So they will do anything to get to it. To have their personal gain. Even kill the people they love. The people they once loved. Not afraid to lose it all.

All four set off for it at once. One girl's blood red hair streams out behind her, and she squints into the light. The girl diagonal to her has choppy green hair that seems to billow out around her face as she fights her way towards the light, knowing but not caring that she would be killing her twin in just a few moments...if she can get to the sphere. Another girl seems to radiate power, pulling in darkness as black as her hair from all around her, pulling in shadows to propel her forward. And the last girl. She is the least noticeable of them all. Her yellow eyes see to be hardened to a point where nothing can break them, but if you can look over the stone wall, you would see nothing but a blank, empty hollowness. A hollowness that can never be filled.

They all stride forward, each radiating power. Radiating fear, anger, a harsh, harsh determination. Power. Power. Unstoppable, unhurtable, power.

Suddenly, they're all there, in a tight circle, around the sphere, glaring at each other through the golden light that illuminates their faces almost beyond recognition. And then, swift as a rabbit, fast as a cheetah, weapons are all in their hands. The red-haired girl, a sword. For the green hair, a bow and arrow, the arrow sharp enough to cut through a thick tree. And all the girls know that is true. Because they were all there when it happened. The yellow-eyed girl has five ninja stars in each hand, poised and ready to throw. And the black hair girl? She has no weapon, put her hands spark with an energy that grows, and her palms, facing towards the other girls, have a purple sort of glow to them. Deep, dark purple, spinning and hissing balls of some unknown substance come out of her hands, staying on the hands until she is ready to throw them, throw the magic she possesses at anyone who stands in her way to getting what she wants. And in her case, needs, just a little bit.

"When you're gone," the yellow-eyed girl says, her eyes piercing over the group. Nobody flinches, nobody looks away.

"Goodbye," the green haired girl says, her arrow steady.

"So long," says the black haired girl, smirking a tiny bit, and even that small action seems dark, corrupt, menacing.

"Farewell." the red-haired girl says, sealing the silent pact they had just made-all of them ready to do what it takes to get to that sphere. And whoever gets hurt in the prosses, whoever dyes, no regrets, no revenge.

Time seems to stop, the battle around them dying to an endless, meaningless roar. They can only see the other girls around them and the golden sphere. At once, they all drop their weapons. Not in a mean of surrender, but so they can have better access to the sphear. Because each and every one of these girls knows what is going to go down at this moment. And they all know that only one of them can be left standing.

They all jolt forward, and grasp the sphere at the same time, glaring deathly at each other all the while. The wind speeds up, the light increases, until the people fighting around them have to stop and notice, and turn and look to see who it is, but they cannot, because the light is so blinding that it destroys all recognition, and each of the girls is just a figure, unrecognizable from the other.

The wind speeds up, the girls start rising off the ground, spinning in a circle so fact that nothing can be seen but a blur, and golden light envelops everything and anything. This is a test of endurance, a test of will. Who will let go?

And it seems like nobody will, and they keep spinning faster, faster, faster, and someone's grip loosens, just a tiny bit, but even that bit is enough to send them flinging off of the sphere in the sky, falling down into golden light, and gone. One down. Two to go. One to stay.

Faster and faster they spin, the wind unbearable now. Will nobody let go? How long has it been, with them spinning up here? One of them has to go. Suddenly, a leg from one of these girls kicks the girl next to them, and that girl shrieks, a small noise, and falls down, down, disappearing into a bath of golden light. Two down. One to go. One to stay.

As the two girls, glaring at each other across the sphere, even though they know the other can't see it, something changes in the air. Something different about the power, the feeling they are both radiating. One girl seems to straighten, tighten her grip, become even more firm, hard, determined, fierce. And the other girl notices this. And her grip becomes softer, and something changes, and she knows she is fighting a battle she cannot win. But who is her opponent? She knows. Oh, she knows. "Farewell," she says, her voice only a whisper. And then she lets go, lets go of everything. Farewell forever. Three down. One that will stay.

The wind cools down, the winner floats down to the ground, where it is still covered in golden light, just a bit less. And then you can see one quality of the girl. The one that shows who won. Strong. Hollow. Yellow eyes.

Her feet touch down to the ground, the yellow light fading now, but still lingering in the air, a light blush coating everything. The yellow-eyed girl laughs, her laugh pure, honey-like, cleansing...healing. And the onlookers lay down their weapons, gazing around in amazement. She holds the sphere up and examins it carefully. Seeing a reflection, she looks up to see acorns, millions upon millions of acorns falling from the sky, bouncing off the ground. She raises her face to the sky in amazement, in happiness.

But something starts to happen. She feels a tugging all over her body, a pleasant tingling. Looking down, she can see her body start to dissolve, turning into tiny little dust particles. Horror, betrayal spreads over her face, until she gets it. She was not supposed to win. Nobody was. This, what she had gone through, was all for nothing. But it was for something. For mankind. To keep humanity alive. The greater good. So she smiles and drops the sphere. It falls to the ground, but midway turns into an acorn identical to all the ones falling from the sky. It drops on the ground and bounces away into a swarm of other acorns, lost forever. So the yellow-eyed girl calmly accepts her fate, and her last thought before she fades away into dust is that she had never felt so full. So complete.