"The four letter word that scares most people is not love, but time."—Scottie Waves
A hand shot up through the rubble.
Malia heard first the painful, ear-shattering silence. It was like the silence was boundless, driving itself through her ears, then infinitesimally growing until it was pulsing inside her, pounding rhythmically with the roar of her own blood.
Finally, the trance that had fallen over the city shattered, and Malia was the first to stumble blindly through the debris to the small, skeletal hand sticking out of the dirt. She knelt carefully on hands and knees bruised purple, yanked at it and pulled, groaning. The children around her, their once-pressed uniforms now distorted under an inch of dust, rushed to clear away the mountain of rocks imprisoning the rest of the body. Malia dropped the hand, wrapped her hands around her sides, and retched violently. She couldn't tell if it was a boy or girl lying on the ground in front of her. She didn't even know if it was a child at all. It could be anyone. Anyone at all. Maybe it was the one person she wanted to see the least.
Maybe...
No. She didn't want to know who it was. She wouldn't allow herself to think that way.
She closed her eyes, wishing herself away from the whole situation. Malia opened her eyes. When she turned again, her classmates were gone. The masses of rubble, once rolling as far as her blurry eyes could see, had vanished.
Malia's mouth widened until her jaw ached. Resting on the young spring grass, in place of the corpse, lay a girl flat on her back whose wisps of long, luminous russet hair met sweeping lashes. Her completely misplaced royal blue empire skirt made her comparable to a mythical goddess. The only sign of her previous burial was the translucence of her ivory skin. The only hint to her motive in being here was the small, complex symbol etched on her forehead. Like an angelic flurry, light snow fell in a restricted abyss around her. Occult. Malia, for all her shock, subliminally reached out and caught a flake in her palm. Not snow. Ashes. The little queen opened her eyes.
Malia gaped. It had worked--but not in the way she had hoped.
This could not be real.
"Meira?"
It isn't real.
A/N: Welcome to Magnetic Moon, my first story on wattpad. I was kind of avoiding posting on here, but after years of failing to find any more suitable platforms, I decided it's time to start sharing. Sharing is caring! So here I am.
It's gonna get pretty wild. You would, too, if you'd been trapped in my brain since middle school. But anyway. Enjoy, if you can. Let me know what you guys think. 😉
