Chapter One
It was July thirteenth, in the year 2013 that the summer sun disappeared and snow fell from the cloudless sky. It was a miracle to some, and a hearkening of great terror to others.
The latter was correct.
It was not I who discovered what the 'snow' was truly made from. No, it was the children outside who realized the truth when their screams pierced the frigid air. How horribly ironic that such young creatures would have to be subjected first to the terror that lay beyond our solar system, but such is life, and rarely is it fair.
Ten minutes was how long it took before the first child ran outside to play. I still remember the look of confusion and pain in their eyes as their skin was burned away to nothing. It sent a sharp pain to my chest and I had to sit down for a moment.
I had caused this, I hated myself, but it wasn't the loss of self-respect that worried me. No, he would be coming after me. It was his hatred that scared me more than anything else. I couldn't run, there was no place safe enough for me to hide. I would die and he would kill me.
I began to cry. In front of a thousand thousand war machines, I cried and didn't care about their harsh gazes. I wanted to remedy this, to begin a new with him in his amazing box, but I knew I could not.
As much as I could pray and dream, one only had a single chance with the Doctor. I had wasted mine foolishly and I would receive no more from him. Even if I begged on my knees, he would show me no mercy. I betrayed him and this was my price to pay. It was not worth it. I thought my choices were so beneficial, I thought for sure he would approve. I was wrong.
I couldn't even lay the blame on the one who made me do this. The monstrosity waging war on my home was of my design, not his. This was my abomination, my mistake, my most prized disgrace. I wondered if my beautifully ugly machines knew how much I loved and despised them. They seemed to realize when I fell to the ground and wept onto the cold metal.
How little they must have thought of me.
I had not intended to display my weakness so freely, but I was so very afraid. The pain that he would cause me would hopefully be less than I imagined. The look in his eye when he would defeat me -for I was certain he would, as I had seen it countless times before- would be the cause of the most pain, however. My Doctor would be furious, but he would also be so disappointed. So very disappointed.
I did not question why I chose to end my very existence and that of countless others, it did not need saying. The orchestrator of my fate was none but myself with the help of someone I trusted. I could not charge him with my actions, even if he had driven me to such drastic measures. He told me that my Doctor would be pleased. I was stupid enough to believe him.
He fed me a million lies and I ate them happily. I do not wish harm upon him, however, he was a good friend. I knew I would miss him when I was dead. I doubted he would miss me.
The smirk on his face was clear as I regained my composure. I wiped my tears away and threw my arm to the side. I let out an in human cry and my shining disgraces marched forward. They advanced on what was once my home and I watched. I hear the screams I felt the Earth being drenched in seven billion tears. Mine included.
I set my jaw firmly. I knew that he would be there soon. He only gave one chance. Just one.
And I had wasted mine.
July 13th, 2007. Six years earlier.
In the light of the setting sun, the world seemed less ugly.
The sky was cloudless and blue as the sea it draped over, as if someone had placed a mirror between Heaven and the land. I remember the water was so frightfully cold for the unnatural heat of that summer. It sent a jolt through my system and flooded my brain with its numbness. Those were good times, simpler times.
They were times when I could be trapped in the little bubble that was the Earth and assume I was utterly alone. Ignorance was always bliss, I knew that even back then, but it did not stop me from being curious. My best friend swam right beside me, while I chattered away and clutched my sun-burnt shoulders. Good Lord, I was so very pale before my descent. I remember struggling with the conflicting emotions of anger and excitement. This was before my feelings blended in to one.
By far the most difficult part of my life before was my emotions. They would bump around in my head and confuse me to no end. When I was in school, I sat alone in a brightly colored classroom with a large poster covered with several representations of emotions. My teacher was kind enough to help me make a more portable chart that I still had to use even after I had grown up and had left that classroom far behind as a distant memory.
Emotions perplexed me, and dealing with them was far from simple. I often found myself feeling nothing while others grieved or celebrated around me. Once, every so often on days such as the one I spent on the beach with my friend, my emotions would slip into my brain and the war would begin. They were so potent, so powerful, as if the damn things had been biding their time and growing stronger with every passing second that they decided to be kept bottled away. I had no control over them, they came and went as they pleased.
"Maggie?" My friend would ask as my eyes would close. I could see the emotions in my brain. The fiery red of the anger I felt towards the sun for making my shoulders and back hurt. The icy blue of the excitement danced around the jagged crimson from the chills in the water. Dots of bright green, the color of pure happiness, spotted themselves amongst the cornucopia of other colors when I allowed myself to remember how lucky I was to have a friend amidst so many people who did not understand.
It would take me time to come back to Earth, but until then, Heather held my hand beneath the waves and made sure I did not slip beneath them. After a span of five minutes to fifty minutes, my eyes would open again. By that time, I had sorted out my colors, separating them so they could not mix. Emotions were quite confusing enough as they were, but combinations were enough to bring my mind to ruin.
The first thing I saw when my eyes opened was the setting sun. Behind a thin layer of blue sky, the dark expanse of the universe shone through with its billions of stars. I felt so small then. The sun, in all its burning glory, dipped below the horizon and out of sight. I turned when I felt Heather nudge my arm and she smiled at me, showing me her rows of pearly white teeth. I smile back, but with my mouth instead of my eyes.
Despite the pain that it had caused me, I missed the sun.
"Come on, Maggie." Heather said to me. "I want to show you something." I nodded and forced my frozen legs to kick back to the thin strip of sand that ran at the edge of the sea. The moon was revealed from behind a misty cloud, lighting the way for us as we collapsed into a heap on the shore.
The white grains of sand were still warm from the bleaching sun that had set an hour before. It felt nice underneath my skin, but Heather was impatient.
"Here, put this on." She commanded in the most gentle voice possible, handing me a white blouse with blue applique on the neckline, hem and sleeves. She did not ask me to put on the thin shirt, she told me to do so, for she knew from experience that giving me a choice was never a smart move on her part.
I tugged the perfume-drenched and slightly itchy blouse over my drying once-piece bathing suit while Heather did the same over her bikini. Heather was never one for modesty, and her outfits showed it. Her thin figure was something to be proud of, at least, that is what she thought. Everything she wore was designed to highlight her slim waist and thighs while I silently watched in amazement and cursed my thicker middle and stouter build.
Despite her flirtatious and, to put it bluntly, slutty choice of wardrobe, Heather was actually a woman in love. She adored her boyfriend with all her heart, and while she appeared superficial and snobby, Heather was a dear friend to me and had been so for several years. We attended the same college, with her in astrology and myself in quantum mechanics and machinery. She loved to look at stars almost as much as I loved to build a prototype.
"Come on!" She let out a shriek of laughter and sprinted along the length of the shore, with me trailing behind her. I felt so jealous then. Its color was purple. I saw no flaws when I looked at Heather, and saw so many when I looked in the mirror. I trudged slowly on purpose just to irk her and took the time to take out a tube of tinted lip balm from the pocket of my blouse. I applied a generous coating to my pale lips and then recapped the container, stuffing it back into my pocket when Heather spun around to glare at me.
"I'll be there is a moment!" Was my defensive statement and my friend lifted a blonde eyebrow.
"You have the pace of a sloth!" She shouted across the sand, her voice carried on the warm, summer wind. "No wonder you came last in track!" I resisted the urge to growl at her. I lost every year. I suddenly remember why Heather was not so flawless; she could say some pretty cutting things.
"Fine. I'm here, what do you want?" I asked when I had crossed the beach. We were standing at the base of a rock formation. I'd never been up here before, as I had never really displayed any interest, but it seemed as though that was about to change. The rock was quite dam and slippery and Heather took my hand and led me up the side of it. I winced as the jagged bits dug into my skin, but didn't freak out.
Callouses were the dominant parts of the palms of my hands. Machinery made sure that I never had soft skin again what with the constant need to use a screwdriver. I still loved my class, and so it was an easy sacrifice. I remember how much pain the blisters had been at first. I cannot help but laugh at how foolish I was. A mere blister being the source of an unbearable pain? It was an idiotic concept. I had known true pain since then, and my flimsy ideas of it were ignorant at best.
I sighed when I reached the top of the rock. The night was so calm, so very beautiful that I almost forgot how annoyed I flet towardsw Heather for dragging me up here in the first place. I still didn't know what she could possibly want to show me, however.
"For goodness sake, Heather!" I exclaimed as a smile overtook her pretty face. "What did you drag me up here for?" She just giggled and shrugged, her blue eyes sparkling.
"Look up." She said calmly. I rolled my eyes, but did as I was told. I lay down on my back, not caring if my shirt got a bit damp and looked up at the sky.
That was when everything changed.
The sky had always been there, no matter what happened. Be it gray from rain, blue to contrast the bright sun, or a large mass of inky blackness dotted with many stars, it is always there. Despite knowing that, it had been ages since I had looked at the sky. It was on the night that Heather showed me that reopened my eyes to its wonder.
The moon shone bright against the darkness of the night. Here, there and everywhere was dotted with more stars than anyone could ever count in a lifetime. Most of them stayed perfectly still, while others tore across the blackness, leaving behind ghostly white trails. I looked to Heather, who was sitting up, her head tilted towards the sky, her eyes smiling. She looked at me then too, but soon returned to their rightful place.
I am unsure of how long we sat there, staring into the dark, but it didn't matter. I watched the universe above me move and change and no matter how hard I tried, I could not pull my eyes away from its beauty a second time.