Sara Ringwalt was finally home. But the heart wasn't there.
For starters, she was now a "magical girl" and had to go out every night to fight indescribable…creatures called "Witches", for whatever reason. At one point in her life she would have found herself simply paralyzed with disbelief and fear; unable to even speak, let alone fight. But that had been before she had been an inmate of the grim battle fortress called Hellywood…before too many anonymous, morose soldiers had done…those things to her. Before she had witnessed several of those mentally numbed men next following Hamdo's orders out to the battlefield, and likely to the grave. Now whenever she faltered when facing her enemies of the night, she would imagine the "Witches" with the faces of those men…as well as Hamdo's twisted sneer.
That, and the white cat's reminder that the price of her wish to return home was to keep fighting these bizarre creatures all the time, at any spare moment. Sure enough, on nights when Sara had trouble finding a "Witch", she would feel strangely dazed and fatigued. The feelings would lift as soon as she recharged her Soul Gem with another Grief Seed.
She may now have been free of being forced to provide "comfort" to Hellywood's many soldiers, but a whole new set of troubles had begun soon after returning home. Sara Ringwalt and the other captive girls and women of Hellywood had not just been intended to provide "comfort". They were breed animals. Intended to bear prime soldiers for King Hamdo's glorious army. The doctor at the free clinic estimated she was at least a month along by now.
Sara often thought that if her parents had been religious conservatives who would've disowned her if she ever got an abortion, it might actually have been easier to sneak out some night or even ditch school and do it behind their backs; whether by operation or medicine. As it was, they were two rather tolerant, sweet-natured folks who had always thought the best of her; knew that she knew better than to "get in trouble". Of course, since they lived in a six-figure house on almost two acres in the good part of Branford, they never would've dreamed of their precious daughter winding up a rape victim. In the end, they would certainly have supported her, but she thought something would just vanish from their eyes once she told them. After all, Roe vs. Wade was all well and good for other people, mainly those poor souls from the projects of New Haven and Bridgeport. Meanwhile her dad was a junior member of the country club and her mom was trying to get into the Branford Women's Association.
In short, Sara knew it wasn't her fault…but on some level she still didn't know.
And how could she explain it to them, for that matter? Somehow the "kidnapped by a warlord from the distant future and forced into sex slavery" argument didn't seem like it'd fly. More like she was at some wild party or even a sleazy nightclub (underage, no less) in New Haven or New York and hadn't kept an eye on her drink.
She hadn't ruled out an abortion yet, though. Her age would obviously be an issue, but rape was one of the universal qualifiers, wasn't it? Oh God, how could she ever have reached a situation where she'd have to make this kind of decision? What have I done to deserve this?, she often hissed throughout her nightly "Witch" fights, repeating a phrase she had often repeated while locked away and "giving comfort" in Hellywood.
And speaking of New Haven, it was there that she learned how truly grim her situation had become. She had sided with Angela, a tough-but-understanding black "magical girl", in a clash over "territory" in the city's grim Northside. It was Angela who told her the awful, awful truth about Soul Gems and what exactly "magical girls" were by default.
At this moment glanced down at her belly and thought the decision of an abortion had, perhaps, already been decided for her. Or had it? She could still her heart thudding in the sides of her head as she glared at that…damned blue orb dangling next to the other blue orb around her neck that had been the catalyst for her first grief. Either way, she didn't even want to think about it at this moment.
And of course, Angela wasn't done yet. Oh no. Hadn't she wondered where exactly these Lovecraftian monsters had come from? (Angela had learned the truth about a year ago, when her cousin had transformed right in front of her.)
Perhaps she should have thought such an offer was simply too good to be true. She had recently magically returned from a hellish world ruled by man's worst instincts, and that white cat-thing had appeared to her from out of it.
After Angela called a cab to take Sara home, the gravely shaken girl asked her just how she went on to face a new day despite knowing her predicament; how she at least managed to delay her inevitable transformation.
Angela's answer was rather similar to answers to that question that she heard from Hamdo's soldiers: "I'm just doing what I can to survive."
But Sara's spirit was not completely broken yet as she arrived home late that night.
Somehow the white cat reappeared to her in her bedroom, and tried to console the blonde girl that she was hardly the only one who had merely wished for an end to being used for "comfort". For instance, he somehow knew of Sara's cousin who had served in the Peace Corps in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and all the wretched girls she had met in similar situations. As he put it, her cousin had very likely encountered several other "contractees" while there. (Her cousin refused to go into great detail about the stories she had heard over there, and had started drinking rather heavily after her service was done.)
That had been bad enough, but it was the entropy that pushed Sara over the edge.
These "Incubators" were hoping to make the universe live forever, including her sun and Planet Earth. And yet…she had returned from an incomprehensibly distant future. She had seen—and felt—the swollen sun's dying throes, ready to engulf the Earth and all its straggling life. All the good men of this world are dead, she had often heard. Those anachronistic notions of "justice" and "humanity" had given way to the primitive codes of might-makes-right.
Had countless young women throughout human history had their dreams crushed and been subjected mental torture (and sometimes physical) so that someone like Hamdo and Hellywood could come along and do those things to even more girls (while sending more men off to die)? How many other Hamdos and Hellywoods had there been? How many would there be?
And would it even matter? When she had last seen Hellywood, Earth's days were still numbered.
Sara Ringwalt had been glad beyond description to be out of Hellywood, but now it seemed that its barren despair had followed her back, and was starting to taint her world. Looking out her window, she could almost see night turn to day as the sun returned to her corner of the world. But instead of revealing a beautiful New England fall morning, it swelled into a bloated orange disk. Suddenly it was impossible to look at any part of the sky. Glancing out her side window, she could see the orange and brown leaves crumble into dust, the trees disintegrating into charcoal, the landscape vanishing into raw, windblown sand and rocks.
Sara had escaped Hellywood, but Hamdo and Hellywood would still one day emerge. Not for her, but possibly for some distant relative. Meanwhile she was trapped in her own hellish prison.
The blue pendant around her neck (the one which had been the seed of all her grief—so to speak) had once been a birthday gift from Sara's father. It was the one Sara wanted to bear with her into whatever would come next, not the wretched Soul Gem which resembled it. Supposedly Hamdo had ordered her kidnapped because of her resemblance to that mysterious Lala-ru and her own pendant. Some veterans and guards had heard rumors that it controlled water, an increasingly rare commodity in their world. In that case, it was rather fitting that flowing water below her would be the last sounds to pass Sara Ringwalt's ears, and the hot tears flowing down her cheeks would be among the last sensations she would feel.
Her family would certainly be devastated by the news, but perhaps the implications of her letter to them would convince them that abortion didn't just apply to "other people". Most importantly, they wouldn't be at risk when she finally "realized her purpose" and became a "Witch". But above all, she didn't want to quite literally help create a world where Hamdo (or someone like him) would reign supreme.
The small pic of a young girl's last teardrop hitting the bridge walkway was drowned by the louder tinkle of glass on the pavement, followed by a resounding splash.
And Sara Ringwalt was finally home.