A/N: For the rivamika week day 8 prompt: Alegría - Beginning a new year while filled with either elation or sorrow - or both
Heavily inspired by Ray Bradbury's "All Summer in a Day."
Apologies for the weird formatting. Feel free to message me if something doesn't make sense!
Year: 2503 A.D.
Years since successful resettlement: 8
Human survival rate: 56%
Earth's population: 304,296
...
"I'm leaving."
"I know."
"Are you sure you can't come?"
"…yeah."
"Eren can't, either."
...
On a hot summer day in the year 2504 A.D., the final shuttle of the Maria Mission, Shiganshina II, departed Earth for the recently discovered dwarf planet, Helios. Among the last 375 settlers approved for space travel, seven-year-old Mikasa Ackerman sat between her teary-eyed parents, clutching tightly to her red scarf and giant book of planetary facts – gifts from those she left behind. It would only be a matter of months, if not weeks, that the sun's deadly rays would break through the Earth's damaged atmosphere and literally cook the entire planet, destroying everything the girl once knew.
Leaving her friends behind was not easy, but she was told to live.
...
Year: 2506 A.D.
Years since successful resettlement: 11
Human survival rate: 64%
Earth's population: unknown
The new planet isn't much different from Earth, aside from the fact that the years are 107 days longer, the days three hours shorter, and the ever present thunderstorms that never seem to end cloak the sky in constant darkness.
Helios is a cruel joke, Mikasa decides; a planet named after a blazing ball of light none of the students in her class seem to remember or believe.
However, for one hour every nine years, the rain actually stops and the thick clouds above part just enough to let in rays from that same sun Mikasa used to play under while on her little island home on Earth. At least, that's what her book says.
To the students in room 104, the sun is little more than an imaginary object concocted by someone who clearly didn't understand how their world worked. Plants were grown by scientists in the labs underground and days were calculated by those same professionals. That's the way it has always been and always will be. Even when Mikasa shows them her thick book with detailed images of Earth and the star their planet revolves around, they still refuse to believe. Instead, they tease the new girl with the strange tanned skin and pull her hair as punishment for telling such lies. Her parents often remind her that most of these children were no older than two or three years of age the last time the sun kissed their pale skin – much too young to remember the warmth of the sunlight on a clear day, or the flowers that bloomed in fields in the spring. So Mikasa stays silent, keeps her book hidden from her classmates, and stares out the windows day after day, hoping for one small ray of light.
It isn't until the adults become more vocal about the supposed day free of rain that one of the students in her class finally speaks to her of his own volition.
"They're going to beat you up today."
Mikasa is writing math formulas out on her desk when he approaches her with the blunt statement. She's only seen the short boy a few times in class, figuring he's the Levi who hardly ever seems to be around for roll call. Why he's rarely in class, she doesn't know; doesn't care.
"They can try." She responds, going back to her writing.
Levi doesn't leave, though. He lingers by her desk, staring at the photographs taped to her folder. Mikasa wants to tell him to go away, to leave her alone, but there is something about the neatly dressed boy with his small yet sharp facial features and downcast eyes that give off an immediately perceptible air of loneliness.
"Who are those two?" he finally asks, but she's sure he knows.
Mikasa sets her pencil aside, math forgotten, and pulls the folder to her chest, mindful not to wrinkle the precious images pressed against her. "They were my friends." She whispers before tucking it safely away into her bag.
"Were?"
"The vog gave Armin bad asthma. Eren had a heart condition."
"Oh."
Everyone knows only the strongest survive.
At least they were together.
Levi spent the rest of the day sitting beside Mikasa, daring the other students to step within one foot of her.
They never formally introduce themselves to each other, but by the end of the week when she inquires about his own family and his response is little more than a, "No mom. No dad. Just Levi." does she realize that he too shares a similar sadness.
...
One week before the coming ray of light, according to the adults nostalgic for years past, Levi asks Mikasa about the background in one of her photos.
"It's a strawberry field." She tells him. "We used to have a farm back on Earth."
"But there are no lamps…" he muttered, trying to locate the sources of light everyone knew helped plants grow. "That's not how you do it."
"We had the sun. It wasn't as bad then."
Levi remained silent, not sure what to say. "What… what is it like?"
"The sun?"
He nodded, his cheeks tinted pink.
Mikasa closed her eyes, trying her hardest to remember back to when she would chase her friends through her family's strawberry fields. She remembered the warm Sunday barbeques where her father would sear cooled meats over smoking skillets, those hot summer days when she and her friends would climb through rocks to the hidden cove behind Armin's house, and even when the worst sunburn could never compare to the heat of the lava flow that destroyed the strawberry field and forced her family to move closer to Eren's house her last year on Earth.
"It's… warm," She started, trying to find the right words, "Like when you fall asleep under the heat lamps and wake up with a headache. But a good warm, because you can wear shorts and tank tops instead of sweaters all the time."
"I want to feel it." He whispers.
"The scientists say we can in a little more than a week."
"Don't believe what she says, Levi!" one of the older kids yells out, stealing his attention. "There ain't no such thing as a sun."
Mikasa thins her lips and goes back to her pictures, tracing the paper images of her friends. "Yes there is," she murmurs.
Her classmates want to hear none of it, though. The bigger kids hold Levi back, too young and scrawny to fight back himself, while several others shove Mikasa until she's locked out of the school, another victim to the torrents of rain outside.
By the time the teachers discover she's missing, the school day is over and Levi is nowhere to be found. She goes home alone that evening soaked in rainwater and mud.
...
On the day of the sun's scheduled arrival, the entire school is abuzz in excitement – most anticipating nothing to happen and looking forward to teasing the new kid.
Mikasa sees no sign of Levi since she was locked outside of the classroom, but she doesn't blame him. She hopes he gets to experience the sunlight, though, wherever he is.
Twenty minutes until the scheduled light finds Mikasa already staring out the classroom window, her eyes fixed on the cloudy sky outside.
"It's still thundering out there." One of the older boys says, "You aren't gonna see your sun."
The other students laugh, but Mikasa is certain it will happen.
Ten minutes until the scheduled light has the thunder slowly dissipating and the clouds lose just a bit of their ominous gloom; large raindrops are reduced to a soft sprinkle. Some of the students are amazed, almost ready to embarrassingly admit they were wrong. The older ones see the small smile on Mikasa's face and note the slight bounce she is doing in her seat.
"You really wanna see your sun?" One of the taller boys asks, his true intentions unclear to the nine year old girl.
"It will be here." She tells him, never more sure of anything in her life.
"Well, we know where you can have the best view." He says. His friends snicker behind him, but still Mikasa isn't sure whether he is being sincere or not.
Some of the younger students are already standing with their faces glued to the windows, blocking most of te world outside, but Mikasa swears she can see a sliver of light trying to find its way through. Wanting to remember this moment for the rest of her life, she throws caution to the wind and asks where.
"Here!" He shouts. And suddenly she's surrounded.
Before she realizes what's happening, some of the older students grab her bag, holding it out of her reach, as a couple others begin to shove her towards the dank coat closet of the classroom. They slam the door shut and secure the latch at the top of the door, ignoring the terrified pounding and screaming of the young girl inside.
Not even a few moments later, the younger kids began to squeal in delight as the rain came to a sudden halt and a strange glow covers the ground outside. Every single student ran out of the school, deaf to the pounding and crying of the girl trapped inside the coat closet, and took delight in the warmth she had talked about every day for the past two Helios years. Few of them take note of Levi - late to school again - carrying a tiny white box as they run through the halls. Most ignore his inquiries about the weird new kid; some tell him she was probably one of the first outside.
The older kids throw warm mud balls at each other while the younger ones bask in the glow of the sun's rays, most turning pink and red within minutes. They take off their layers of water resistant sweaters, play tag, and make little dolls and toy guns from sticks and leaves plucked from the vast foliage of the world outside. All too soon it is over, though, and the rain comes back hard as ever, as if making up for the lost hour.
It isn't until they're back in the school - trekking in mud and twigs - that they remember the girl in the coat closet and a suffocating silence fills the hallway outside the classroom. No one speaks, many now too ashamed.
Slowly, one by one, they surround outside classroom door number 104, hoping against all hope that the girl found her way out and was among the crowd of faces waiting to enter the warmth of the classroom. It isn't until their teacher finally spots them that they're ordered to open the door. When they do, they find two bodies beside haphazardly stacked boxes and the wooden closet door, covered in scratches and streaks of blood, ripped off its hinges. A tiny white box that once held a handful of strawberries is overturned and the red fruit litter the floor, covering the white floor tiles in sticky juices. Then they spot Levi kneeling beside the small girl, smaller than they'd ever seen her before, curled up in a ball on the floor. Her eyes, now dark and hollow, are fixed on the windows outside and the black clouds that litter the sky.
...
Year: 2515 A.D.
Years since successful resettlement: 20
Human survival rate: 76%
Earth's population: 0
...
"Are you ready?"
"I don't know. Maybe… No."
A callused pale hand reaches out for the slender one beside it. Neither is sure who is squeezing whom.
"You are."
"I am?"
Slowly, the wooden door before the two is pushed open to a bright, blinding world outside. Water droplets fall one by one from plants of strange shapes and colors as a comforting silence fills the air.
"Lets go."
A bowl of freshly rinsed strawberries sits beside the window, crystal beads of water glistening against the sun, as the two figures outside chase each other and laugh.