Chapter 0: What Pierced the Sky
While midnight dust drifted into the gaping mouths of glass-toothed windows, a chipping blue gem screamed once again.
"I'll see you later, alligator"
The gem dug her fingers into the softness of a cold pillow. She was huddled up at the far end of a flayed bed, head lowered, feet crossed; a familiar position as closed up as her sanity. Down her cheeks, starlight drizzle illuminated wayward paths leading off the chin. Her jaws would go chattering crazy for a few brief seconds before she'd regain temporary control. Then, breathing in, struggling to let out, the process…starting over.
A lone note rode the beach wave tide swallowing the outside shore.
Grunting, mind whirling thoughts into typhoons, the gem threw the pillow and launched herself off the bed and over the ledge to the bottom floor, landing on a white couch stained with crimson polka dots of some faded time.
She smoothened her dress down and began to walk out of the room. Her eyes, like the deep blue misery of sea, remained shallow on the surface. The learned habit of ignoring her surroundings in the house helped her almost believe that there was nothing to ignore in the first place. Shattered lights, tossed toys, hanging wood fixtures, collapsing holes; if all of it could stay ordered in memory, at least that'd be one thing.
Her hands held her arms close to her chest. Lines of wear faintly showed near her eyes and a misshapen sigh broke out from an unknown prison. Echoes bounced off the peeling walls, coming together in clashing swords, the grind running slow and loud—chorus of spoken calamities singing all around.
"Be quiet!"
Strands of the gem's hair stood on end at the same time, from the round, teardrop rock situated right in the middle of her upper back, liquid wings fountained out. Droplets sprayed the ground. In a giant flap, she sprung high into the air.
The gem flew straight through the wounded rooftop with quick and beautiful ascension towards the sky. Wings stretched out wide. Salted breeze whispered past her hair and blew the ends of her dress. For a moment, she felt something, but the wind stole whatever feeling that was, away.
Flying until she reached the border between the shoreline and ocean, the gem's touch on the sand seemed to alter something among it, like a ripple of colors mimicking above.
She plopped down, legs tucked underneath her butt. Intertwined hands rested on her lap. Her wings flapped one more time before withdrawing back into the gem in a flash of white around the rock's edges.
Earth minutes died as she sat painting the landscape of distant space onto the canvas of her brain. It was amazing to her, how beyond this atmosphere, beyond the limitations of days and nights relying on the whim of a rotating axis, everything out there constantly changed. Even the placement of a little twinkle or a new splash of purple or blue could warp the perception of the entire galaxy. Here—despite what she had once been told—never changed.
Or so she thought.
"I should've—"
And then, a pillar of pink light pierced the night sky.