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Excerpt from Sierra 117's Personal Journal:
I don't remember much about my mother. Her smile...the red ribbon she always wore in her hair...the way her dress would glow as she spun in the fields under the autumn sun...those little wrinkles in the corner of her eyes. It's just little flashes, really. Bits and pieces that aren't enough to make a whole anymore. But more than anything, I remember her voice. I remember how she would sing to me at night and the gentle laugh when she thought I was being cute. Yes...if nothing else follows me, it's the sound of her voice. And one thing she told me more than anything else is that love is what you put into it. I didn't understand it back then, and I'm not sure I understand now.
But I'm starting to.
You were always something special. A beam of light in the darkness; a laugh in times of grief; hope when everyone is telling me to give up all hope. I wonder if you ever knew that. I wonder if I ever told you. Probably not. I never tell you the important things.
From the first moment I saw you, I wanted to be the most important person in your life, because you smiled when no one else would even look. You would explain when classes got confusing, and you were always willing to come in last if it meant getting everyone else across the line. Even in your fury and in the middle of the grudge, you never stopped looking out for us. But the moment I started to fall in love is when you came back from that solo mission and let me hug you. Of all of us, you were the strongest, no matter what the instructors said. You could survive on your own; you had a strength that none of us could hope to emulate. And yet you were still willing to give me a moment to support you. A bare second to be the one to keep you on your feet. That...that meant more than anything else anyone has ever done for me.
I'd always thought that love would be fast and fiery and terrifying. Maybe for others it is...but not with you. My love for you grew slowly, creeping into the corners of my life and rooting itself deep. It wasn't a fire of passion, but the gentle warmth that fills your chest when you come home after a long journey. And there was never a moment of terror in the love itself, though the same cannot be said about the realization. No...loving you was the comfort of an old and heavy blanket on a snowy evening. It was the sun on my face with the scent of spring and life heady in my nose. It was the glory of a flower you never saw grow but was suddenly blooming, bringing a special kind of joy into your life when you weren't even aware that you were missing it. That's what loving you is.
Losing you is everything that I thought love would be.
It's fast; the sudden knowledge that the one person I cannot live without is gone and there is nothing I can do to protect them or save them. It's the second when I can't breathe and my knees are throbbing because I've fallen to my knees.
It's fiery; the agony of my heart trying to tear itself out of my chest because there's no reason for it to keep beating when you're gone. It's the screams that are being ripped from my throat to the point that I can feel the blood rushing down.
It's terrifying; the realization that I am helpless to do anything but wether this storm. It's the moment when everything crashes together and I'm facing a future that we could have conquered, but I'm alone.
I didn't cry when we shot your casket into space. Actually, I didn't cry until we'd returned to Reach and I could be alone. But the tears didn't help. The screaming, the punching walls, the surrender to absolute agony did nothing to alleviate the pain and loneliness that is suffocating my heart. Mendez gave me this journal in an attempt to help me bleed off the emotions, but I'm not sure I can. I must have started this entry a thousand times, and the wound still feels so raw and infected. All this is doing is ripping open the scabs and making them bleed again. There's a part of me that feels I deserve the pain, but...You wouldn't like me saying that, would you? You never did like people hurting themselves. It's been six months, and it hurts as much today as it did the day Mendez told me what had happened. You were my light, my laughter, my hope. And now you're gone.
Where are you, Klare? Please don't leave me. Please.
Babble time: The song this chapter is based on is Already Home by A Great Big World.