Hey guys! I know that I said this was a one-shot. But if you want me to continue it, please leave a comment. I will write more if you do that. Also, this will be a collection of stories, but I will continue the first chapter in another story soon.
I See the Island
He advances toward me, menacing even without his mask. I struggle against the restraints, furious that he could capture me so easily.
He seems so smug.
Well, you know what?
I won't be broken so easily.
"Tell me about the droid," he says. As if I would give in so easily.
"He's a BB unit with a selenium drive and a thermal hyperscan vindicator," I say. After all, he doesn't want to know about the droid, just about what it's carrying.
He grimaces in disappointment. Did he really think I would give him the information that easily?
I may be just a scavenger, but I'm not stupid. And oh, he can see that. He can tell.
He goes on a bit of a spiel about how such an important droid showed the map to me, calling me a scavenger with contempt. Underneath that contempt, however, I glimpse a bit of longing, as if he wishes he had that freedom, to wander forever. Almost no one can understand the beauty and impossibility of that vast sky, dotted with red stars burning bright like beacons for my family to find me by.
I recall how, when I was tired and hungry and scared of how alone I was under that vast sky, I would crawl into my pile of blankets and imagine an island in a vast sea.
And that man, that monster, is pushing into my thoughts, seeing and hearing my thoughts. "You're so lonely. So afraid to leave. At night, desperate to sleep. You imagine an ocean. I see it. I see the island," he says, and I grit my teeth and push him away, fervently trying to get him out of my thoughts.
Because he can never understand, never know that the island was me, alone in a storm-churned sea, never see that I was slowly being flooded, forgetting who I was, forgetting my family.
He can never understand.
And for just a moment, his voice softens, a hint of sadness shows on his face and he says, "Don't be afraid, I feel it too," and the fact that he paused his rant to say that, the fact that he showed weakness at that thought makes me realize that he does understand, he does.
And I'm afraid of this boy, who lashes out in his fear and loneliness and hurts others because he's just so alone.I'm afraid of what he's capable of.
And I lash back at him, attacking his thoughts, and I wonder if this cycle of pain and fear, caused by this loneliness, will ever stop.
And for just a moment I am not a scavenger, not anyone. My thoughts and feelings merge with his and I understand, I understand, and then I push the weakness away and yell painful words at him, because I can't show weakness, if I do everything will come crashing out and I'll sob until there are no more tears and then I'll sob some more, and I know this because it's happened, and I wonder if I can ever escape this suffocating fear.
Because I am afraid, because I feel it too.