AFTERGLOW

“a-ha, see, so i gently surprise you with a moment of genuine-ness. genuinity? genuine-ness,” she decided, confused at the words. mak stretched her arms above her, leaning back on her chair and expertly balancing herself on the back two legs so she could rest her feet on the table. “hmm, not really. but i am keeping an eye out for interesting folk about. frankie’s here, if you know him,” she pointed out with a grin.

lazarus, a mere seven-years old, sat a small pile of dirt that marked someone’s grave. she rubbed her eyes as she gazed up at the dim stars in the sky, nearly entirely blocked out by the pollution in the isle’s air.

her mother and father had gotten into a big argument and the small girl hadn’t wanted to be there in the midst of the chaos. so, she had invited alaric to sneak up top with her to stargaze. she didn’t know if he was actually going to come, but either way, she planned to stay up top for a while --- until her parent’s stopped arguing, at least.

it had been a while since she and alaric had gone stargazing --- in fact, it had been a while since she’d seen him at all. she’d just figured that they’d both been busy with their respective lives. she knew that she’d been busy with her father, so she’d assumed that, perhaps, alaric was busy with his parents, as well.

as the small corpse gazed up at the stars, she heard footsteps behind her and she turned her attention away from the night sky. she squinted in the darkness, looking in the direction of the big, hollowed out tree that held the staircase to her home.

a figure, only slightly taller than herself, drew closer, barely illuminated by the dim moonlight.

standing up from her pile of dirt, lazarus stepped closer, calling out, “alaric!” with a bright smile upon her lips. it was only when she was but just a few feet from him when she noticed something different about her friend --- something wrong.

stitches.

the corpse girl’s eyes were drawn to a line of stitches around her friend’s neck, and she wanted to scream. “alaric ...” she murmured, instead. running toward the boy, she practically threw herself at him in a hug, worried.

'are you okay?’ she almost asked, but decided that: no, he couldn’t be okay.

“who did this?” she opted for instead, hands clenched into fists at her sides.

as it turns out, alaric had been busy with his parents, just as lazarus had assumed. it just wasn’t in the way that she’d figured, or hoped, that it had been. it was in a way much, much worse.

“Interesting.” Terra commented. “Aw! Now I want a puppy. Thanks, Laz. Thanks a lot.” She teased and shoved her sister lightly. “Well as long as he makes you happy, I’m sure I will. Alright, so anything else new going on?” She questioned tilting her head slightly.

“rewind to change the bad bits. pause to savour the good bits. fast-forward to see the future?” he mused aloud. “…now i see why having a remote like that would be dangerous.”

She smiled over at her friend, flattered by the comment. “Thank you.” She paused before asking. “Do you think I’m too..fragile?’ she asked. That was the word he used wasn’t it? Fragile?