Fire. Your hive is on fire and you have to get out. You have to get out now or you will die.Â
Did you fall asleep at the lab table? How did a fire start?Â
You don't know and you donât really have much time to think, your previously bleary eyes forcing the smoke-filled lab into focus. Like a prey animal, your jade eyes begin to flicker rapidly about, looking for your exit, your next move. The first thing your fear-filled gaze lands on is one of the windows beside you and without a second thought, you run to it, flinging it open to allow smoke to escape.Â
The loud thrum of rain fills your ears as if opening that window was like popping open your eardrums. Thereâs a moment where itâs all you can hear until a scream cuts through the sound behind you, but you canât afford to think about that now. Think about survival.
Should you climb out? Would you survive the fall?
No, youâre smarter than this, you have to think. Deep shaky breaths leave your mouth as now you hear the sound of stone and wood crumbling elsewhere in your hive. And crying, too. So much wailing.
You swallow heavily, refocusing on the option before you. Thereâs no doubt in your mind that you arenât strong enough to attempt a climb down and a jump or fall could injure you, leaving you vulnerable to other threats, so what now?
Your grip on the windowsill leaves you white-knuckled and your arms are shaking like leaves in a storm. After a moment a strong breeze blows some rainwater into your face, and the cold prickle of the water grounds you, if only for a moment.
You need to go down, towards the fire.
Refusing to waste any more time once the thought hits you, you turn away from the outside sights and bolt towards the stairway leading down. You know you saw a familiar silhouette running away from your hive as you turned away, but chose not to take your time to linger on the thought, for now.
Your heavy steps echo mutely through the stairwell and your labored breathing is also near silent in comparison to the chaotic flurry of sounds around you now. There are tears welling in your eyes and you donât know what to attribute them to.Â
The smoke? The guilt? The fear?
The column of smoke rises up from the center of the spiral staircase, growing darker and darker as you descend. Youâre almost to the bottom and into the next floor when a chunk of rubble from one of the weakened support beams above falls down towards you. You move to jump away, but it catches you on the jaw, gashing you open and knocking you into the stone wall for a moment. If not for the adrenaline, you would collapse from the fear and the pain you were now in.
Still, you manage to push yourself off the wall and stagger down the last few stairs and onto the landing of your first floor. The heat of the flames near consuming your hive rages on in your living room, the front door that used to stand directly across from you has fallen from its hinges and was now charring on the ground.
The only thing between you and freedom was running through the flames.
Run. Just run through the fire. Run through the fire, Julius.
You start and stop almost immediately, taking one step forward before losing your nerve.
Run or Die.
Your thoughts cease, your mind shutting down, and with a jolt your legs force you into a sprint through the flames, the searing heat clawing at your skin and the smoke laughing in your ears. What felt like 20, 30, 40 minutes was only one as you burst from the destroyed entry of your hive, sending you tumbling into the muddy grass and leaving you crawling desperately away from it, hoping to escape any more falling rubble.
When youâve made it a safe distance away, you roll onto your back, letting the now pouring rain put out the embers caught on the edges of your coat and wash away the soot staining your face.Â
You want to cry tears of relief, but your eyes only sting as they start to water again. Well, at least if nothing else, you're grateful to be alive.
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Major Character: Julius Monter
Minor Characters: Odarem Mortis and Ladnah Micalz (Implied; Belongs to Quiescent-trolls)
Setting: Juliusâ Hive; Occurs in the Past
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Often times before falling asleep you find yourself reading, studying, or simply sitting on your bed, losing yourself in your thoughts while your eyes leave their unfocused gaze on something random theyâd drifted towards. Some might say those activities are what keeps you up so late into the day, but those youâre closer with know that itâs your way of passing the time when your insomnia takes hold.
Granted, they might urge you to pick something that doesnât interest you as much, so as to be put to sleep by it, but youâre not one to spend your time doing things you donât want to do if you can help it.
That being said, this morning the cause of your sleeplessness was slightly different. Your head heavily lists to your left and you stare at the empty space that makes up the other half of your mattress. Ah, the guilt. It was keeping you up, you simply couldnât sleep no matter how long you had tried to lay there, your eyes closed, staring at the specks of color that danced behind your lids.
You sit there, stewing in all your thoughts that, for once, werenât about your fervent obsession with your research until the soft buzz of your phone breaches your thoughts. You turn to the phone resting on your side table and grab it, to see who else could be up at this hour and bothering you.
Odarem.
Of course, itâs almost as if he knew he was one of the trolls on your mind. You donât open the message and instead, read it from the lock screen. The message simply says, âGoodbye, Julian.â in that greenish-teal color of his. You stare at the words for a long few minutes. No teasing, no nicknames, no flirting, no long list of questions. This was it, he was leaving. Odarem has finally given up on you.
You knew that early tomorrow night he was headed off the planet for his job in the fleet. You knew that, but you were still too busy-- too consumed-- by your work to spend his last morning on planet together, his âCan I see you, Juli? We should talk.â text left unanswered.
There are too many thoughts swimming in your head. Bitterness and guilt, sadness, anxiety, and regret. So much to feel, so little time. Always so little of itâŠ
Youâre unmoving as you think, taking in your new reality with no friends or loved ones left to speak of. Putting the phone down on the empty bedside, you contemplate how perhaps you deserved to lose a few more hours of sleep, since itâs the only time left of yours you can still offer to them.
hiii jewel, đ„° i was curious abt if you're looking forward to the new sweep?
"Hello, Kurt. Still using those nonsense nicknames, I see."
"I haven't really put much thought into it-- there's the obvious, of course, making advancements in my work, but besides that..."
"Well, I feel like something is going to happen soon, but I don't know what."
"It's a nagging feeling, even to my more anxious mind. King has been acting slightly different than usual, I feel as though he's hiding something... something different from his usual nonsense, anyway."
that makes sense! and i do remember you saying you're not especially close with anyone right now
im surprised that you mentioned family under people who don't refer to you as sweet though. do you just not have that kinda relationship with your family?
"I've never exactly seen eye to eye with Julian's way of doing things, especially not after he butchered his wings the way that he did. Yet he wonders why his lifespan is all a mess..."
"But that aside I've never met any ancestors or predecessors of mine, I'm not sure that they even exist."
"The pseudo-family that I grew up with have all long since scattered or died out as well, so there's nothing to be found there."
