The war had taken part of Sunshine’s heart from her. Her sister Fauna was gone, with only a statue, and a tombstone to show she’d ever existed. Her other sisters survived, but like her, the war had changed them.
When it was over, Sunshine left the forest. Left her home, her sisters, her mother. She left to find a way to live with the loss of Fauna. With the loss of so much she cared about, so much she’d always believed.
All replaced by nano-machines, spaceships, weapons that existed only to take life, and the long story of a people who never seemed to learn. The magic wasn’t magic. It was the machines. Machines that evolved from other machines made by the human race millennia earlier. The same human race that found thousands of worlds, and colonized them. Like they had colonized Cylinders, her home, her world. The same human race that once more fell apart, splintered into individual worlds, and was dying out on worlds throughout the galaxy.
It was so different from everything she’d ever known. From the life she’d had, growing up with her sisters by the lake, taken care of by her mother, Mystica. Mystica was her mother. Maybe not by birth, but she had found Sunshine, brought her to the lake, made her part of her family, took care of her, raised her.
The war had taken all that away. The lake was still there. Mystica, and her remaining sisters were still there. But nothing was the same. Sunshine was lost.
She headed toward the sunset when she left the lake. It took a couple of days, but she followed the sun out of the forest, across the world. Past the foothills of the Black Mountains. Over the mountains and their volcanoes. She kept following the sun.
Until the trees were gone. Then the grass, the bushes, the rocks. She followed the sun until only sand was left. The machines made water and food from the sand. They made a bed for her each night, when she was too exhausted to travel any further. The machines gave her everything she needed. Everything she wanted.
Eventually, the dunes of sand became smaller, and she heard the ocean. The sun led her to the ocean. She landed on the beach. Something inside her, some feeling she couldn’t explain, told her she’d found the first of whatever she was looking for.
She didn’t ask the machines to build her a home, but they did. A one room hut, really, with a mat she could sleep on in one corner, and a small table, with a lamp. The machines left her plenty of food, and freshwater. She would not starve.
Then, the machines went silent. Sunshine knew they would stay silent until she spoke to them. They knew she needed to be alone. To think. To feel. To heal. And maybe even to grow.
She took the lamp with her, and walked toward the Ocean, across the sand, leaving footprints in the ridges where nothing had set foot, nothing had walked, nothing had been, in a very long time. She walked to the ocean, where she sat, and pulled her knees to her chest, watched the waves, and listened to the ocean as it softly sang to her. Words it knew she needed to hear.
And there, on that sand, for the first time since Fauna had died. Sunshine cried. Until the sun had set, and the lamp burned out, and there was only the darkness of the night, the white crests of the waves, and the song of the ocean.
It was there, on the sand, in the dark, through all her tears, she knew, she understood, part of her heart, part of her soul, was forever gone. She wondered how long it would take for her to learn to live without part of herself. But she knew. She’d started the journey she was on to learn how to live never being able to see Fauna again. It was a journey that would take however long it took.
Who cares how many words.
@mysoulstears
Written for Week 244 of Miranda Kate‘s Mid-Week Challenge. Mirror, mirror on the wall. What can I do with you as a prompt? You can learn about Miranda’s challenge here. The stories people share for the weekly challenge are always little works of art, crafted with words, meant to be shared, and enjoyed.
My Soul's Tears 