❛ the ground. that's the dream. ❜
On the list 𝘓𝘺𝘳𝘢 𝘑𝘶𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳'𝘴 𝘛𝘰𝘱 𝘛𝘦𝘯 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘔𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘖𝘧 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦, getting arrested is definitely up there. But, hey! At least there's a silver lining ━━ getting shoved into a drops...
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STARS GLIMMERED in the obsidian vortex of space, silver leaked through the porthole and bathed her in the cosmic light. The Ark hummed with electricity, a gentle whine so soft you had to strain to hear it as the young sun-kissed girl stood in front of the porthole, observing the light that blazed through the glassy window of the spacecraft. Her dark eyes drank in the liquid wonders of the universe unblinkingly, galaxies pooling in her eyes.
The slate grey doors of her chambers opened and her reverie was splintered, harsh light pouring in from the corridor. Her eyes snapped from the molten stars and she whirled around, catching sight of her mom looming in the threshold.
"Wait, mom!" She scrambled back from the porthole quickly. "Don't leave me!"
"I'm coming back, I'm coming back - could you move any slower?"
"I'm hurrying!"
"Hurry, then," her mom tells her, features soft, illuminated by galaxies as she gives her a teasing grin. "Your head's in the stars, my little Star-Girl, when we should actually be there."
"I know, I know," she says, dashing across the tiny room they shared. A ragged stuffed rabbit was shoved haphazardly across the cot before he toppled to the floor as she grabbed her shoes. She winced. "Oops, sorry Berlioz."
Her mom laughed fondly. "Berlioz has seen better days. And leave your shoes, we need to be quiet."
Lyra still grabbed Berlioz and placed him neatly on top of her cot, fixing his ears so he looked like he was preening. Her mom was right. Berlioz had seen better days. His white fur was smeared with charcoal, matted with mysterious stains, and an arm that once belonged to some other stuffed toy was sewn on with red stitching, the dark brown fur a stark contrast to the rest of him. He'd been passed down for generations through different children on the Ark and sometimes Lyra wondered where he came from, who he'd belonged to, how he'd gotten onto the spacecraft when the rest of the world burned.
But now wasn't the time to wonder.
She bounced into the corridor behind her mom, thrilled at how empty it was. The Ark usually was crowded with people jostling her this way and that. But that night it was a labyrinth of colourless walls and echoey corridors as all its inhabitants slept tightly in their beds.
