❛ 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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WHEN SUNLIGHT FIZZLES to freezing ashes, a sky of glacial violets crowning the forests, Blake's reign begins.
Chaos isn't something new to Lyra. Her brain is nothing if not chaotic. But the mayhem inside of her mind is at least contained to her, even if it's not always controlled. Her craziness isn't going around killing other people.
Blake's is.
When the sun had sunk low into the sky, bleeding crimson into the horizon that swelled with daylights ashes and nights lungs, she'd left Wells to watch it on his own and slunk back into the dropship. Maybe she'd missed something. Maybe the wires on the upper levels were intact. Maybe there was still some way they were tethered to the Ark, minus the wristbands that do nothing but let the doctors on Alpha station know they're at least still breathing.
But Lyra's mind is, if anything, fast. She didn't miss anything the first time she checked. Nor did she find anything new the four other times.
Also, the two dead bodies weren't fun to work around. Eventually she'd gotten sick of their unseeing eyes, so she closed them before examining the wristbands. They'd died with them.
After a while, Wells had come and found her.
"We've got a problem."
"You're telling me," she'd said. "I haven't seen one bunny all day. Can you believe it? If I can't see a bunny, then what's this all been about?"
He'd pursed his lips. "The wristbands."
"Oh. Right."
And that brings us to the present, to the now. Right here. Right where flames, wild and untamed, flicker in the deep night, eating away at the darkness that's ensnared the earth. There's cheering and as Wells leads Lyra to the campsite, she realises that it's because every time Murphy and another one of Blake's friends named Mbege remove a wristband, wild applause from the dozens of kids greets them. Blake regards it all with a wicked grin.
Wells limps forward furiously. "What the hell are you doing?"
Turning towards the Chancellor's son, firelight reflects dangerously in Mbege's eyes as he takes a threatening step towards him. "We're liberating ourselves. What does it look like?"
