Lucinda Kane was one of 100 prisoners exiled to Earth for their crimes in the sky. Relying on her beauty, intelligence, and physical skill to navigate the challenges of this new world will she survive everything Earth has to bring? All is fair in lo...
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"When you hold me, it holds me together. And you kiss me in a way that's gonna screw me up forever..."
Suburban Legends - Taylor Swift
"Mum?" I called out, my voice cracking as the haze enveloped me, the world around me seemed to warp and distort. I rushed towards her, desperately craving her comfort and touch. But she remained just beyond my reach, a spectre haunting the edges of my consciousness. It was as though she was a ghost.
"Lucinda." Her voice echoed, drawing me deeper into the abyss of my mind. I blinked, trying to understand the surreal scene before me, but it only grew more vivid and disorienting.
"Mum, what's going on? Why can't I touch you? How are you here?" I scrambled as I desperately reached out once more, fingers trembling with longing. But she slipped through them like smoke.
And then, my gaze was drawn behind her as I saw a number of people standing lifelessly. As my eyes began scanning over the group I came to realise who had appeared before me. The ghosts of all the people I had killed...
Memories flashed before my eyes each one a painful reminder of the choices I had made, and the lives I had taken. My mother, whose only crime was stealing to ease my suffering. Charlotte, who had sacrificed herself to protect me from Murphy. Atom, whose life I ended to ease his pain. And finally, the guards whose deaths I justified in the name of vengeance.
Each one's eyes filled with an accusing glare that pierced through the depths of my soul. I recoiled, my heart pounding in my chest, as memories flooded through my mind like a torrential downpour. I tried to look away, to escape the suffocating weight of their gaze, but they held me in their grip, relentless and unforgiving. I stumbled backward, my mind reeling with the weight of my sins.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, the words barely more than a choked sob. As the apology fell from my lips, I knew it was a feeble offering, a meagre attempt to divert the overwhelming guilt weighing me down. But the ghosts offered no forgiveness, no absolution for the blood staining my hands.
"Do you think sorry is enough for everything you've done? I had a newborn child..." The voice came from one of the guards, his tone laced with bitterness and pure hatred. The accusing words cut through the silence like a knife, each syllable a searing reminder of the pain I had caused.
A shiver coursed through me as his accusation pierced through the air. My stomach churned with the weight of his gaze, the weight of his grief. Then, my mother stepped forward, her presence a haunting echo of the woman she once was.
"Your father is so disappointed in you Lucinda... We all are. You need to take a look at what you've done, the lives you've ruined. Are all these lives worth your own?" My mother spoke stepping forward as her lifeless eyes bore into mine. The weight of her accusation crushing me beneath its relentless force. Each word was a dagger, a reminder of the irreversible damage I had wrought upon the world. But the answer was no, the lives I've taken weren't worth my own... Panic surged within me, threatening to overwhelm my senses as I struggled to deny the reality unfolding before me.
