by BigWolf643 » Sat Jun 13, 2020 1:44 am
you can tell i don't write dystopia stuff that much. anyway here's my entry
edit: truly forgot you couldn't swear on this site. haha whoops! this shows how long it's been since i've posted.
sharing the stars
When the world ended, it didn’t end with a huge bang, or an explosion—it ended in a natural progression of the events before it, like walking for hours until you realize your steps have led you right into a empty desert, only to remember oh, right, I was always going to end up here.
The world ended with leaving. With those who could afford it taking everything they might need to survive in a new place, and heading off for some new home light-years away, the worst of humanity representing all of them. Everyone else was just left behind.
Maddie stands at the mast of her tiny ship, and watches the stars. It’s easier to see stars out here, than in what is left of the cities: their skies are so thick with long-ago smog that the sky there is just a black emptiness. But this far out, hundreds of miles away from anything that might’ve once been called society, the stars are there, and they are shining, tiny pinpricks of light in the otherwise pitch-dark sky.
She was there, when the world ended. She was young, not even 8, but she knew, even back then, that there was no going back to any sort of ‘normal.’ Or, not a normal everyone wanted to return to, anyways. From what Maddie gleamed from old history textbooks, normal wasn’t a thing she would’ve wanted, anyways. Not that this is better, but it’s bad in an opposite way: a horrible freedom, rather than the lie of it.
“You still brooding out here?” Maddie startles, turning to see Gwen coming up from belowdeck, rubbing pen ink off the side of her cheek. “And before you ask: yes, I did fall asleep, and yes, we no longer have a map.”
“Gwen,” Maddie says, blinking.
“What? It was an accident. It’s late, Maddie! It’s nice and dark down there! And it’s not like we were using it.” Gwen comes up to stand beside Maddie, and Maddie leans into her with a sigh. Gwen wraps an arm around Maddie, rests the other one on the railing. “It’s not like the map would’ve helped much.”
“I know,” Maddie says, “I know, it was just…” It was what? Comforting? It wasn’t, really. Half of the countries the map shows—showed?—have long since been flooded. It’s not like they were getting anywhere using it, and they’ve been blown so far off course by storms that they could be halfway across the world for all Maddie knows.
“On the bright side, Pearl didn’t drink any ink,” Gwen says.
“Pearl’s an idiot,” Maddie says, thinking fondly of their dumb little dog. She’s probably scrabbling away belowdeck, which, actually, someone should be watching her. “Here, I’ll go down if you want to take my spot and brood.”
“Hmm, maybe.” But neither of them move. “You don’t happen to remember any constellations, do you?”
“Constellations?” Maddie looks to Gwen, tilting her head. “Why? I think I might have a book of them somewhere in our room.”
“I’ve just been…thinking about stars, I guess. Ever since I messed up the map.”
“How long have you been down there lying in pen ink?” Maddie asks. It’s never good for both of them to be brooding at the same time.
“If I tell you, I think you’d legally be allowed to divorce me,” Gwen says. Ah. At least an hour, then. That’s…not great. “I’m not having a good night, Maddie.”
“I don’t think either of us are,” Maddie says, reaching out to take Gwen’s free hand and interlace their fingers. “You wanted to know about constellations?”
“You’re the one who can find the north star,” is Gwen's answer.
“Right. Well…” and Maddie starts to point out the various constellations she knows of—the north star, of course, and then that line of three stars that she thinks is the belt of whatever old dude is up there, and then the two bears, the big and the little one, and then the…dog? There’s a dog up there somewhere. And a fish? There should be a fish, if Maddie’s remembering right. And there, that one’s a whale, and that one’s the weird lopsided bird they saw, and those ones right over there are the two of them.
“Okay, now I know you’re making things up,” Gwen says, elbowing Maddie. “C’mon, I may not read, but I know we’re not in the stars.”
“What’s stopping us?” Maddie asks.
“I—well, for one, we’re people. Here.” Gwen nods to indicate the both of them. “Think that’s a pretty strong indicator.”
Maddie shrugs. “Maybe not yet, then.”
“I…guess?” Gwen considers her. “Hey, you’re like, good, right? I know I’m not at my best but that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna try to help you out, if you need it.”
“It’s fine,” Maddie says, waving her off. “Nothing I don’t know how to deal with.”
“We really shouldn’t brood at the same time,” Gwen says, something astonished in her voice as if she’s just realized it. Maddie laughs. “Hey! Don’t laugh at me, I know where you live!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Maddie says, nodding, unable to keep the grin off her face. “Just—love you, Gwen. Thanks for coming out here with me.”
“Aww, love you too,” Gwen coos, pressing a kiss to the closest part of Maddie she can reach, which just so happens to be her forehead. “And of course I did. I wasn’t gonna let you vanish into the ocean alone.”
“Still.” Maddie leans into the affection. “You didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to,” Gwen says. She’s beautiful, even in the pale wash of starlight, and Maddie’s heart flutters with it.
There’s a few things Maddie knows, out here: that she probably won’t ever see land again, that it’s only a matter of time before they’re hit with a storm they don’t know how to handle, that when she first asked Gwen to join her at sea, she was asking her to do much more than just learn how to steer a ship. But she also knows that she’s not alone: that Gwen loves her despite all of it, that here, they can stand under the stars and draw out the patterns in them.
Maddie watches the stars with Gwen, and even with everything that came before them, she is happy.
Last edited by
BigWolf643 on Tue Jun 16, 2020 2:00 am, edited 2 times in total.
R.I.P Peppermint. April 2010-July 3, 2014
You will always be remembered, as a loving, caring best friend, who died too young
