Tick.

Tick.

JAMES

Ava went out of sight through the trees, chasing after her happiness.

Thumb against his cheek, he wiped off the remnants of his foolishness from his skin. Downstairs, Mom and Dad argued, Janie's shadow hovered through the bottom of his door, but disappeared out of sight in the direction of her room. James scowled, then gathered his camera bag to place each detached lens into the proper sections, with the camera in the bulkiest protection. A chance moment, frozen and unchanging while Rayan apologized over and over.

I should've just walked away.

He hooked his starcross netbat on his bag, and shoved his writer's pad into the extra sleeve. He threw it onto his bed while heavy footsteps walked up the stairs, and he bit down on a sob as he zipped and folded over the traps to lock it in place. It clogged his nose while light tore through the darkness of his room.

"James," Dad said.

"Ava's gone," he said with a laugh which sliced through his chest, while Dad raised an eyebrow. "She left. Isn't that amazing? She actually chooses to listen to you most of the time." He threw his bag onto the ground. "I don't care what you have to say."

Dad gazed around his room, then tipped his head at his bag. "So, do you plan on being a runaway?"

James scoffed and hauled it over his shoulders. "Where would I run away to? You're so self-important," he bit as he pushed past Dad. "I'm not running anywhere. I'm going for a walk, because I don't want to listen to you. I don't want to listen to your excuses." He pressed his hands against his ears and crawled down the stairs, where Mom stood in the living room with a frown on his face while Dad followed him. "I am so tired of it. You might as well have not come back — you're already leaving. You always leave." James eyed Mom, then twisted back to Dad. "Unlike you, though, at least I'll come back."

"James," Mom interrupted. "I know you're upset, but—"

"But what?" James argued. "Are you going to make excuses for him now?" He waved his hand at Dad, who stood on the staircase. "He can pretend all he wants, but he isn't fooling me." He rolled his neck, then pushed out the front door and into the scattered twilight. Tears dug into his eyes when Dad yelled out his name, but he sprinted into the forest, where the bushes whispered with the breeze and night birds chirped their songs.

Where would I go?

James stopped onto the path, then checked to make sure he hadn't been followed, but hesitated on the edge of the cold road when Dad's ship launched over the trees and zoomed in the direction of the Eastpoint borders. He scoffed, but held his breath when it tangled through his sinus', and rushed for the nearby park. Alone to his thoughts, he kicked the gravel around to release the rest of his frustration, where it scattered and bounced off the playsets.

He slumped onto the slide with a groan while the orange of evening fell into a chilly blue night. Compearl in his hands, he dug his neck into his shoulders while the birds chirped and wind rustled through the trees. Lamps lit up along the perimeter of the park, bathing the stones and jungle gyms in a gentle glow. He rested his head against the slide and gazed upwards at the flickering sky of stars, where Lana, the moon, bloomed with a golden sheen.

Ava must be at Rayan's by now. He sat up to sort through his bag and took the time to organise his infopods full of captured moments. Each one, a timeline of his mistakes, the first one, of the pond, glimmering in sunlight. He switched to the next one, where Rayan interrupted the focus of his shot and became the new one, his sketchpad in his hands while he disturbed the peace.

I should've just walked away.

His camera flew out of his hands when Rayan whipped around, startled by his existence. It plopped into the water, and the quality of his pictures descended into nothing more than blurry, unfocused shapes as he tried to wrangle something out of Dad's old camera.

And then they became clear.

Long walks along a path. Embers in the night sky. Starlight fields along the grass. Rayan, in the golden autumn, expression set and determined on the future possibilities. James put it back in his bag and rested his arm against his brow.

The wind shifted.

It whispered through the canopy, and he lifted himself off the slide when the swings danced along with the branches on the outskirts of the park. In the center, the roundabout creaked with the disturbance of its own peace. One swing went forward. Another fell back, a twirl of wind, licking itself through the world.

It fluttered.

The swings came to a gentle stop.

The roundabout oozed one final note.

He set his hands on his stomach, then scoffed and unlatched his compearl off his ear. He rifled through his contacts, then chose Meryn for his first victim of annoyance.

'Meryn.'

'What's up?'

James tasted his need, but he got off the slide, and sent his message, 'Meet me on the hill just outside Eastpoint. I need to talk to someone.

It took a few minutes for Meryn to respond back with a single checkmark, so he left the silent playground of flickering lights and into the forest, where leaves whispered and rustled over his head. Moonlight scattered the way through the canopy, revealing the hiking trail he often used to get to the best spots. Hands in his pockets to shield himself from the cold, he frowned when his compearl buzzed with another message, but not from Meryn.

From Jon.

'James?'

'Jon."

Another few seconds for Jon to reply, and James crawled his way through the trail, where birds cooed softly into silence with his trampling steps. Over some rocks, he twisted over a log to reach his landmark, the pond, where he made a mistake, and couldn't walk away.

'I wanted to apologise, man.'

Ugh... He rolled his eyes and stood at the water's edge, in the very spot Rayan occupied once upon a time in the past. 'What'd you do this time?' It was a common question when it came to Jon and apologising, but he knew what Jon meant in the end. He held the compearl in his hands and waited for an answer.

'For what happened at the camp out.'

James groaned, able to hear himself through the quiet forest before fumbling to respond to his Starcross captain. 'What about it?'

He readied himself for serrated messages of Jon explaining the specifics which tore into his brain and left a gentle taste on his lips he fought to run away from. He came closer to the water as the expected train of texts came from Jon, while the moonlight through the sky dimmed. Each one, a continuation of the last — until the last text, left unfinished.

'Anyway, what I mean from this—'

James shook his head while the dots danced on his screen for Jon's next reply, but in a moment, the dots disappeared.

He lifted his head when a distant, sharp explosion sounded from the other side of Eastpoint. For a few seconds, nothing moved, but then the trees breathed with the air. He raised an eyebrow at the trail of smoke rising into the air, then checked his compearl's connection. Every one of his contacts went grey, with the last communication, a missed call from Ava, and his unsent message to Jon. He groaned, then clipped it onto his ear. Exploding transformer? Sounded like it... Maybe someone thought it'd be funny to mess around at the communications station. Wouldn't be the first time. He hooked his thumbs into his pockets and gazed at his weary reflection in the water.

Empty of any other picture, perfect glass.

James lifted his head to its mirror.

Starlight sparkled in broken patches between giant yawning voids. Black holes which moved to reveal what they hid behind them, and slowly ate at the moon until the moonlight disappeared. James traced the shapes, then stepped away from the pond when a chill crept through his spine. His bones vibrated through his skin, though everything remained in death's silence. He narrowed his eyes, then rushed along the trail to head for the hill to get a better view. Trees separated as he crawled up the wooden steps to the vantage point, creaking underneath his weight. On the top, he turned around, where lights died within Eastpoint and plunged their small town into complete pitch.

Where's the emergency lights?

James checked the sky for stars, but flicked through his contacts. Each one, grey.

Meryn, who he was meant to meet.
Jon, who never messaged him again.

Yvonne.
Katie.

Mom.

Dad.

Janie.

Ava.

Rayan.

None of them responded.

James breathed out and gazed at the opposite end of Eastpoint, where the communications generator lit into smoke. Flames sparked through the ash, and he shook his head at it. Yeah... it was a rough winter? Wiring problems? He tested the yawning void, which remained, but never moved with the moonlit shadows on the trees.

One rippled with a sheen of the night sky. A single star lit, too close to the planet, no longer in space. It danced along a straight point, shaped into a rail cannon which birthed from the cloak. James stared as it rumbled into a tearing scream which shook his spine, and the falling star became an artillery strike. In a single moment, the cloak dropped and the night sky returned.

The first stroke.

James stood on the hill as it pierced the heart of Eastpoint, and exploded in a flash of molten fire. It splashed across the distant roads, and the whole of his home went into columns of smoke.

What?

Another purring scream made him duck when the starlight tore over his head, and launched itself into the forest. Back to his feet, the smoke spread a wall of fire around Eastpoint. His heart hammered, but the frozen moment stuck him in place, where he lost his grip on his pockets and watched the void hells descend on his hometown.

Bark burned in his ears while the blanket of fire crawled itself through the woods, and his heart pounded with the screams rising from the sky and Eastpoint through the wall of ash. It ploughed around the unmarked ships, where they sent their falling stars into the planet. Waves of ash and embers filled his nose when the first burst of wind cloaked him with the burning of tar, concrete, and weaponized edevium.

Sparks flew into the night sky as James took one step forward as he covered his mouth. Left alone on the hill, where the wall of flames crawled its way to him, he shivered while the ships drew closer over his head, where the rail cannons readied their burning stars. It filled his ears, and he watched as the largest one sizzled through the wall of ash in perfect silence.

It screeched.

Fireballs exploded outwards from the singularity. It scattered in a blaze and hit further parts of the forest, some hitting in the middle of nowhere. One hit one of the exits out of town. James rushed down the wooden steps when one fireball soared overhead with a burning sizzle, where it plastered the heat against his back, and he tripped on the step when it shook the forest behind him. He grunted when he rolled down the old wooden steps, coming to a stop at the bottom while smoke blocked his view of the night sky above. Eteran rumbled beneath him as he pulled himself up, past his screaming limbs.

"Meryn?" he asked, then coughed when embered ash fell around him and slipped into his nose. "Meryn?"

He had to have been on his way. What's going on? James hid his nose and mouth behind his sleeve while the screaming rang through the forest, and silenced the birds and wind. I have to find him. I have to...

He ran straight into the smouldering trees which crinkled underneath the weight of pressurized air, while ships hummed with malicious intent from through the blanket of death they created.

I have to go back.