Chapter Text
Have you ever wished to be someone else entirely ? Have you ever gazed upon the world above and imagined what it would be like to become the very thing you once upon a time dreamed about?
Longing is a dangerous feeling.
*
During the ever dark night, a single speck of light could be seen running toward the dark edge of a world. Wind was splashing her face and putting her hair in disarray, but Aelita ran. She ran like she had never done before. Her miss-steps or thumbling did not matter no more.
The muffled calls for her name could barely be heard over the whipping unforgiving winds. She knew people were behind her. Perhaps more than one, but it was of no importance now.
==Aelita stood at the edge of Asterlion.==
Her choice was made. And for that, she felt lighter. Good or bad she didn't care anymore. That blazing fire was burning anew in her heart. She took successive breaths, her chest rising and falling rapidly. She barely felt the cold air of the night stinging her from inside out and keeping her from sweating.
The call of adventure was too strong. She could feel herself smiling of relief and elatment. Never had she felt so free and excited and fearful.
"Have you actually gone crazy ?"
She turned to face the one that caught up to her. He had followed all the way to here. Even when she ran and ran without looking behind, he kept screaming her name.
"Will you let go of everything we've been through to get here !? "
His hand was still gripping her wrist. Harshly at first then gently, like a feather. Like he was afraid of breaking her.
"We're almost there, Aelita."
"Let me go ■■g■." She said out of breath. "You shouldn't be here. Don't you see what I'm doing ?" Her voice broke at the end of her sentence as her eyes started stinging. She wouldn't cry. She promised herself she wouldn't. But alas the tears never really abide by her will.
She finally confessed in her heart that she might, miss him.
"There's nothing here for me anymore. We're different and I've made my choice."
And it was clear, clear as the smooth surface of a lake at night. Her seed, container of her primordial essencethe one lodged in the heart of every aspirante was twinkling, shy as always but clearer than ever. The first rays of the Stellae people believed she would be. But her choice was made. She wouldn't live for the sake of something she couldn't understand. *This* was what she wanted. What she had always wanted. And now, she finally, *oh so finally*, took the first step towards her dream.
It was exhilarating, liberating, euphoric and reaffirmed her inner universe. Her whole being wanted, longed, to go to the other world.
"Please" he whispered, almost begged. "...think again". His eyes bore into hers. Their intensity almost piercing. Ever so desperate. The air was tense, as if something was left unsaid.
*"Stay with me"* , he couldn't say these words, still unable to do so.
But alas, she was too far gone, too deep in her own desire to wish to be reached.
She took one step back after the other. Her back touched the barrier. She didn't see his anguish. Too deep in her own feelings, but her eyes were on him. Screams could still be heard in the distance. Perhaps the upcoming guardian.
She chuckled, eyes soft and melancholic.
He couldn't move. He watched her be engulfed by the void of the other side.
She slowly closed her yes as her last words echoed in the cold night.
"Don't stop me. I want this."
The only thing Aelita heard as her being was sucked apart from the world of stars, her home world, the place where she had lived her whole life until now, was a far away gut wrenching scream.
"Aelita!!"
The shadow of someone peeked from the hill up ahead. But it was too far too late to see who it was.
When she found herself alone in the void, in the silence that seemed to swallow her whole, was the echo of that scream. That voice seemed familiar.
It seemed to voice what she was now unable to.
When all around her was cold—nothing but unending darkness—a single crack broke the silence.
Light spilled from her chest in trembling motes. Rosing Up in the dark night.
Aelita lay there, unmoving, as the echoes of that scream still reached her.
A single tear ran on her face, as she finally understood what that voice desperately wanted to stop her from doing. Oh how great was her regret and how deep her fear ran and how miserable she felt to have left the one person who cared for her enough to try to stop her. To have left her family, her home, the warmth she took for granted.
Her first memory of a starry sky. The moments of warmth in Asterlion. Her distant but supportive family. The unexpected ties she formed with the aspirants. ■e■a, this last sorry expression did not fit him at all.
All these memories were slowly eluding her. Their faces became blurry. Fragments of her disappearing.
There was nothing beyond here but death and desolation. At the brink of death, she found herself oh so foolish, so cold and so alone.
Nothing stayed in the end but a deep feeling of regret and coldness.
--
At the last hill before the rift, stood the fleeting silhouette. It was a woman. The still echoing scream was hers. She could not do anything but helplessly watch as her sister fell into the darkness.
Her knees weakened and she barely caught her face from hitting the ground with her forearms.
She was gone. "...Aelita"
She had been too late.
A few moments later, the last moments of a premature star could be seen in the galaxy. It was small and ephemeral. But beautiful and bright enough to create a breach in the barrier that separated Asterlion from the dark matter.