it lights the whole sky { artemis oneshot }

“Chin up, Chautin.”

I haven’t slept for 3 days. I could never sleep without her so forgive me if I nap through your classes.

Chin up, chin up, chin up.

☀

“I love you!”

I stare at the wooden door and tremble as they steal her away.

I love you too.

☀

This house is quiet. It’s never quiet. Not ever.

She stole away our storm – it follows her everywhere. Boom, boom, boom, boom.

Twenty four, twenty three, twenty two, twenty one.

I count down their deaths and wait for her arrival.

☀

I can’t find Ariadne.

☀

“But she knows how to win. You taught her that, right?”

I’ve never seen my mother afraid before. She never backs down from anything. And now fear grips her by the shoulders and shakes her entire body and for the first time in forever she speaks to my father softly, quietly, with the utmost of care.

He takes her hand and smiles (who are you and what have you done with my parents?) but his eyes tell a different story.

“I taught her everything I know.”

Maybe she’ll fix us all.

☀

Everything wasn’t enough.

Not for her extraordinary self.

☀

I can’t find Ariadne.

She’s not in the garden or in her room or waiting for us – me – at the training centre. I don’t know where she is anymore. Or who she is.

If she abandons me here I don’t know what I’ll do.

☀

Television screens lie all the time.
Corpses delivered to your house in wooden boxes don’t.

☀

I expected them to start screaming at each-other again.

They don’t.
They hold each-other and weep instead.

(You did it, Tig. You fixed them.
Now come back. Please.)

☀

I can’t find my sisters.

Sister.

Sister?

Help.

☀

In the dead of the night I find my father staring at the wall.

(“At least she didn’t die a killer” someone told me. Around here that’s considered an embarrassment, but not in my home.)

They couldn’t steal her light away.
But they stole ours.

I take his hand and we both shake.

☀

I will be okay. Eventually.

When the world stops blurring and collapsing.

☀

The earth is damp beneath my feet and I am exhausted.

The sun keeps shining regardless.

(Chin up, chin up, chin up.)

I raise my gaze and smile at the sky.

☀

She is everywhere. Always.

I can't find-

I can't-







Come back.

☀

I can't sleep until the sun rises.

I find Ariadne on the roof.

☀

"She's here now. Isn't she?"

She says nothing. I smile. 

The world is flooded in salt and grief.

☀

Sometime after, I lie in the garden and feel the sun on my face – warm, bright, endlessly burning.

Always.

☀

Chin up, Chautin.

She lights me up every day.