Rain swaddled her that night, plastering her soft, brown hair to her face. She shivered, wrapped in a thin, coarse shawl. It scratched her skin, leaving a patchwork of red lines wherever it touched. She sneezed.

“Quiet, Tet. We’re almost there now.”

Her mother was leading her down the backstreets of the city. She had woken Tet up in the middle of the night, refused to look her in the eyes, and threw the cloak on her lap. Tet had been blurry-eyed and confused. She was only six, a small and fragile girl with a permanent runny nose. Her face and body still unmarked from life, smooth. Her mother helped wrap the leathery cloak around Tet’s scrawny shoulders.

“It’s itchy, Mama.”

“I know, my little moon, I know, but you must put it on. It’s storming.” She glanced up towards the brown cover that stretched between two small pillars of rotten wood. It was the best attempt at a shelter they could make. The rain punched the faded cover, leaking water onto the dirt floor. The little drips splashed onto the loose dirt, dirting their heels. She pursed her lips, “The rivers are going to flood.”

Tet didn’t catch what her mother had said, or the worried look on her face. She was picking at the harsh leather, trying to find a comfortable way for it to sit on her.

“Stop fidgeting.” Mama got down on her knees and took Tet by the shoulders, forcing her to stop pinching at the shawl, “Do you know what’s happening, my little moon?” she asked.

Tet shrugged and reached her hand out so that a raindrop plopped onto it, “It’s raining?” Her mother’s hands clenched Tet harder, and Tet squirmed under her hold. It hurt, how hard the nails were digging into her. “Mama--” her mother’s dark head dropped and her whole body trembled like their tent in the wind. Tet quieted herself.

Her mama wasn’t usually like this, she thought. She had been absent a lot recently, leaving Tet to wander the streets, and she would come back jubilant. Her brown face had been relaxed and glowing. She would twirl into their beaten down tent, her chocolate curls streaming behind her, and she would pick Tet up and they would laugh together, but yesterday she had come home apprehensive, and kept glancing at Tet and looking away quickly when she looked back.

Her mom stood up, letting Tet go. Tet followed her mother with her wide brown eyes as she inhaled deeply. The worry wrinkles by her eyes smoothed over. She looked at Tet, her eyes hard.

“We’re going, Tet. Come now.”

They started off walking as fast as they could in the mud, but then Tet’s mother  suddenly pulled them into a run. Tet lost track of where her feet fell, in the rain everything looked the same. She thought she caught a glimpse of the baker’s shop, but she couldn’t be sure. Everything was brown and muddy and her little legs threatened to give out, but her mother kept tugging her along. She huffed, “Mama,” her breath squeezed out of her little lungs, “Mama, where are we going?” She didn’t answer. “Mama I think I saw the market back there.” Her mother ran faster, pulled harder. Worry began to claw at Tet’s chest. “Mama,” she begged breathlessly, voice cracking, “Mama where are we--” She tripped, landing in the mud. Her tiny feet sunk down into the muck as she struggled her way to standing. Squat buildings loomed around her, dark and menacing. She was scared. Her mom barely glanced back. Tet started to cry and flopped back down into the mud. Sobs choked out of her, ringing into the night, but they were overpowered by the rushing of the storm. She wanted to go back home, she wanted to take off this stupid shawl and shred it.

“Tetrontrigranodius!” her mother cried out in a shirll, furious screech. It only made Tet cry more. She didn’t know what was happening. Her mom had asked her and she didn’t know. She wanted to go home.

I wanna go back. She chanted again and again in her head.

“GET UP.” Her mother tore Tet from the ground with a solid yank on her arm, and Tet yelled out in pain. Confusion and fear filled her eyes and ran over, joining the rain. She shrieked, letting the world hear her panic.

Her mother’s face twisted. It twisted so much that it almost wasn’t a face anymore. Tet was on the ground again, the side of her face screaming in pain.

“SHUT UP, GIRL.”

Tet shivered on the ground. Her mom would never hurt her, her mother would never do that, but she just had. Tet didn’t understand why, but when she turned her face back her mother’s hand was still raised.

She will do it again.

Tet choked down her sobs and pushed herself out of the mud. She felt like she was floating out of her body, watching a dream. Her mother snatched her small muddy hand and they continued running.

They finally slowed near a square building, Tet couldn’t tell what color it was in the dark, but it was unfamiliar. A sign hung out over a poorly painted red door. It was faded and swung violently in the wind. Tet brought her free hand to her face. Her cheek felt hot, and it stung where she touched it. She decided to try and apologize, for whatever she had done wrong. Maybe Mama would take her back then. “Mama, I’m sorry. I don’t kno--”

“We’re here,” her mother’s voice was rock. The only sure thing in the dark and the rain. She led Tet to the door, let go of her hand, and crouched down. Tet tensed at her mom’s dark eyes. She didn’t want to be hurt again. Her mother raised her hand and brought it gently to Tet’s brown cheek. Tet flinched but didn’t move away.

“My little moon,” her voice was soft, the voice that Tet knew. She brushed the wet curls back from Tet’s face lovingly, “I’m going to leave for a little bit ok?” Tet nodded, too frightened to speak. She sighed, “You stay right here.” She stood up and leaned over Tet to knock on the red door. She kept knocking, her face twisting in frustration, until a light flared to life in one of the buildings windows. She stopped and turned and left. The shadows had almost swallowed her before she was rushing back over, kicking up mud. Relief flooded through Tet, she wasn’t actually leaving, but she only stooped down, undid the knot around Tet’s throat and pulled the coarse cloak off of her. Tet felt immediately lighter, but dread soon replaced the cloak when her mom swirled and walked into the crevices of the city. Rain filled her footsteps. She didn’t come back.

Tet was still staring out into the city when the faded red door creaked open. She didn’t turn around. Her pulse quickened and she kept completely still, thinking maybe they would just close the door and leave her alone, but flickering orange light trickled on her and then she was looking at her own shadow. It’s nothing she thought. The shape was a black sketch on the ground, insignificant, and hot tears rose to her eyes again.

—

Tet was bored, swaying beneath the portcullis, her hips moving in motion with the wind. The moons were vague and distant above her, drowned out by the evening sunlight, but she knew they would be colossal and dominating as soon as the sun set. A wall surrounded the city, made from compacted sand and dirt. It would leak when the rain got so violent and loud that the river would flood. Natives roamed in front of her, making their way towards the river to prepare for Buten Sar.

Buten Sar was the one holiday the aliens let them celebrate anymore. Tet was convinced it was out of some skewed sympathy they had when first invading the cities hundreds of years ago. Buten Sar was celebrated every few months, whenever the Twins were both full, the natives of all seven cities were allowed outside of the walls to gather along their respective rivers and set lanterns into their currents to be carried to the Gods Lake.

Urus waved a hand above her upturned face. “Helloooo,” he sang, “Tet, time to come back down. Fen is almost to the front of the line, and I think she might have something special for you” Tet hummed in response. It just so happened that this Buten Sar fell on her 21st anniversary. She wasn’t pleased with the timing. She felt no pleasure on being celebrated the same day as the Twins. She shook her head and turned to look at Urus. He towered above her, large and looming to anyone who didn’t know that his favorite thing to do was sing while cleaning their room. His dark head was silhouetted by the setting sun. Tet brushed her negative thoughts aside and smiled at him. She reached behind her and pushed against the rough sand wall, breathing in the stench of the city. The crowd was sparser now, most people desperate to get out to the clean air of the outside world, where weapons and eyes wouldn’t follow them.

Urus gestured, and Tet followed him towards a booth, hung with pink paper, with a line of people extending from it. Fen stood at the front, her petite figure and tiny shoulders shaking jovially. Her laugh breezed towards them, roaring and disruptive, but it filled Tet with comfort.

“FEN!” Tet cupped her hands around her mouth, “FEN, COME ON. IT’S GOING TO START SOON.” Fen turned around, and when her gaze landed on them her copper face broke into a crooked smile. She said something to the shopkeeper that made him laugh, and then started to bound over to her friends, but was stopped suddenly.

Tet felt her heart drop. Her vision blurred as a blue bulbous head covered Fen’s face. She reached for Urus and he was there immediately, letting her lean into him. She could feel how tense he was already, how fast his pulse was beating beneath her. She couldn’t see Fen’s face, but she knew it would be pinched as her golden eyes expanded with panic. The buildings loomed monstrous around Tet. The aliens surrounded her, every color, every shape. Her breath came faster. She snapped her eyes shut, trying to shove the images out of her head. Urus held her tighter, keeping her standing. Tet concentrated on her breathing, recalling how Fen taught her to slow the panic. She eased her eyes open. The aliens were gone, the shacks dingy again, but a blue head still stood next to Fen. It’s long claw curled through her hair like a snake, and Fen was trying to play along. A tense smile was painted across her face. She laughed painfully. It broke Tet’s heart to hear.

The alien removed it’s finger from Fen’s hair and moved on, leaving tension in its wake. Fen walked slowly the rest of the way to Tet and Urus. She tried to smile, but it shattered. Tet took her small body in her arms as she began to cry.

—

Being outside the city walls was a rare experience. The city was crowded and concentrated, but once you stepped out the land lay long and open. Vast green plains stretched for miles and if Tet looked hard enough she could see Kivt in the distant East, a ghostly silhouette of another walled city, and to the south, hills were strung along the horizon.

“It’s beautiful.” Tet said, breathing deeply. Pine and night filled her nose, the sun’s light was just barely visible, casting the world in peach hues. Urus grinned, Fen gripped Tet’s hand tight, her palms still sweaty from the interaction with the alien.

“Let’s just get to the river please.” Fen said, her voice still a little raw from crying. Tet felt anger washing over her previous panic. Her eyes hardened and she looked back at the city with a glare, thinking about where that alien might be, but Urus leaped in front of her, waving his hands comically.

“To the river, Tet.” He sang, hopping from foot to foot, trying to distract her. Tet relented her gaze and nodded.

They caught up with the crowd and were surrounded by laughter and bubbling energy. Together, the hundreds of people walked beneath the tall pines surrounding the city, moving faster with each step, light slipping away from the world.  Tet could hear the rushing of the river as the trees grew sparser. The people around her seemed to vibrate with it.

The river folded out in front of them. The grass was soft under Tet’s feet. She dug her toes into the dirt, feeling the mud grind under her nails. She hadn’t seen the river in months. None of them had. In the dark, it was hard to see, but it was loud with power. Mist sprayed up from the bank, filling the air with wetness. A comfort.

The crowd lined up along the shore. Tet held her pink lantern in her hands, her soul. After minutes of complete silence, only disturbed by the moving water, someone far down the line lit a candle, and then their lantern, and passed the candle down to the person next to them. On and on and on it went. It passed to Tet, by then it had melted down significantly and hot wax stinged her skin, but she took it from the young man next to her, breathed life into her soul, and passed it to Urus. A shout sung up from the end of the line, signalling the last person had lit their lantern, and everyone kneeled to the river.  

Tet stood for a moment, wondering how everyone could be so quiet and docile with the atrocities they lived through, but eventually she crouched in the soft dirt and set her tiny square on the water, wishing it luck in finding the Gods Lake. The lanterns represented them, it symbolized setting your own soul into the hands of the Twins, and trusting them to lead it to the Gods Lake. Tet always felt slight apprehension setting her lantern free. She wanted to trust the Twins, so much, but it was difficult to when she watched people harassed and treated unfairly daily, and nothing ever changed.

 Hundreds of glowing pink souls floated among the river. Bumping into each other and snagging the shoreline, but in the pale light of the full Twins not a single one got stuck or overturned. All lights were out except for the lanterns, reflecting on the water and sending a red-pink light back up to illuminate the people who had gathered.

Tet leaned into Urus as he wrapped his arm around Fen’s shoulders. They gazed from afar as celebrators began feasting and telling stories, watching their souls slowly drift North to the Gods Lake. They were a glowing school of lights, beautiful and magical against the black night, pulsing against the horizon, and for a moment Tet didn’t feel the heaviness in her bones. For a moment, she was drifting with the souls, far away from here. For a moment, she felt at peace.

—

A moment.

That was all it took for the weapon to unload into Fen’s chest.

Less than a click, for the bullets to tear through her soft flesh.

A grinding second for them to shred out her back.

She tripped back in the dark, time slowing as the impact ripped through her body. She looked down at her blood drenched hands, her face lost in a mixture of confusion and pain. Her mouth was frozen in gaping surprise, her hand lifted to touch the new holes her body had, mixtures of black and red. Her glittering golden-brown eyes widened. She collapsed to the ground, blood drenching through her. Disbelief still clung in her eyes, some foolish hope that she wasn’t shot.

Then she was dead.

Urus screamed, reaching for his dead friend, forgetting everything else. He crashed to her side, soaking his pants in her blood. He took her red hand in his, bringing it to his chest before he was shot in the back of the head. Blood shattered against the alley wall and he collapsed across Fen’s small corpse.

And all Tet could think about was the night her mother left her. It buzzed around her head like an insistent fly. She tore her eyes away from her friends’ bodies, the metallic sting of blood invading her senses. Her mouth was disgustingly dry, her hands clenched and unclenched. She was panicked, paralyzed. Her body was frozen in place, her shadow stretching in front of her, a small, inconsiderable smudge. She licked her dry lips, the air tasted like death. A million possibilities extinguished in just a moment. The aliens approached her, but she still couldn’t budge. Death was standing in front of her, crudely shaped, bulging heads, and hooded faces. They could be anyone, these aliens. How many other Otiriks had they killed? Four more wouldn’t phase them.

They’ll forget us by tomorrow.

A wind swept through Tet’s mind. How could the universe allow something so awful? The thought was nauseating. That her killers would murder her and her friends, her whole entire world, like cattle, and just move on the next day.

Cold metal dug into her head. She flinched away from it, eyes closing. She didn’t want to see it happen. Nan whimpered a few feet away. A shot resounded in the alley, a body thudded to the ground. Tet kept her eyes closed, tears raising to them, her whole body shaking as if she were freezing.

If she could’ve done one thing, one last thing before she died, she would’ve asked her mother why. And that revelation broke her heart as the bullet ripped through her brain.

—

Something stirred. Deep, deep down. A beast was released, quietly rising to the surface. It gently removed the corpse of its counterpart and filled the gaps it left behind. Light flashed in the abyss and life seeped back into the darkness.

—

Tet gasped awake, swallowing air like she was starving. Her chest heaved and when she tried to sit up the world tilted and colors bled together and she vomited on the cold ground. She gently set herself back down.

Where the hell am I.

On her back again, the world came into focus and the twins floated above her, both full. Their pale light echoing in her eyes when she blinked. Dark buildings loomed around her, tilting towards her like they were about to fall. She groped around her, her fingers scratching against the rough rock beneath her.

They’re wet. Was it raining? Tet thought. She didn’t remember.

She brought her hand to her mouth to wipe the vomit from it and her fingers were painted red. She stared quizzically at them.

“What the hell,” she whispered under her breath. Then the smell hit her. Metallic and rotting. Gunpowder and sulfur. Her head exploded into agony.

She shot up and heaved what little rest her stomach had onto the gravel. Every sense dominated by the viscera and gore she was beginning to remember. She held her eyes closed as tightly as she could, shaking her head back and forth, her brown curls swaying in the night.

No no no no no no no. Twins above, please no.

Her head hung over the ground. She shuddered and moved onto all fours, eyes still closed. Her feet splashed in a puddle of something behind her. She held her eyes tighter, refusing to believe, starting to remember. She took a deep breath and another, they wracked through her body. And she opened her eyes, face still turned down. The uneven ground was covered with red. Her lip trembled.

Pleasepleasepleaseplease.

She didn’t want to look up, she couldn’t. She remembered now, but maybe, maybe, it was not true. If she looked, if she saw them, there was no taking it back. She hung there for minutes, swaying back and forth, preparing herself.

The city was quiet, curfew in effect for the natives, but Tet’s ears were screaming. Her head still ached like it had been shot, but it hurt less and less with every minute. She moved her hand across the ground, feeling the rocks prick her skin. Not possible. She couldn’t wait any longer. If she did she would be there forever. Stuck in a moment. One moment. Never able to leave. She took another deep breath, the cold night soothed her lungs for a second before the smell returned in full force.

She looked up, and by the Twins, she wished she never had. Her friends lied lifeless around her, rotting in pools of their own blood. Urus was still draped over Fen, like he was trying to protect her. His body bloated, even larger than it was when he was alive. His face was a constellation of meat and bone from where the bullet exited, one eye missing from his face. His nose was gone, his mouth was gone. Bone protruded from where his lopsided features once were. His pants were soaked through with blood, his own and Fen’s.

Fen’s face was intact, frozen in a picture of surprise, but her chest was a nightmare. Holes peeked out from under Urus’ body. Her lungs and heart punctured. Her chest was caved in, like her ribs had been broken. Blood still slowly seeped from a few of the wounds, but for the most part, she was empty. Her once brown skin pale as milk, revealing her empty veins. Tet stared at the bodies, she wasn’t able to look away, now that she saw she would never forget. Her head pounded, reverberating through her body. It was just her and the dead bodies of her friends. Some small part of her knew she needed to run, she needed to get out before someone came back and found her alive.

Alive. How am I alive. Shock washed through her body as she remembered being shot. Right in the head. How am I alive. She stood up slowly, pushing her red hands against her pants, leaving bloody handprints on her thighs. She felt the side of her head with a hand. Her hair was slick and sticky with blood. It covered one side of her, matting her hair to her skull. The world turned over and over. There was no bullet hole. Her head was still hurting, but it was dull now, nothing more than a normal headache. Tet couldn’t believe it. She felt elated, she felt jovial, she felt…. awful. She turned her gaze behind her, and Nan was lying in a heap on the ground, black locks stained red. One side of her face missing, and Tet could almost convince herself that it was someone else.

She should want to sprint to her friends side, to hold them and sob over their dead bodies. She should want to shake them until they came back, but terror was the only thing living in her body now.

And so she ran.

Stained head to toe in blood she ran out into the empty streets, turning her back on her friends bodies, on her life, on the home she had found with them. She was too scared to do anything about it. She didn’t want vengeance, she didn’t want her friends back. At that moment all Tet wanted to do was run.

Her shadow stretched out behind her, flickering with the yellow street lights, but now it was dark and defined, snapping at Tet’s heels, alive.