Elia

“It’s beautiful.”

Juniper’s words echoed in my mind, and I felt my cheeks start to heat up.

I pulled out the stuffed wixx from Juniper’s bags and placed it on the dresser, smiling to myself. For the first time in a long time, I felt alive.

Years pass like days when you have no connections to the outside world. Mission after mission, they all blended together. It’s hard not to feel like a cog in the machine when your job is being a hired gun.

Sure, I’d get difficult targets every once and a while, but they were all terrible people. I’d read their files, stuffed with witness testimonies that made my heart want to shatter into a million pieces. I’d cry myself to sleep, still clutching those wretched papers.

I hadn’t really talked to anyone outside of work in years. There was no doubt Juniper thought I was awkward as shit.

I walked over to the windowsill and closed the curtains, my feet wearily shuffling against the shining floor. It was late and we both needed rest.

I turned around to face Juniper and say goodbye, eager to get some sleep after such a long day. She was spacing out, her eyes unfocused as she wrung her hands. They had only grown greyer since this morning, but I trusted her.

She would tell me if something was wrong. It was probably just a Xylia thing. But I couldn’t help but check up on her anyway.

“Is everything okay?”

Juniper kept her gaze fixed on the floor as her face twisted into a pained smile.

“I’m fine,” she replied, though it was barely a whisper. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

She’s right. There was no use worrying. I was foolish to even let her in my house, much less care about the concerning color of her hands.

Juniper was an extraterrestrial outlaw, on the run from arguably one of the most dangerous planets in the galaxy.

I didn’t want to say it to her face, but Xylia’s a cult, and if you leave, they’re not going to just roll out the welcome mat if you decide to go back.

I’d never been assigned a request from the Xylian embassy, not before Juniper.

Most of the embassy’s requests were for the capture of asylum-seekers at our northern skyports. To ask IX operatives to take down refugees – it wasn’t right.

I couldn’t just tell Juniper that I had never trusted the Xylians, but meeting her had all but proved my suspicions correct. There was definitely something strange going on.

But that was a whole different issue, one that could not be solved by one sleep-deprived piece of glorified hired muscle.

I needed rest more than anything right now, but I found myself unable to leave, my eyes glued to Juniper.

“Do you need anything else?” I asked, desperate for some sort of excuse for my being here. At least, I should try to be helpful.

She glanced up to look at me, her whole being deflated ever since she sat down on the bed.

“I’m good, thank you.”

We fell into stifling silence. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. Should I just leave? Ask how she was doing? Wish her a good night?

I settled for an awkward muttered goodnight and trudged out the door, shutting it quietly behind me.

It had been a long day, and honestly, I had no idea what I was doing.

I walked down the hallway and turned left, heading up the grand staircase towards my bedroom. I had hoped to get some planning done today, but that all went to shit when I met Juniper. Maybe tomorrow.

My bedroom was a hodgepodge of random collectibles throughout the years. Bird-themed clocks, abstract art, and other random tchotchkes littered the walls and decorated the tops of dressers.

I had begun collecting these treasures decades ago, before the rise of WellCorp and the beginning of our planet’s slow death. I was just a student then, still reeling from my father’s death and looking for some meaning in life.

My father was my world. For so long, it was just us two and the library, living between the walls of books. Every night, he would read to me, cuddled up in the velvet armchairs of the children’s section.

I missed him.

In a way, every odd object reminded me of him. And next to my bed sat the most valuable of them all, and the only thing left of my father: his key to the library.

I remembered the night he died, the soot staining my shirt as I cried out “Father, Father, where are you?” again and again, hoping for a reply but expecting the worst. I remembered the stifling smell of smoke in the air, the orange embers not quite extinguished dotting the floor.

I remembered my father’s last words, telling me to lock up the outside gates just after closing hour. He told me we could read my favorite story, the Girl and the Moon, after I got back if I did what he said. I hadn’t touched that story since I last saw him. I couldn’t. Yet next to his keys was a copy, the cover shining in perfect condition.

Today, I had another treasure to add to my collection. I pulled out the blue raspberry pie I had purchased from Maximillian’s and set it on my bedside table, right next to the key and the book.

If there was an afterlife, I wished my father could see me now. It wasn’t like I couldn’t let go of the past. I wanted to preserve his memory, his legacy, and his love.

After all, what are we once we die? Are we nothing without our legacy?

I didn’t know what to think. I hadn’t thought straight since I let Juniper talk me into this week-long stay. If I tried to think clearly, I saw no use in prolonging her stay. It was just like death row, the build-up to her eventual end.

But what if I never turned her in? What if we escaped reality, running away to some distant planet? What if there was some way to reverse the damage that has ravaged my planet, my body, and my soul? Would I finally be okay?

It was too much to think about.

I quickly showered and headed to bed, my head a whirlwind of terrifying, dangerous, beautiful ideas.