originally posted in:The Black Garden
Dreams are never easy to revisit.
The both of us, clad in our shoddy, ragged armor, trod through the weathered plaza, until we reached the foot of the steps leading into the station. We give solemn pause for what was once [i]the[/i] hub of human commerce, now abandoned & left to weather in the harsh Martian sandstorms. Today, we donned our old, torn capes; once, proud symbols of our noble positions here, now flit pitifully from our shoulders in the quiet, gritty breeze.
Isabelle, my partner & longtime friend, stared ahead, then hung her head & sighed. "Remember our first visit here, Mason?", she exclaimed. Her armor seemed to fade with her tone. "How excited we were, that we got where we'd dreamed: guards at the forefront of human industry!" I wanted to console her, but agreed this place had a damned past, & wasn't going to change. "There wasn't any choice.", I replied. "That Cabal fleet hit us with our backs turned. We were damned from the start."
We sullenly agreed, & proceeded into the terminal, dusting sand off our armor as we got inside. Around the 7th corner, laid the charred remains of an atrium. A massive, elliptical skeleton stood in the center, highlighted by rainbow streaks of sand leading unto it.
Isabelle trudged up to the corpse & stopped in its shadow, drew a long breath, then laid her outstretched hand onto it.
"It may've been desperate, but we didn't have to resort to [i]this[/i].", she exclaimed.
At this, we stared up at the skeleton of a human nuke, haphazardly laid & detonated in an act of desperation.
"Was it worth it? To save Mars only to permanently destroy our station, our future?", Isabelle asked.
I could only shake my head in shame, trying to forget the present, & wishing it was all a dream.
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Edited by bondi_bluebird: 7/15/2013 7:40:10 AMHad half of this written earlier, then forgot about it until just bout an hour ago. Spent a while quickly finishing + revising it to be exactly 300 chars; hope I submitted it in time... (11:57 PM MN time) this reply edited @ 2:39 AM