Werayne, Abigail is 19

You are fourteen watching your planet burn.

At least it feels like it. The flames live behind your eyes. For all you know, this is how it all ends, watching helplessly as your town gets obliterated, all alone, strapped to the wall beside your friend’s corpse, with another still smoking in the chair across from you.

Maybe it would have been better if it had ended that way. Then at least you wouldn’t have to live with the aftermath. The flames never go out. Your life is nothing but scarred earth.

As your planet burns, morality seems simple. Your greatest fears growing up have been justified. The evil from another planet that you learnt about as a child is here, inciting the flames, your people the innocent victims. As your planet burns, you have no need to confront this.

Your enemy represents his entire species. As your planet burns, you want him taken down, you want him put somewhere where he can never hurt you or anyone you love again. He hates you. You don’t question this. You will be the one to seal his fate. You don’t expect to ever see him again, and lend no thought to where he goes next. (If someone had told you that he would be tortured beyond recognition, would this have even bothered you? He tried to burn your planet.).

Does it mean anything that that same fervour, that desperation for justice, can be turned towards a more noble cause? Will it ever be enough? Will it make a difference?

You are fourteen watching your planet burn.

And you always will be.