Flauraan, Abigail is 18, 19

How go things on Flauraan?

I stare at the communicator, at the simple question posed by a sweet girl who has no way of knowing how much the Staarus System has fallen apart barely weeks after she last stepped foot in it.

How are things going? Well things were normal, life going on as it does, until one day it wasn’t. Until one day the news I had been dreading since the very day I met Sophie reached the datashare - the Weraynians have breached the force field, and war has begun. It’s better than it could be, I suppose. As the rage and technological advancements on Werayne have been steadily increasing, so has the readiness of the Staarus interplanetary forces. The force field might be gone, but a tightly woven blockade immediately took its place. And since then the whole world has flipped upside down, wartime gripping the hearts of ordinary people everywhere - no longer a growing anxiety within just me.

It is incongruous to think that the war is occurring somewhere above my picturesque town. Though I haven't stargazed in years, I know my stars well enough to recognise the numerous new additions - space stations, satellites, ships - that dot the sky at night, if I can't restrain myself from looking up. That's the problem. Has always been the problem. I can't not look.

Just like with the communicator. Though I don’t respond to the first - don’t even know how to - another message comes through the next day. Robyn started her new job this morning so we've been busy tying up loose ends with our different projects.

This is easier. I could respond to this, dodge the earlier question, then I won’t have to mention the war. But my hands hesitate over the device. I don’t want this. I don’t want any of this. I don’t want to talk to her as if everything is normal. But I also don’t want to drop this on her. I am, so afraid, that if she finds out the war has started, she will rush to visit, and push to fight in the war. And then I will lose her. And as much as I am afraid of the war I am infinitely more afraid of losing her.

This is such a nightmare. The worst part of it all is that I want Sophie here. Desperately.

I miss her. I need to talk to her, I need her support. The thought of facing the rest of this war without her, however long it might transpire to be, agonises me. But the thought of losing her is worse.

And I know that if I call her I won't be able to bring myself to lie to her, and even if I did she would figure it out somehow, and she would head straight here.

So I hide the communicator away, turn it off, which I sometimes do when I am studying, so I know she won't be too worried. Try to force myself not to look at it, turn it back on to check the messages that filter in over the weeks and months.

It’s not that many messages, so I know she must be busy. Distracted. A knife twists in my chest. This is good. I tell myself. You don’t want her to start worrying.

I know I need to distract myself too, and so between my studying, between my work, between the time I spend with my family, I almost achieve it. Conscriptions start before too long, with multiple leaders from our Council leaving for the space stations that housed headquarters for the war effort. I approach the leadership there, and apply through the healing centre, for deployment myself, but am summarily rejected. It shouldn’t surprise me, shouldn’t hurt me, but it does. I want to do something to help in the war, the whole point of my stupid healing studies was so that I had something tangible to help with when the Weraynian war came. But I am still too inexperienced, too young, too ill suited for the medical ships dotted throughout the system, supporting the blockade, prepared for the inevitable bloodshed. My exploits during the Weraynian Scare mean next to nothing in the face of such a large-scale horror, and my experiences on Halapatov are anything but helpful for the cause.

I try to accept that I will have to sit out of the war; more than that, that I won’t be able to see what is happening, to make sense of it, to truly understand from the inside of it. I am afraid of the Weraynians, but that doesn’t mean that everything about this war sits right with me. Maybe if I can see with my own eyes it will make sense. Or maybe this is asking too much. Maybe I will stay confused and frightened my whole life.

The next blow is almost harder to bear than the Council’s refusal to deploy me - they deploy my father. Not in a military capacity. Not on the front lines. But nonetheless he will be working on a space station, assisting as technical support for the countless spacecraft and weapons and designs that are needed for the war. I hadn’t even considered the concept of worrying for my family’s safety during all of this, not imagining anything more than increased work in the fields to produce food for the war, but now here is another thing to fear, to face down while I sit idly by, safe and secure on Flauraan.

Before long he has gone, and I lie on the floor in my bedroom listening to my mother sob to my brother Nyles, useless to do anything to comfort her, hoping that he might be able to do so but nonetheless feeling horrible that I can’t. Beyond horrible. There are no words. I can hear Mari in the guest room trying to settle my restless niece. A tiny tiny child who has no idea what a war even is.

I screw my eyes shut, bite onto my arm until it hurts to stop myself from screaming. Panic overtakes me and suddenly I am on my knees scrambling through my desk, searching desperately until I find what I am looking for.

I turn on the communicator, accepting that my resolve is crumbling around me and determining to respond to Sophie, to hear her voice, to tell her everything. I wait for the notifications to resolve themselves, breathing heavily, anticipating the call I am about to make, how hard it will be. But then I find myself staring at the communicator, quiet and unresponsive in my hand, at a flat screen showing only messages I’ve already read, and I realise that there is nothing. No new messages since the last time I checked. I try to remember the last time my resolve broke like this, how long has it been since she’s tried to contact me, but it doesn’t matter it doesn’t matter. Suddenly it is all too much and I throw the stupid device against my wall. It’s not broken or anything but the violence makes me feel slightly better and then that makes me feel worse and I find myself rushing out the front door and into the woods, crashing through vegetation. I catch a glimpse of the saplings that were planted after the Weraynian Scare, now almost as tall as me, but still so fragile, still so small. I can’t face these reminders of that horrible year, even with so much time between me and it, so I change course and head for the secluded clearing where I have only ever felt calm.

I am ruining that by even going here, of course, but I take in the multicoloured flowers in bloom; it is the same time of year as when I first showed Sophie this special place, and we threaded flowers into each other’s hair. The memory grabs hold of me for a long moment, so soft amid so many other fraught feelings. My heavy breathing slows and I approach the pond. It is not very deep but I am tempted for a minute to submerge myself in it, to pull a hard reset on my nervous system.

Unfortunately I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the still water and all I can see is a scared child. The panic rushes back. The fear clenches me. I need to do something about this. I need to be in control.

I return to the house, which is oddly silent - I assume everyone has retired to their rooms with the absence of anything happier to do. I go to the bathroom and I find the scissors I am looking for. I work quietly, fervently. I don’t want to disturb anyone. I cut chunks of my hair off, section by section, until the long strands that have defined the way I look since childhood are all in the basin. I start cleaning up the ragged style I have remaining. It’s incredibly rough but I make it work. I’m sure once my mother sees it she will insist on making it neater, more suited to my face, but for now I have gotten what I wanted. I regard myself. In an instant I look older, more mature. My expression scares me, I look at once cold and worldweary. But it is enough. It will have to be enough.

I gather up the hair clippings and make my way back out of the house without trouble. I stand on the hill, amused by the way the wind that rushes around me is unable to pull at my hair the way it usually would. I hold out my hand, unclench my fingers and give the slightest push to throw the remnants of my hair up into the air. I watch it float away on the wind, and try to feel something other than dread.