The Fading Star

Soft gasps gurgled through the earpiece in Amy's ear as she lay on her abdomen in the back of the escape pod. Her armour charred; cracked. The fingers on both of her hands twitched uncontrollably. Worryingly, Amy only felt a deafening numbness below her waist.

"Come on," she said through gritted teeth. The wounded Spartan struggled to ball her hands into fists and push herself over onto her back. It took several strenuous seconds before she was able to flit herself onto her back. A sharp pain jolted up her spine and she cried out in anguish. Tears trickled down her face underneath her helmet. The gurgling continued in her ear.

"I c-can't shut it off," she whispered. "Please, someone shut if off. I don't want to listen anymore."

The noises that filled her ears where the dying breaths of her partner, Joshua-G024. Amy didn't know where he was. She just knew that he was out there, floating in the abyss in a compromised suit. Amy knew that even a heavily damaged suit had enough reserves of oxygen to keep its occupant alive for a short period of time. Amy looked at the oxygen levels within the escape pod; in small red letters is told her she had four hours. Her suit had enough for a few more after that.

Still the dying mewls echoed in her skull.

"Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop," she repeated.

The sobs came harder and faster. "This isn't fair!" She shouted. "He doesn't deserve to go like this! I don't deserve this!"

"Please!" She pleaded.

The numbness moved from her legs to her mind. The crying slowed and eventually stopped. A death-rattle let her know it was over. A relationship last years finished with ignominious distance.

Amy looked blankly at the ceiling of the escape pod, her mind dulled and full of incomprehension. The layers of armour she’d constructed around herself began to flake off.

“I’m all that’s left,” she said. “They’ve all left me behind.”

Amy began to notice the armour on her skin. It was chafing; too tight. This body wasn’t hers anymore. Her name felt spoilt on her tongue, her thoughts did not match with her reality.

“Hera,” she whispered as she her consciousness started to slip away. The word wrapped around her; picking up the shattered pieces of her self and attempted to stitch them together.

The blackness of unconsciousness crept further in and enveloped the broken Spartan.

Amy had died. Hera was reborn.