Anonymous End
Author: Miyoshi Akachi
Original post:
Entry for YC121 New Eden Capsuleer’s Writing Contest in the Prose category.
An anonymous file made its appearance in the virtual space of the Intergalactic Summit. No hint of its origin and creator; whoever created it made sure there was hardly anything to follow up.
It wasn’t a simple text file but a video.
The room looked like any room on any station in more or less all New Eden. The straight, cold edges might have given away its Caldari origin but what was all over the walls took most of the attention: the room had been ravaged, shattered. Furniture had been thrown on the walls, hardly any had survived the onslaught. Liquid had splattered, lights were hanging discarded from the walls, sparkling, from time to time, sparks of electricity.
It was empty.
The image moved around, showing more of what had been a living room but that now was just a graveyard of furniture and objects. A glimpse was caught of a bedroom, ravaged as much as the rest before a hand obscured the lenses and the video turned black.
Static.
The screen remains black as the static turns into a scream. A scream of pain, anger, desperation. More animal then human. The scream goes on for a long moment before the sound of crashing furniture sounds from the speaker. The sound of rushing feet comes over; with a sharp intake of breath they stop.
"Go away."
"No, you have to stop this. You're hurting yourself."
"GO AWAY!" the scream sounds harsh, loosing much of its humanity.
"No! I won't let you do it again."
The sound of a brief fight can be heard, muffled sounds intermixed with words; it seems someone is trying to restrain an unruly animal.
A cry of surprise echoes soon followed by the crashing sound of a body falling against a wall and into a pile of destroyed furniture.
"Please... s-stop." a rustle of broken furniture' pieces accompany such pleading words "Listen to me!"
"No... I-I..."
Static raises high again.
The images coming back on are blurred, the focus changes a pair of times before it gets in position.
Two people lay in the mid of a graveyard of broken furniture, dark stains darken the walls behind them. One, back to the wall, is holding the other, cradling it, like a mother with a child. A spark of colour pops up, they are the second woman's hairs. They had been brightly coloured, now they are just stained and darkened.
A ragged breath comes, a dark eye comes up, under unruly, unkept, blonde hairs.
"G-go away."
"GO AWAY!!!"
A piece of what might have been a chair came flying at the lens shattering it and making the screen turn once again black.
"S-she is dead."
"It's the end."
Statics.
A news report video suddenly appears.
Capsuleer found dead in her apartments!
This morning the station security had found the dead body of a capsuleer in its apartment. The place was thrashed and hardly recognizable as an apartment. The capsuleer is said to be a woman, Caldari, in her twenties but it couldn't be identified. With her, another body was found: woman, maybe Gallente, in her twenties too. Both lay dead at the center of what looks like one last explosion of destruction before the end. When inquired, the station security refused to speak.
Who are them? Why they are dead?
The mystery remains unsolved.
The news report is replaced by a a few digit at the center of the screen. Stark white against the hard black.
YC 120
The video abruptly ends.