Butterflies of the Dark Star

39 (REVISED)

Shit!

Ice spread through her veins when she aimed the blaster at them. It was one thing to point it at a faceless enemy. Another at someone she took the time to talk to, to understand — a reserved, but brilliant mind lost to the cruelty of the universe.

Her finger hovered over the trigger and the weight of a thousand lives remained in her hands.

Neo squirmed and the crimson sprites danced in Thuni's dead, sunken gaze. Nova choked on the confusion the monster left within her. "Wait!" Nova took one step forward when he stole Neo, where he huffed for breath as the larger man strangled him.

Shadows danced into grey, nebulous clouds.

Its oppressive presence shattered lightbulbs and cascaded a wave of darkness.

Neo dug his boots into the floor, but Thuni dragged him with ease.

"Thuni, don't!" Nova called, and energized the capacitor. "I don't want to hurt you."

It never left. It was all around us.

Thuni squeezed Neo's throat, and a muffled gasp for air escaped him.

Almost out of her reach as the snaking atmosphere intensified, hidden in a field of timebound butterflies.

Neo said he was dead!

"Thuni, please," she rasped. "This isn't you." Ice tangled in her throat. "Whatever is happening, you know it's going to end again. We don't have to do it like this!" Tears blurred the world, and the butterflies turned into ashen black mist and swirled. "I won't let this happen again! Let him go! Let him breathe!"

Stars, let him exist.

Crimson sprites shivered in agitation as Thuni strangled Neo, and gathered underneath the sparking lights. A heartbeat slammed in her ears as her head screamed with the piercing migraine. Formless tendrils waved through the nebula, twisting and curling into a massive presence of darkness the ravager controlling Thuni never noticed.

Nova froze, unable to pull the trigger when Neo planted his feet with the same intense expression from before, and forced Thuni to stop.

I have to shoot!

Neo quaked with deepening breaths as his pupils fell into nebulous mist, and the immense monster expanded into a supermassive black hole.

Shoot, for fucks sake! It's controlling his corpse! It doesn't matter! Shoot! If I don't—

Neo flicked his gaze to the droid terminal, and Thuni tightened his monstrous grip and drew closer to the awaiting monster. Grey clouds chewed on the fading sprites.

"What about Ulin?" Nova tried, to shoot for familiarity and sense, something wearing her friend's face.

Speaking with her friend's voice.

Her bones rumbled with the station when tendrils dug into metal and tore the air asunder as the voice from before screamed above the dissonance. Thuni stopped in his tracks while Neo followed along, expression empty, nothing more than a ragdoll. His eyes narrowed to shine in the rainbow outside the bay.

Nova snapped her head to the supermassive presence.

Its maw opened to show long teeth to pierce and impale. A breath of nebulous death escaped the event horizon to spread the grey mist with an oppressive sigh.

Everything moved away in silence, and tore the starlit seams.

Time slowed down and stretched the distance between her and him. One chance. One chance to change the loop, to end it, to save him. No matter what her choices led to.