Butterflies of the Dark Star

52 (REVISED)

How did everything come to this?

On the edge of the ripping, screeching black hole, released into torment when the destabilization of the space station began in earnest. Teeth tore at the limbs and created a multitude of sucking vacuums in broken parts. Her head screamed at the writhing mass unable to unravel itself into a calm, but no less powerful, pressurized state. Her voice never escaped her lungs as it tore metal apart and flaked off the carapace which kept them from the freezing heat death.

Neo.

Nova winced when a tendril swept through the massive reactor core and sent a shock-wave through her body. It was too much. Too fast. Everything went wrong at once as he ripped the station apart in his pain.

Neo.

But as he warned her, he couldn't hear her. Nova found the event horizon chewing in the lower bowels of the space station, where he saved her the first time, but in consequence, died for his act of loyalty. Flames sputtered across the abyss in falling stars, sucked into the depths of the center. Nova held on tight when the catwalk beneath her cracked. Her footing scrambled, but she held on tight to find a way across.

If I let him destroy that reactor... I don't think the reset will be safe. Things aren't resetting. This is bad.

Teeth cracked through the walls and burst out nebulous crimson to splatter over her view.

Her catwalk slipped further, threatening to drop her to the level below. "Neo!" she snapped. "It's me!"

There's no one else...

Everyone went in one swept motion, leaving her alone because she dodged at the right time.

But he can't hear me anymore.

Nova scowled and tried to find another unbroken route around the subcores. One cracked and burst, sending piercing light into her eyes. A gasp escaped her throat when a whistle of piercing teeth drove itself deeper into the space station. All around her, all at once.

Free of the pain, but never the agony in her screaming head, she took out the broken necklace and slipped past the event horizon. Into silent darkness to leave her ears ringing with a piercing shriek. "Neo, you have to turn it back," she said, feeling a little silly for attempting to reason with a black hole, but in the end, it was a manifestation of the anomaly's power, with Neo as a vessel. "Just turn it back, I can prevent this. I can stop you."

Just let me try again.

Grey stars twisted into crimson tears as the ground beneath her rumbled, and she fought the terror at the edge of the universe. "Come on," she whispered when the inevitability nipped at her heels. "You said you believed in me." Nova winced at the quiet without his voice, staring into the abyss when it swirled around her. "Let me try. Let me fix my mistake."

Teeth grew in the maw, a threatening snarl, different from the bluff he gave when she stood over the bomb.

But if I can't reach you... what can I do?

Nova held out the necklace with starlit sinew curling around the wings of time. It floated in zero gravity over her palm. Embers burst along the glass surface, and she winced when it shattered and dissipated into the event horizon, a return to its owner. "It fit you better anyway," she whispered.

The piercing unfathomable shriek in her head stopped.

"Just turn it back," she begged in a break in the torment. "Let me try, just once. I can get to you if you let me do this again. I'm certain of it."