Lislil Herokei hummed to herself as she walked briskly from the public transit point down the fishbone warren of narrow streets to where she and her wife made their home. That home had been growing ever smaller over the last few years as their two kids, their two amazing, miraculous kids grew in size and boisterousness. Of course with how fast the kids were growing had come and equally growing anxiety in Lislil’s mate whenever talk fell on the size of their lodgings. But soon, oh so very soon the very special day would come when Lislil would pick up Sophala and the kids and take them shopping for a new home. One they actually owned out of the secret savings fund she’d been filling with what she made on the side looking after her boss’ pet mewvorr and doing his tariff payments for the packaging company.
Sophala didn’t know about any of that and Lislil had almost changed her mind on many occasions about telling her. But the credits had kept stacking up, climbing ever so slowly to that magical goal. It wouldn’t be enough for anything fancy of course. But there would be enough for a place that was at least one or two levels off the ground. The security difference alone in raising kids off the street level was a physical relief that Lislil could almost feel already. With this week’s news of a slew of new and, typically for the Hutts, nebulous taxes, the off-the-books bonus credits should put the account comfortably into the target zone for a three bedroom apartment.
To celebrate, although her family wouldn’t know for another few days why they were celebrating, Lislil was bringing home three big roba steaks and orange tubers for Sophala’s favorite side dish. She would have picked up some wine too but that would definitely have let Sophala know something was up. Lislil turned into the partly enclosed yard if you could call a space made entirely of cheap metal and trash concrete so. The kids had drawn chalk figures on the ground again and Lislil grinned, knowing their old Twi’lek neighbor would be complaining – again. It was worth it. He couldn’t do anything about it and knowing they’d soon be moving anyway there was nothing the grumpy old guy could say that would burst her bubble.
She slid her hand over the keypad and the door recognized her as a resident and master key holder. That security system had cost a lot, at a time where every cred spent had to be considered very carefully. But the peace of mind it had bought was worth it in Lislil’s estimation.
“Hey guys, I’m home! And I brought steaks!” she called, dropping her work comp on the entry table’s recharge pad and flipping the thin anorak most people wore to fend off dust and other airborne contaminants off their clothes, on the hook beside the table. Her brows furrowed as the strange silence in the apartment filtered through her busy mind at last. Then she made a face. Alright, this wouldn’t be the first time her family was waiting somewhere around a corner to jump out at her. She determined that this time she wouldn’t drop everything and scream her head off though. The scoundrels.
In fact, she thought to herself that maybe it was time to try turning the tables on these incorrigible outlaws. She began to tip-toe further into the apartment, a small well-worn cycle of thought starting at every patch of flaking paint or worn-through carpet. But it wasn’t the same guilty draught of bitterness this time. She rounded the corner, carefully stepping over what looked like a foot high barricade of dolls and toy trucks and picked her way carefully through the toy debris strewn behind it. It was obvious to Lislil that some great battle had taken place here today and not too long ago either since Sophala could only stand mounds of toys for so long before she’d flip out. She smiled and looked up, ready to pick out the crouched forms of her mischievous family in the main room when Lislil’s skin went suddenly cold.
Three bodies hung suspended in mid-air in the center of the room. Two heartbreakingly small bodies and one larger one. One that looked so much like, but couldn’t be. Surely it couldn’t. All three had been facing away when she entered the room but even the slight movement of air currents brought about by her arrival had set them spinning very slowly as they hung there, weightless. With a glacial orbit, the forms turned to face her and while she waited, frozen on the spot, her mind carefully refused to pick out evidence that proved who these three people were. Such as her eight-year-old son’s favorite jumper and his little sister’s current fad of wearing two different colors of socks. And Sophala’s hair. Her beautiful honey brown hair that had spun gold threads whenever a real sun touched it.
But finally, their empty staring faces made it impossible for Lislil to deny the evidence before her. It was them. Her family, her whole world. And they were gone. It seemed to her that her wife had known she would come home to this devastating sight for her makeup had smeared in black rivulets down her cheeks. Was still running in fact and dripping off her cheeks to pool on the floor beneath her. The children were weeping too she saw although the expression on their faces was almost joyful or ecstatic. Were they crying from happiness? She wondered. Why were their tears black too?
There were pools gathering beneath the kids’ feet too and Lislil stared at them because it was easier to look at the mystery of those pools, consider the strangeness of their mid-air suspension than think about the fact that they were no longer. That they were gone. Lost to her. She stared at the pools but it was hard to see clearly through the blurring of her vision and she was as yet unable to move. Even breathing seemed no longer to be something she needed. Finally, she picked out movement within all three. Movement, that was almost but not quite liquid. And then as if the three small lakes had broken a dam, they began pouring across the intervening floor towards her. As if her family’s tears were trying to reach her. Joining their grief to hers. No not tears. Not liquid at all. Lislil drew in a ragged breath punched into her lungs by shock and revulsion. She wrenched her gaze back up to her wife’s dead face and her own tears dried up in sudden terror as she saw the wiggling forms of black worms push themselves out from Sophala’s tear ducts, ears, nose, and mouth. She tried to turn to look at the kids. She really did but it was too much. Lislil stumbled back and fell over the toys strewn across the floor. She sat down hard on more toys and pain lanced up her spine but the terror swallowed her whole now. She scrabbled backward like a crab to get away from the triple trails of worms determinedly forging across the worn carpet toward their next meal and she was gasping too hard to even scream.
MadAgs Fanfic 