At night, I can sometimes hear Leto crying with nothing but her fragile bones holding her together. I climb into bed with her and hold her until she stops, but her eyes don't ever stop being so dark. She can look right through me with those eyes. Sometimes her sobs grow so loud that they echo through the halls. I press my lips against her forehead and sing the little song we had learned in music class. It was an Earth song. "Life Itself" by The Glass Animals. 

"Daddy was dumb, said that I’d be something special

Brought me up tough but I was a gentle human

Said that he loved each of my two million freckles

When I grew up, was gonna be a superstar"

She loved that part. I would kiss her cheeks right atop her freckles.

I like to lay out on the road

and wait for a car

to roam past

push its brakes quickly 

when it sees me lying there

laughing and crying

because I want to go to Heaven 

and Jesus might take pity on me

If I'm flattened out like a pancake 

maybe he will forget my sins 

the awful things i have done

he might overlook my scars if i am crying hard enough 

Jesus loves pancakes

The inside of our corridors were simple and clean. There are no signs that any living things inhabit those halls. Then you get to the rooms. When you first get your room, it only has 2 small beds and 2 desks. But after a while, it becomes your own. You get placed with your partner. Your partner is the girl you will marry when you come of age. You have to bond and become the best of friends.  Then when the time is right you will fall in love, then you will marry and your physical forms will combine. You will become a goddess. I cannot wait to help rule.

My partners name is Leto. She is only a year older than me, a young sprout, only 16. She likes to go to bed really late and wake up early. Sometimes I find her sitting quietly awake in the mornings staring out the window. But there is nothing but fog from the window. 

Every morning we wake up and put on our matching beautiful uniforms. A pale powder blue tank top, silky and soft and comfy grey-green pants. It never really gets cold in our sanctuary. The sky is always blue , not a cloud in sight.

Then we go to breakfast on the patio at 7:30am. We have what we have everyday, which is a protein shake (whatever flavor you would like), and gingap slices. Gingaps are like little grapefruits, but instead of acidity, there is maji-vitamins. I sit with Leto everyday, and we talk about her old planet. She has been here so long, that she has long forgotten the name. But she can remember the skies on her planet.

She told me that that skies were the green and the grass was blue. The oceans were a blinding purple. When you got out of the water, you would glitter blue and purple. She remembers her little siblings, her brother and her sister. They would play in the black sand together and make sand mansions. Her sisters name was Juno and her brothers was Pollux. She told me that they were all named after Greek legends. They all had the same kind of freckles, like her. I thought that was amazing. I love everyone of her 2 million freckles. On her cheeks, her shoulders, even down to the small of her back. They are beautiful.

Bulmaq is pictured as a beautiful long-limbed woman with flowing green tresses. The legend says that when she was a young girl, her name was not Bulmaq. It was Noomi. Noomi was wild, like an animal. She had been that way ever since she was a baby. She had beautiful Auburn hair She was known as the 'little girl who was fire'. One day when she went out to collect water for her family. When she reached the river, it was empty, drained to the bottom. She fell to her knees and began to sob. Her family would have no water today, again. As she lay, crying, a little girl, even younger than Noomi, sat beside her. Noomi looked up. 

   The little girl was very small and skinny, and had bruises all over her face. Then she spoke. "Excuse me, can you help me?" She said, with a quivering voice. And because Noomi was a kind young girl, she decided to help. The little girl, Mimi, asked for Noomi's hair. She said her beautiful red hair would make very beautiful paintbrush's. That was the only way she would be able to get money to but milk for her baby sister. 

   Noomi was devastated at the request. But she knew how it felt to be poor. So she pulled out her knife and sawed off her braids.The little girl started to cry and thank her. She ran away, hold the red braid in her fist. Noomi was looking at the drained river with immense sorrow and one of her salty tears dropped onto the dry dirt . From that tear, a little flower grew. A little white orchid with purple veins. Noomi choked back her tears and plucked the flower from the ground and tucked it behind her ear. 

   She tried to stand up, but she fell over into the little basin. She just lay there, silent. Suddenly the floor became damp, filling with drops of beautiful pure water. Noomi jumped up and cried. There were a lot of tears that day. A handsome little rabbit appeared from the sky. Then it started to talk to her.

   "Noomi, my dear." She looked up at the glimmering white fur of the rabbit. It smiled at her sweetly. "You deserve this. You are very kind. I saw what you did to that girl, that was my child." Noomi's eyes widened. A bunny? Having a human child? What is this animal?

   "This is not my true form, Noomi. I am a God. You are as kind and beautiful as a goddess. And I shall make you one. And I will make you my wife when you come of age." She laughed.  She asked to make a deal with the God. 

   "If I do this," she asked. "will you help my family? Can you make them live a life of luxury and happiness? I love them very much." The God agreed. He waved his little paw in the air in front of him. Like magic, her hair was there again. But this time a beautiful green and a lot longer. She was happy. Later she was renamed Bulmaq, the Muchaapian word for kindness. Our world revolves around kindness and happiness. But my world is gone. To save our galaxy, I need to stay focused.

A while ago, after the batteries died, I threw my Walkman across my room. There is nothing you can do when you are deaf. I have been "listening" to the vibrations from my earbuds for hours, crying. I read a lot now, replacing my instruments with piles of novels and manga. My ukelele, guitar, and violin are in the back of my closet along with sheet music and piles of CDs. I miss it so much. The explosion in the car crash busted my eardrums. Well that is what they thought. After a while, they looked a little deeper. Something was wrong. And I wouldn't be able to hear anymore. I haven't bothered to go to school since the accident. There is no point. I can't hear my friends talking to me, I can't hear my girlfriend sing to me. I just need to sleep. Sleep it all away. 

When I play my ukulele, they seem to quiet their screams and rest. Rest their blood-thirsty heads and stop eating to listen. I play several songs, old songs. The days of David Bowie and Abba. The best in my mind. I'm only 17 and I am already alone. My hands are calloused and sad looking. Playing is the only way for me to fall asleep. But it's risky. The zombie's are everywhere around my house. But I am safe in my attic. I have been in here for 7 weeks. My mom and dad are gone. So I just wait.

There are a lot of girls in my class. A lot more than my last village class. They are strange, but not as strange as me. We chant at a rainbow and river flag every morning. We work. We laugh at each others misfortunes, like Gina's ugly shoes and Lynn's horrible book report. But we are kind and we are all best friends. My teacher says we will be the future group of smart women to rule the government. We laugh at Ms. Ralph and she waggles her finger at us. Connie, Jamie and Lynn are all Blue Girls from the Giro region.  They all have glossy black hair and have Carolina Blue skin, always dewey and bright. When they were still outside , they all lived together until they could be taken here. On there left hands, a black tattoo in the shape of a raindrop faded into their skin. They arrived just 2 months ago, with bullet wombs, which we all fawned over, never seeing that sort of puncture on an prism before. Only on humans from Earth. Like Jenny, Eriqa, Shelby. They are from Earth. Jenny is a beautiful young white girl, maybe age 7, with golden hair, shining like straw. She had a circle tattoo on her forehead with a dot in the middle, like a target. She was chatty and always was clinging to her big sister Shelby. Shelby had the same gold hair as Jenny, but hers was cut short into a pixie cut pulled away from her forehead with a bandana. Her tattoo was also on her forehead. She was quiet and liked to read Earth books. She said her favorite was "Wuthering Heights". I had no idea what that was, but I was interested. Then their was Eriqa, a skinny black girl with an aggressive smile and attitude. She could fight a classmate in 2 seconds if they said something about her. Her tattoo circle laid on the center of her collarbone.  On Earth, they had many colors. Not just one like Muchaap, the planet I was raised on. There everyones skin were different shades of purple. Mine is lavender. Our culture is based on religion. We praise the goddess Bulmaq.

   There are so many people on this planet. Millions of beating hearts waiting to die and they all are different. Like little special snowflakes. Veins, tendons, and muscle wrapping around their little engine that clicks and clanks. Oily and slick with their gasoline, blood. We can't live without this little apparatus in our chest. People use it in sayings and when they say "I love you", they mean it from the heart. It's not even connected to how you think, but it helps.

   Mine is broken. Not in a cheesy song kind of way. Literally. Valves in the wrong places. Holes. I have worn an oxygen mask from birth into my early 30's. My mom was a doctor and so was my dad. But they are both gone now and I am all alone. No husband or wife, no children or friends.

   My name is Emily Hart. Ironic, huh? I'm 32, and all I do is sleep these days. There is nothing to do. What can you do with a messed up heart? I'm looking for new blood. Not a new person, but actual blood. I have a special type of blood and I have lost a lot in surgery. They are searching now. They have been doing it for months. I am slowly getting worse.

   When my nurse stumbled into my hospital room, I immediately noticed the needle. " More blood. Are you drinking it, Amma?" I said and held up my bruised arm. She sighed and bared her yellow teeth at me. I laugh, regretting it. A sharp pain shot through my chest and I cried out and lay back down. Amma lay a cool cloth on my pasty forehead and took blood. She spoke soothing words to me while fixing my I.V. and filling it with new medicine.

"It'll be alright, baby." She said stroking my head with her wrinkly hands. I let slow cold tears flow down my cheek falling into my mouth. I didn't dare move from the impression I had left on my memory foam bed. I know that I had gotten that bed because they didn't have much hope for me. I don't have much hope for me neither.

"I haven't been anyones baby for a long time." She chuckled."Have they found anything?" I looked up at her. Amma crinkled her eyes downwards and held one of my skinny hands in both of hers. My stomach twisted up with anxiety and acid.

   "You are special, baby. Nobody has your blood type. No matter how much we search we won't be able to find anything to help. I don't want you to suffer." A few ugly tears slid down her brown cheek and dropped off her chin onto the sheets. "Your body is rejecting your heart. We will make you comfy." I pass out.

   Blurring images race past my eyes, so quickly I can barely see them. My mom...mommy, with her thick brown hair and green eyes. Just like me.

   My funeral is short.