Archive Shorts

Zaria

Written by Minirigby

The way they looked at me, after I had done it, it still haunts me to this day.

Every time I try and close my eyes, get some rest, I see their faces. My friends, my brothers, judging me for what I did. I know it was wrong, but they weren't the ones who were there. Who were they to judge? Where were they when we needed them? When she needed them?

One moment we were on our way back into the village, just shooting the shit, remembering old times. The next, he was on us, pure ferocity in his eyes. And that spear, that damned spear...

Her first instinct was to protect me, like always. Mata Nui, I use to hate that about her.

After all the years we'd been working together, she still treated me like the rookie I was when we first met.

The Makuta's spear only grazed her armor at first, she was tough after all, but that didn't deter the bastard. He called out his Rahkshi dogs and the next thing we knew they had us surrounded.

I'd like to say we fought our hardest, but we were holding back. It was in the Toa code after all; no betrayal, no cowardice or dishonesty, and most importantly, no killing.

When the first Rahkshi grabbed her leg I figured she'd be fine. We'd fought much worse than a pack of Makuta-spawn and still made it out in one piece. But when the second one got her, and I saw that she couldn't move, that's when everything went wrong...

I stopped what I was doing and made a mad dash over to her, but it was too late. I got there just in time to see his spear, with its large bladed tip pointed down, pierce its way through her armor as the Rahkshi held her down.

When my brain caught up with my eyes and I realized what I was seeing, it all just went red. The Rahkshi were sent flying out in all directions, as their master levitated up into the air. I knew what I was doing, I knew it was me. But somehow, in the moment, I felt like an onlooker watching someone else's actions. I used my power to lift him up off the ground and began squeezing in on his armor. His chest plate got tighter and tighter, cracks beginning to appear as horrible green gas leaked out from every escape it could find.

I had totally lost any awareness of what was going on around me, until the haunting final crack of his shell shook me out of it...

I let his body fall back onto the ground and began to notice a crowd had formed behind it. In my anger, I must have made a lot of noise and commotion, as it looked like most of the village was there now, standing at the mouth of the valley, watching as I knelt there surrounded by clouds of gas, broken armor, and her body lying where the Rahkshi had left her.

I noticed our teammates at the front of the crowd and began to stand up, to go to them, to explain what happened. But as soon as I went to move, they pointed their weapons at me. At me.

That was when I first noticed, the way they were looking at me. All the years we had spent together, fighting side by side, defending the weak and the innocent. In only a moment all that shared history was gone. No matter what I might have said, no matter how much I might have tried to explain, it didn't matter.

I was no longer Zaria, their friend, Zaria, their brother. When their eyes looked at me now I could tell, all they saw was Zaria, the killer.