The thing that happened

The heartless sun went down, leaving behind a world soaked in red, orange and sorrow.

Athena dragged herself through lonely back alleys, feeling like her shoes were made of stone. There was happy chatter in the streets and the aroma of freshly baked bread in the air. She purposely avoided this all.

There was no place for happiness today.

Sand hit her in the face, so she pulled her hood lower over her face. Left, right, left, left, left, right. Athena didn't know where to go after...it.

Her house? Full of people, full of children, full of laughter, full of joy. Unbearable.

His house? One person, maybe two, full of tears, full of grief. She would need that but it wouldn't be hers to take.

Athena looked up. The stars were up there, faintly taking shape for the night. She loves astronomy, the science of the stars and the planets and what else glows up there lonley and bright.

She looked down. He loved it too. They would run away together into the desert, just to gaze at the miracle that was called space.

Athena dragged herself further, swallowing her spit. She can't bear thinking about him in the past tense, about something that was instead of something that is or something that will be.

Her feet dragged her to the only place Athena knew in this city outside of her or his house: the well.

She sat down, leaning against the cool stone and hiding her face with her dust stained hands. The stars were there before she or he was ever made but how could Athena looked at them like before?

"Hi", a familiar male voice says. She looked up and just noticed how her hands were wet.

"Hi."

"Can I sit there?", he asked.

Athena would've liked to throw sand in his face and scream because how dare he?

But she nodded. He wouldn't do it, he would beg her to be kinder.

Brutus sat down and Athena recognized the symbol on his clothes and she hated it. She hated Brutus for wearing it, she hated Brutus for doing it and she hated him for being too kind.

"Are you mad at me?", he asked.

"Of course I am, what do you think?"

Brutus swallowed his spit.

"Do you hate me?"

She looked in his scarred face. It looked so much older than the last time he was home.

Athena shrugged. "Guess not."

Brutus made a tortured expression. How ironic. "I am sorry. Truly, really. You know that."

She laughed coldly. "Bold words from his killer."

He didn't answered instead another two familiar voices said: "I am sorry."

Athena decided to just answer one of them. "It's not your fault, Martina."

Martina swallowed her own spit. A black hood covered most of her face, her hands were shaking.

"I should've done something!"

"Nonsense, you're fourteen."

"I am the daughter of the govenor, I should've done something!"

"There was nothing you could've done", Athena finished, starring at her guard. "Wich is not what I can say to him."

Titus swallowed his own spit. Normally, there was no emotion found in his face but now his eyes were sunken and his nose was red.

"I know how much you loved him", Titus just said. "You all."

"You once did too."

"I still do, Athena, I swear to Mars and Rome. I do."

She swallowed her spit again. The desire to cry formed in her but she wouldn't when he couldn't.

"Wasn't enough to save him, hm?"

Titus' shoulders hung. "Probably wasn't, yes."

Everyone was surprised by Titus' bluntness, like always, but everyone got used to it by now. He always used to insist that it wasn't per se a bad thing, that it's a part of Titus' being, a part of how he's lovable in his own right but now, before the funeral?

Silence. Athena knew that his death affected them all, that they all blamed themselves, he was their best friend after all.

"Hi", a familiar female voice said. None of them could see up. There was the stars and there was her and none of them knew wich of them were worse.

"I...eh...", the normally so confident Ruth started. "I was with Mariam."

His mother.

"How is she?", Martina asked. She never witnessed death beside her own mother dying at her birth.

Ruth laughed energyless. "Worse than after his father's death. Can't say a word since it happened. She tried to cook earlier but fire reminded her of him, then flour, then salt and so forth. I'm worried about her."

Athena noted to bring her something. She didn't know yet if it should be something Greek or something Egyptian or something entirely else but she knew she had to. He would've want it.

"Must be hard for her", Brutus mumbles, speaking to the dirt beneath him. "First loosing her husband, now her son."

Titus goes through his hair. "Probably. But she did it once, she can do it again, right? She's stronger than all of us together."

They smiled like they always did back then. Then they stopped because it will never be like back then again.

Athena looked up, right into her face, right into the stars, then at the people she had grown up with. "Is nobody going to say it?"

Ruth blinked. "What?"

"That it was you. That it's your fault."

Athena tried breathing, tried to say it as neutral as possible because that's how he would've want it to happen.

Ruth stepped back. "Wha- my fault?"

"You don't have to lie just because Titus and I...", Brutus next to her said. "Just because we are in the army and killed him. There, I said it! We won't tell our superiors and you know that. Just tell the truth."

"I...I don't understand it! Really! What are you talking about!"

Brutus stood up, right before Ruth's face. "I saw you. I saw you the night he was taken."

"Were you took him", Athena corrected. "YOU and Titus took him."

Brutus swallowed his spit. "The night we took him, fine. That night, I saw you. You were there. Just standing in the dark. Why?"

"Wasn't there. Don't know what you're taking 'bout."

"We a know that you despised the government, Ruth", Titus said, going closer to her. "Wasn't a secret. YOU were the one getting in trouble with the law."

Ruth stepped back again. "Normally, yes. But this time...he decided to do his own thing."

His own thing, Athena repeated it mockingly in her mind. It was like an insult to her, like she burnt his grave, that didn't even exist yet.

Athena stood up with a jump, walking to Ruth and stopping just a moment before reaching her face.

"Oh come on, Ruth, really? After all he did for you? You let him die as a criminal! We all know that he never left you, he was always by your side, even in your darkest times! You know how I think this went?"

She didn't waited for a respond.

"I think", she started. "It was you. Like it's always you. You fucked up, like you always do, you had a government conspiracy like you always do and somehow, someone heard it. They went to the meeting and he noticed it and offered to switch places with you, so that you don't have to go jail for it again. Wasn't it like that?"

Athena could hear how Ruth swallowed her spit.

"No, it wasn't."

She looked her in her eyes, even if she wasn't sure what she was looking for. Guilt? Conformation? The answer to why?

Athena turned her back on Ruth and sat down again.

"Did...you all think it?", she asked. "I mean...that it was me who should have died today?"

No answer, it was a silent conformation.

After a felt eternity, Athena answered: "You shouldn't have to die it's just...."

"He should've live?"

Silence again but Athena knew that if they could, they would've make the loudest "YES" in the world.

Instead they all simultaneously looked up, looked up to see the stars, to find him between them but Athena already knew that he wouldn't be there.

When they were younger, he told her that although the stars are beautiful to look at, they are no home for him.

"Why though?", she asked him back then.

He just shrugged and looked at her. "When I would live there, I would forget you and anything else on earth! What would be a greater punishment then forgetting life and the people you love?"

Back then, when both of them were dump and naive and twelve, she didn't understand what he meant. But now she does.

Still, when she looked up, she hoped to see him there, for him not to be completely gone, for him to dance with joy and for him not to know how each of his friends got eaten alive

by guilt.