Andrew Mackay - Pink Symphony

Tripp stared at the opened door, thinking over his response. “Yes, very good. Wool, let’s go.”

He waved Wool – and Jelly – along with him. Seconds later, they disappeared into the haze of white light...

They expected to see a ruined Botanix. Initially, that’s precisely what they saw.

Rows of plants stood before them in various states of charcoaled destruction.

Wool looked to the left. Jelly’s sectioned-off area in the corner sat relatively unscathed from bomb’s blast.

“Some damage done. Seems we can salvage a lot of it,” Wool turned to Tripp and gasped. “Tripp?”

He stared dead-ahead, eyes bulging, unable to speak. She turned her head forward and saw what he was marveling at.

“Oh… my… God ,” she exclaimed. “It’s… beautiful .”

Jelly turned her head. A puzzled expression on her face formed, along with her two humans.

“Good people,” Haloo’s voice chimed around them, “Welcome to life .”

The immediate vicinity of Botanix was as it always was. The walls, however, broke apart like a shattered toy fifty feet ahead of them.

The rows of plants subsided, adjacent to the walls.

The second half – the farthest from Tripp, Wool and Jelly – transformed into a magnificent utopia.

A blue sky with white clouds and flying birds. Where the ground sunk, a glorious beach front, complete with crystal white sand ran all the way up to the horizon.

Looking down, they saw the water filtration system pumping its wares into a beautiful lake of sparkling blue water.

Even the air was a pleasure to breathe.

Tripp closed his eyes and took in a lungful. “It’s heaven.” He exhaled slowly and rubbed his face, ensuring he wasn’t stuck in the middle of a particularly comforting dream.

Wool walked forward with Jelly in her hands, wanting to involve herself further. “Did we die? Is this heaven ?”

“No, this isn’t heaven,” Tripp whispered in quiet ecstasy. He walked alongside Wool, steadily approaching the end of the burnt plants. The glistening white sand crunched below their boots with every step, “Where are we?”

Haloo moved in front of them with a glorious grin on her face. She held her hand out, introducing the pair to the perfect rendition of life awaiting them.

“Where are we, Haloo?”

“Welcome… to Pink Symphony ,” Haloo moved her hand to the sprawling ocean to their left, “Where everything began. And where everything will end.”

Tripp fell to his knees in utter awe. He cupped the lukewarm sand in his hands and let it waterfall through his fingers.

All the blemishes and varicose veins that had formed through years of service in the American Star Fleet fell with it. A thorough and vital rejuvenation.

Jelly was less impressed. Her whiskers buzzed to life, as did her infinity claws. She dug them into the fabric of Wool’s inner-suit, “Meow.”

“Whoa, Jelly.”

The cat landed on the sand, finding it a little too hot for comfort. She bolted toward Haloo in a haze of fury.

“Hey, girl,” Haloo kept smiling and opened her arms. “Come to me. I have a gift for you. You like gifts, don’t you?”

“Hissss...”

Jelly kicked a bunch of sand into the air as she skidded on her claws. She had no intention of going anywhere near the woman.

“Oh,” Haloo pulled a dramatic and sad face. “Don’t you love me, anymore?”

“Hisss…”

Jelly bushed her tail and flapped it around in circles, certain that danger was close by.

Haloo fell to her knees and wept. Quite the theatrical performance, she began muttering to herself as if she was speaking to someone else, “But I tried. Really, I did.”

“Maaah,” Jelly knuckled down and sat on her hind legs ten feet away from Haloo. She took no pity on the poor woman.

“What’s she doing?” Wool turned her attention to a giant tree shooting up a hundred feet or so from the center of the ocean. “And what’s that?”

Streaks of pink lightning streaked across the sky as Haloo continued muttering to herself through her sobs. “She’s here, now. She’s here.”

The light breeze turned into a gale. The clouds bleached across the perfect sky like spilled paint hitting a canvas.

“Aww, no,” Haloo fell sideways to the sand and lifted her hands to her face. “Please, leave me to die in peace. Haven’t I done enough?”

“Haloo?” Tripp stepped forward in an attempt to help her. Jelly scowled at him and forced him to stop. “Jelly?”

The cat heaved and spluttered tearing the rip in her inner-suit apart. “Traaah… Traaah…”

“What’s going on, girl?” Wool watched Jelly tumble around on her side, clawing at her inner-suit. She wanted out of it as quickly as possible.

Haloo screamed through her tears and grabbed her lips in each hand. “Gnaawww…”

“Jesus Christ…” Tripp held Wool back as the woman lifted her lip over her nose, coughing a plume of pink gas across the sand. “Gwaaar…”

“Haloo!” Wool squealed, unable to watch.

“Treeh…” Jelly tore chunks of her inner-suit away with her claws in a feisty fit of anger. “Treep… Trep…”

Haloo’s shoulders hulked several inches above the ground. Her head and her body below the abdomen hung, suspended, as her inner-suit broke away.

“My G-God,” Tripp pushed Wool back. “Get back, get back. We need to get out of here.”

Suddenly, a classical tune emitted from the tree in the middle of the ocean, catching their attention.

It billowed at an increasingly high volume – enough to fill the air. Four, simple chords, twice repeated.

Da-da-da-dum . Da… da… da… dum .

“What the hell?” Tripp shouted over the gale and the music.

“The tree is singing?” Wool snapped, not knowing which way to turn. “What’s going on—”

Jelly squealed and shredded the last section of her suit. She sprang to her feet and exercised her infinity claws, wrenching them in and out.

She launched into the air and took two swipes at Haloo’s levitating body as it rose toward the sky. Her titanium claw caught the woman’s left ear, tearing the skin.

“Waaah!” Jelly screamed in a furious rage, unable to jump higher as Haloo’s body tilted to a halt twenty feet in the air.

“Oh, Jesus,” Tripp quipped. “Let’s get back to Beta, right now .”

“Jelly,” Wool let out an ambitious, final call of hope that Jelly would return with them.

It fell on deaf, furry ears.

Jelly thudded to the floor, pushing grains of sand away from her. She howled at Wool, terrifying her.

“No, no, no,” Wool threw Tripp’s hand from her forearm. “I’m not leaving her here—”

Jelly roared, negating the desire to be rescued. She’d grown a few inches, more resembling an orange panther than the common, domesticated cat.

Her growl was near adolescent in nature. Even her face had matured.

Jelly Anderson was… evolving .

Tripp and Wool’s attention was caught by a rumbling, buzzing noise shooting from the violent pinkish purple sky.

Haloo’s chest broke apart and emitted a pink beam of light into the heavens. The back of her head hung down, pushing her chest upwards. It was as if her heart and soul tried to escape from her body.

“Take me,” she screamed with a disconcertingly calm manner, “Take me home.”

The pink beam blasting from her body thickened and ruptured, seeming to imitate the launch of a spacecraft.

Her knees broke, flinging her legs behind her ass. The back of her head recoiled under the small of her back, snapping her body in two, shattering the bone.

Then, the beam carried her body into the sky and crashed to a close into an electric storm of thunder with the clouds.