Melody

Once in the dying heart of a planet in a galaxy unbeknownst to the broad horizons of the universe, a man whose skin was so cold to the touch that it could freeze the palms of anyone laid in the center of the lands with a keen conscience to heal all those afflicted with virulent sickness. The man eagerly awaited those who sought him to guide them to health, but little did he know that the winds of the planet only blew around his spirits. Loneliness would soon strike the heart of the man, as his quest for curing the afflicted was rendered futile. The violet sands of the planet scurried into the shadows, for no man or woman could tend to their soil.

Until one day, an unidentified beacon of hope struck the violet planet. An unknown object that the man viewed as a comet infused with azure flames struck the opposite side of a sandy landscape where life was all but dissipated. He traveled endlessly through the sands for weeks, his feet mangled and sensitive to the touch of the shifting sands beneath his toes.

When he was hungry, he froze the sands and crunched through it like ice. When he was thirsty, he melted his ice into pure water, where he indulged in a light drink for survival. The man's thriving heartbeat endlessly and quenched for the comet's arrival, for he had hoped it could bring him solace from his loneliness.

After endless days and nights, the bitter-skinned man arrived at the comet's crash site. Indents of scorching flames and melted sands burned through the unidentified object's edges. However, it was not a comet; a space pod sent from another galaxy was the cause of the crash. The man paid closer attention and noticed a blazing black striped tiger with forearms and hind legs so powerful it could murder prey with a single slash of its claws. Its amber eyes gleamed in the twinkling light of the stars ascending above them. The docile feline quickly took notice of the man's chilling aura and scrambled to greet it with the touch of its nose.

The man had no choice but to step away to prevent his icy touch from injuring the tiger. It was not afflicted with any sickness or plague, and a simple touch had a probability of it turning feral. He chose not to touch it, and instead, he utilized his abilities to create water to satiate the tiger's impending thirst. Even though the tiger was docile, it would viciously growl and pounce on the sands hoping to catch prey to eat.

Years passed with the man and the tiger, bonding closely to survive the planet's harsh nature. But while they grew, the planet naturally grew as well. Trees began forming on the surface of the planet. Rivers and dirt grew from the products of the land, and the planet began to naturally thrive and sustain itself. Life sprouted from deep within the planet's core, growing vegetation as food. Yet the man and tiger were the only beings who supported each other, for loneliness was their deepest and cruelest fear. The idea of separation only tore their fragile hearts apart, as one could not exist without the other.

The man utilized tools crafted from nature's creation to fashion himself paper in which he took notes regarding his exploration. Yet the majority of his journals described the tiger's claws when prying its food apart, or its fangs gnawing corn and vegetables for sustenance. No matter what happened, the man always described the tiger as a vicious predator who seeks meat. But he also envisioned the tiger as his son and kept his company dear to him.

An entire year passed, and the man began to grow distant from the tiger. He explored the sandy beaches of the shores on his own, the teeming jungle regions, and the mountainous vistas created by erosion from the sandy winds. The tiger believed the man would come back to visit its domain, for it believed that loneliness would strike the man's panged and fatigued heart with hopes for a reunion.

But the man never returned. The tiger grew lonely but never gave up hope. It set off on a year-long journey across the planet, surviving with nature's everlasting products based on the two's happiness. It had yearned to reunite with the man that saved his life by bringing it water.

Yet while they were separate, the planet began to slowly die and wither away like a rose without water. The separation of their companionship was enough for the planet to recognize the death of all life, which prompted the planet to lose all of its natural resources. The trees melted in the atmosphere. The waters were drained and soaked up by the violet sands, the mountains began crumbling, and the jungles were burning away. Yet no matter the danger, the tiger pressed on and fought against the disaster with its vicious and compassionate heart, seeking its partner at no matter the cost.

At last, the tiger reunited with its partner but was shocked to find him eating the remains of a withered leaf from a coconut tree while drinking the ice to sustain himself. But the water was not enough to satiate his appetite. He wanted meat. He longed for it. He wanted a meal that satisfied his impatience for travel, and after gazing at his partner, he knew exactly what he wanted from it.

The man and the tiger, once inseparable, leaped onto each other with one yearning for a reunion while the other wanted sustenance. As the tiger affectionately nudged the man's nose to express its deep love, its entire powerful body froze under the man's abilities and was rendered lifeless in a single second with a single touch. The man realized that the tiger could not be eaten, nor could it be brought back to life. Instead, the man wept as he slowly died from malnutrition. His body was preserved by the coldness of his skin, and when everything touched his deceased body, it froze despite his life being void.

Even after realizing that although the tiger was vicious, it had a heart of gold of wanting to bond and create the relationship that is sought. Even if it was an animal, its purpose was to unite.

Or, so they had thought. The tiger was nothing but a mere experiment to bring life from other planets. It was a test to see how long survival was. Governments from other planets, scientists who dedicated their lives to replicating life, and civilians who yearned for a home began to arrive on the planet that the man and the tiger once lived on. They realized that by the use of their precious bonds after studying man's journals, they could bring the planet back to life. The beauty that the man described in his journals could be resurrected, and the viciousness of the tiger was its name:

Planet Vicious. A planet teeming with life only capable of the bonds of the people. The violet sands vanished as more and more people arrived for sustenance. They treasured the fragility of nature and sought only to preserve it, rather than tamper it all.

I was one of these people, born in a family that resembled the pride and viciousness of the tiger's survival instincts. I always clutched my heart in anticipation of being the same as the tiger in the story of how Planet Vicious came to be, and I wanted to prove to the people that I was different and unique. And I was known for my gracious melodic voice, which others believed I was gifted the moment I stepped foot on Vicious. My melody gifted them with the bonds of survival as well, further extending their lifespan on the violet planet. I joined the people who wanted nothing but happiness to live forever in peace. Planet Vicious was a paradisal home for exploration and freedom.

But I was stopped as soon as word came from Earth that the combined efforts of a million other planets would create a new landscape fit for frolic, fun, and survival. I heard of their plans to arrive in Vicious to recruit those willing to test their new home. I supported the idea of expansion, but I never knew that what happened next would destroy our entire nation.

The people of the otherworldly planet attacked and razed our homes. They murdered people in cold blood for their own experiments and collected their bodies for preservation like cannibals. They sought the destruction of our world and crushed our lands to the bone. My melody was useless to preserve those bonds, and the planet was failing to keep up with the amount of desolation plagued across the world. These people, labeled as Genesis, were filled with the hopes of their machines to only destroy and steal from us. They ruined the sanctity and purpose of the planet's survival.

They even found the fabled man whose skin was frozen to touch. They used his body as a cooling agent to provide equilibrium to the machines that they've built on the lands to drain the planet of its resources. Heated wires were attached to the man's body to provide that temperature diffusion, and the vileness of Genesis only made me want to seek vengeance for their actions.

I was the only one in my family surviving on the desolate planet. I gathered my hatred and invaded their technological buildings, seeking to find the truth behind their raze. When I realized that they had planned to drain the planet and kill all of its people for experimentation purposes, I wanted to know more about the reason why. I had to. I couldn't let history die out.

Aries. The landscape that they had made required more soil and sustenance. They had to defile the man that created such a beautiful and serene violet landscape, along with the tiger with a heart of gold to create land. It was land without a unique entry or story behind it, land that was only advertised to be something beautiful without making any sense behind it. It was all for appearance-sake. On the surface, it was a paradise, but those who died fighting were created this plague. How can something be so beautiful, but have the history of death behind it? How could those heartless people live with that in mind?

I could not let this happen. I invaded Genesis, stole some of their notes and prototype machines, and successfully escaped. The more I studied, the more I wanted to get revenge for what they did to my planet. After years of studying, I discovered a concoction; a combination of metal alloys in creating a portable and single smart machine that had the power to survive, much like the planet's motto. I dubbed it the nanomachine, and I spent countless days and nights perfecting it into a suit that I could use to bring all of Genesis down. With more and more experiments and nights without sleep, I perfected the first nanosuit ever made. Equipped with it, I invaded Genesis's lands and attempted to destroy everything in my wake.

I had been angry for so long that this euphoria awakened the killer within me. No longer was my life about bringing peace with my melody, but it was about bringing destruction for myself. My vision was clouded, and my mind failed to withstand my urges to destroy. I was defeated by a rogue machine that struck me down and I remember the voices that greeted me with my head splattered against the cold metallic surfaces.

"Lucia, my dear…" That voice only brought me more seething rage. "Why, what a marvelous suit you have. Why waste your life fighting when you can be one of us? Why fight?"

"You destroyed my home, all for the sake of what? Aries?" I cried.

"We did it for the future, my love. And with your suit, perhaps we shall bring the survival of our people across the entire galaxy. Planet after planet, we shall bring solace! And you shall watch it all happen. Your brilliance lies with us. What do you say?"

What else could I say with a broken heart and smile? I had no other option but to accept and leave Vicious behind. They trained me to become a monster for their project, draining and sucking the life out of other planets unbeknownst to my view to perfect soil, nature, animals, and growth. Aries had just begun, and I was responsible for it all. My suit, my very own pride, and rage-filled with the tiger's heart were now vulnerable and tainted by Genesis and the corporate universe. I was defiled and taken apart without a single choice. They stole everything from me and made it their own. Even now, they have stolen what I have created in response to their callousness.

I had to escape it all. I left it all behind and fashioned my own life on the landscape that I seek to destroy. All I want is for them to pay for what they've done. But for the first few months, I laid endlessly in darkness clutching my heart and praying to the gods that my melody could heal once more instead of destroying.

What was the entire point of the man and the tiger's bond together if their memories were burned to the ground by their invaders? How could they use the tiger for their own testing grounds while the man suffered from loneliness? With the only succor he received in his short life, it ended with the bitterness of hostility. The man's heart only proved his wrongdoings, and the tiger's affection was the key to preserving their bonds. Yet it was punished.

It was punished, and I couldn't take it anymore. I had to destroy. I had to destroy what took me away from my homes, and I needed to send a message to the world that I, Lucia Melody, had the power to tear it all down to the ground. With the people that I've gathered from backgrounds seeking to fight for the same cause, we would show Genesis and the land of Aries what it means to be alive. My machines, my inventions, and my prowess would go on to be the final straw in stopping this atrocity of planetary devastation. The bonds that the man and the tiger made would not go without remorse. Their deaths would not be in vain, and the tiger would be free from his chains.

And my vengeance is obsolete.