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La, La… La la la la la.
I sing to distract myself from the aching pains of my surface. My Earthlings hunt down more animals, cutting down more trees, but this time I don’t mind that.
I feel them moving. Sinking into my surface for food. Like plants that don’t belong. Invasive. Monsters. I feel the need to scream when one roots itself into my surface, thousands of meters down.
I’m scared. And they know it. It knows it. I can feel them watching me, my every move is monitored by that… thing that calls itself a planet. It’s not. It’s definitely fucking not.
Screaming hurts my core, I feel it trying to break free of my crust, wanting to overfill and break the surface tension. Flood the lands of liquid lava that will never be able to stop spreading.
I want to scream.
I need to scream.
I can’t feel myself.
All I see is black.
He is watching me.
Neptune.
Neptune!
I can go see Neptune about this. Maybe he can… I can’t leave my orbit. He’s watching me, he’ll know I have left. Damnit. Neptune, please… Hear my call.
Neptune!
The urge to scream died down, only replaced by sudden tears flooding my eyes. Even the tears hurt, and Luna looks worried more than before.
He's never seen me cry. Even in the harshest of pain, he never sees me cry.
This is much more than my pain…
I can’t do anything other than sob. I feel my Earthlings dying out one by one, each of those monsters hurting more and more by the second. All across my surface, like an itch you can’t scratch. It hurts…
It all fucking hurts.
Luna wants to help, I know he does. He’s been wanting to help, but there’s no way of helping this. He knows it. Unfortunate.
Please… Neptune!—
“Earth,” I hear from in front of me, Neptune had suddenly gotten to my orbit pretty quickly. I expect him to take a lot longer.
The tears just increased upon seeing him, “Neptune…”
“Shh,” Neptune shushes, pulling me into his gravity. The coldness of his surface emits comfort, a soft numbness to the pains on my surface. “Rest for a while.”
I want a hug… I want comfort.
Where is Jupiter… Saturn?
Doesn’t matter… Neptune is here.
“It hurts, Neptune…”
“I know it does, Earth. I’m hurting, too. We’ll try to figure something out. I promise you, okay? Just give me more time.”
“Okay…”
We’ve wasted enough time being mutated that even Jupiter and Saturn left the solar system. Left us to deal with this mess.
“Remember… Jupiter and Saturn?”
Neptune tensed up, “I do. I’m trying to find them. Ir— He has them somewhere.”
I perked up, “Has them…? I thought… they left us…”
“No! No, they would never. He knows they can be a threat, so he’s trying to get rid of them. But I’m sure they’re fine right now.”
“Oh…”
The coldness starts to become too much, freezing points at my equator. I lean off of Neptune, letting him know I’m fine now. He lets go of me with his gravity, backing up so he doesn’t influence my own gravity.
I wonder, throughout all this mess, will it ever end? Will he ever get bored of us?
“Neptune… when will it get better?”
“I don’t know…”
No one does.
“…I really don’t know…”
It’s not your fault, Neptune.
“I’m sorry, Earth, I have to go back.”
“Wait, no— Neptune-“
“I’m sorry. Uranus needs me. I need to go. I’ll be back later, I promise.”
“Neptune! Please, no! Neptune!”
Before I knew it, Neptune was gone. Back passed the asteroid belt, disappearing beyond the distance of the two belts. I can’t see that far, not that I want to. Not from what happened to Uranus.
He almost…
“Neptune!!”
“Earth… He said he’ll be back. He promised, okay?” Luna says.
“But… It hurts… It's hurting again… Luna… It all hurts!” I cry. I want to throw an asteroid at something.
“I know… I’m so sorry.”
…
Scream.
“No… no no no nonononono—“
“Earth?”
Scream!
“No! No! I can't! It’ll alert him!”
SCREAM!
…
…
“I’ll put you out.”
“Earth? What’re you saying?”
I don’t know. This isn’t me.
“Why not make Earth suffer more?”
Luna backed up.
“Earth? Are you… okay? We can go get Venus- or- or Mars? H-How does visiting Mars sound…?” Luna stuttered, trying to escape my gravity as I kept getting closer to him. I don’t know what’s going on, I can’t move myself on my own will.
Luna, you need to leave! I can't speak.
Luna…
Suddenly there was an asteroid in my hands, where did it come from? What am I going to use it for? Wait— No. Luna!
Luna, you have to go! Please!
Damnit! This is his doing! He’s controlling me! Luna, please listen to me!
I can’t move. I can’t stop this. Help.
Set me free, damnit. I need to be set free.
I don’t want to hurt Luna…
… If he wants to hurt Luna and take him away from me. Then I’ll just return the favor.
Luna looked terrified, watching as the asteroid was lifting up with my gravity and taken down quickly to be thrown against Luna’s surface. But that impact never came. The atmosphere was stronger, and I had taken back control - somewhat.
“L-Luna! Leave, now!”
“B-but… you’ll get hurt if you let me go!”
“And you’ll get killed if you stay here.”
… Luna saw the struggle I was in to regain control of my own body, he was forcing his powers against me, to attempt to get me to release him. But he will not control me. I refuse to be controlled by a burnt potato.
But Luna did not leave, and it was starting to annoy me that he wasn’t listening to me. That terrified look on his face suddenly morphed into one of determination. And honestly, I was scared of what was about to happen. Luna must have some idea in mind to help me, right?
“Luna…?”
“Why must we suffer this, Earth?”
“I-I don’t… know… What’re you getting at, Luna?”
“You won’t wake up for a few million years, but I’m sure by then that he will be gone. I’ll miss you, Mercury, and I love you very much, Earth.”
I could see that he was trying to slowly approach me, and I understood what he was trying to do. Save us both from this nightmare. To set us both free. But why this specific way? I don’t want— too close!
“Luna, wait— Luna, wait! That’s not how this works! LUNA!”
The asteroid was forgotten, and I could feel that I was given back my body. He must be angry right now, but it’s far too late. Luna has set this course already.
And the only thing that was heard for eons was my blood curdling scream that even Neptune heard from far beyond the Kuiper Belt. The Sun saw this happen, Mercury as well, and he was already crying. Venus and Mars heard the scream, and saw what had happened to us.
“EARTH!” I heard it, it was muffled, but it was there. The blurry images of Venus and Mars in front of me. But the liquid spewing out of my core onto my surface was starting to blind me, and burn me.
Then I hear— “Move away from him.”
It sent chills down my burning core, making me shudder with the lava on my surface. But I saw how Venus and Mars did not move at all from where they were.
“I said mov—!”
“I think it’s time for you to stop playing with my planets, Iris!” The Sun’s voice roared.
He’d gotten too close. He knew to stay away because the Sun couldn’t reach him. But he’s gotten too close now, and it’s over for him. Because of me and Luna.
I saw the blinding light of the solar flare, I wanted to smile knowing that Iris was gone now. Hopefully. But everything still hurts like shit and my core beating within my ears was hurting.
I felt Venus’ hand on my face, the melting lava pouring out didn’t affect him much. Being the hottest planet, he can withstand the hottest temperatures. Crying hurt, the mixture of lava and tears burned.
“Earth,” Venus said. Mars was with him, sad and worried for me.
“Is… he… gone?” I ask weakly.
Mars smiled, “Yeah. We’re free.”
That’s all I need.
“I’m… glad…”
Venus shushed me, “Rest, Earth. We’ll see you soon.”
“Yeah… I’ll… see you… later…”
“Yeah, see you later.”
Iris was using me to get to the Sun, to get rid of the one thing that was able to hurt him. Due to the mutations on my surface, Iris was able to control my body through the monsters on my surface, because of how they would root themselves in my surface as a joystick for Iris to control me with, like a game to him.
Since he couldn’t get close to the Sun for this reason. Neptune had accidentally brought me past the asteroid belt to meet his “friend” back then, getting me mutated but he didn’t know what was going on. Even Neptune didn’t understand it when he got mutated, too.
Uranus almost died because of this, Jupiter and Saturn went missing due to Iris, and Neptune was being used for everything. It all went to shit when Iris came into the picture.
Luna knew what he was doing. He understood the situation, and took advantage of it to get rid of Iris. He knew I would be fine, that I would wake up fine. But… Luna won’t be there when I wake.
Luna… I love you, too, brother.
…
Neptune never came back…