Gravity

A themed, timed writing exercise.

Theme: A self-destructive trait. A recurring thought caused by it. A behavior caused by it. A feeling caused by it. Plus, a word given to you by the person sitting to your right.

Here's the one i randomly picked from the pile: 

Trait: The one who gives up

Thought: "Nothing is worthwhile".

Behavior: Stays in bed.

Feeling: Feels lethargic.

Word: Apocalypse 

1st prompt: Someone created this trait with good intention. (20 mins writing)

Amy had a sense this world was not the best place to be. After all, that was what her mom had been repeating to her since she was able to understand spoken words. And even before that, when she would rock her to sleep with a sad lullaby about unicorns losing their horn, without even a rhyme in it:

Sleep my sweet child for the Apocalypse comes
Lay in your crib, nothing is worthwhile,
Rest in your dreams like a sad unicorn
who lost its horn to a foul decay

Her mom had made it so clear to her that fighting was useless, that Amy had taken it seriously to its extreme consequences. She had struggled learning to walk, because where would she go? As mom said, nowhere was worth it. Mom perfectly understood her difficulty, so she provided her with a motorized exoskeleton, which would take her everywhere she needed to go, when she didn't just stay in bed all day. As for her, the mom, she spent her days in the lab, and came back at night, if night is what you'd call it, not ready to deal with her child, except for singing to her about hornless unicorns and cursing the bad effects of low gravity. Because it was clearly that, the minimal gravity on Psyche, that had caused her daughter's muscles and bones to fail their development. What else could it have been? She'd given her all the vitamins and supplements! Amy would just swallow them as one swallows a gulp of recycled water: nothing but H2O, bare survival. And even that, so dependent on their unreliable technology that many settlements had failed simply because they died of thirst. That was the case for Io, and Pallas, and even the guys down on Titan: can't drink liquid methane, after all.

2nd prompt: Something or someone changes it for the best (20 mins writing)

Amy was going down one of the main corridors, her exoskeleton whirring mechanically as she was headed to the main classroom. There was going to be a lesson on new fungi farming technologies, and this eminent professor was going to share their promising experiences on Mars. She hadn't really felt like going. Like most of her days, she'd rather have stayed in bed, but the weight of her long gone mother's last name had pushed her to get into her mechanized movement aid, and whirr down the corridor.

Amy Green, the daughter of professor Laura Green, who had saved the whole colony on Psyche and many more from starvation when the virus had spread, brought everywhere by asymptomatic lab rats, and had destroyed all the hydroponics. Amy Green, in her bulky outer shell, who had long ago stopped to believe in unicorns and fairy tales, and who knew that only science was going to divert the Apocalypse. She got into the room, positioned herself in the first row of seats, commanded her mechanical butt and spine to deposit her on the chair. She looked at the eminent professor up on the podium, getting ready to deliver his speech. And she saw a young man roughly her age, perhaps a few years older, but surely not the old fart she was expecting. And he was encased in a mechanized shell pretty much like her own. He looked at her, and smiled.

- Amy Green, I suppose? - he smiled, not only with his lips, but with his eyes, and Amy could feel his heart smiling too, and her own, to her surprise.

- That's me indeed. And you are Professor Howl?

- Indeed. And this - and he glanced around his body - is my Mecha. I designed it myself.

- Oh, but you have more gravity on Mars! How did this happen to you?

- Gravity has nothing to do with it! It happens to those who are taught early on that it is all worthless. 

She blushed. He went on: - And then when they are put in front of the final choice, they realize it is indeed more than worth it, but it is late. Late for bone growth, late for muscle development. But not late for our brains to be put to good use. Right?

The room was filling with people, and Amy felt all their eyes on her, as if she was some rare sight, someone other than the usual Amy Green, who had taken over her mother's studies and figured out a way to synthesize edibles in a new type of vat. But what they were really looking at, with benevolent eyes and not so well hidden smiles, was the two of them, encased in their past mistakes, like two unicorns finally regrowing their horns.

3rd prompt: Start with the sentence "Fuck it! I'm done with this shit!" (20 mins writing)

- Fuck it! I'm done with this shit! - Amy threw the hypodermic away, and it crashed on the wall of their cabin. The impact shattered it and the amber liquid floated in a wiggly sphere being slowly pulled to the recycler vent.

- Why did you do that? - asked Lucius, still not completely awake.

- It makes me sick! It makes my whole body hurt! It makes me ache and twitch! I hate it!

- Oh, come on, I don't like it either, but see the bright side: it works! It has worked on many already! We could be going down to the planet in a few years! See a real morning, a real sunset. Perhaps even on the beach. Wouldn't you want to do it?

- It's not worth it!

- I think it is.

- Then you go on. I'm done with it.

She turned around, faced the wall, adjusted her strap and made it clear she was going back to sleep. 

Lucius Howl shook his head, a tiny drop of H2O with some salts and proteins escaping from the side of his eye as his hypodermal injected him and he felt the pain starting. In every bone, in every muscle.

Why does everything worth it have to be conquered with pain? He wondered. But then he thought again of the many holos they had grown up with: the hypnotic sound of waves, the rosy sky and the sun like a glowing scoop of strawberry ice cream dropping in a large bowl of blue spirits. He really wanted to see it, and he knew his wife wanted it too. He prepared another dose for her.

- Amy, just do it. Don't you want to get rid of those bulky shells?

Their exoskeletons were neatly strapped to the bulkhead, no need for those in zero G. 

- Do you think we could run on the beach?

- I'm sure we can. Others did it already, you saw them too!

- Six more years? - she groaned.

- Only six. We'll celebrate your 40th with some sex on the beach, in all possible senses, I promise.

She kissed him, sighed and presented her arm to the needle.

Then the meteorite hit.