In the End (Starbounders) by Demitria Lunetta

yells. “I don’t hold none with murderers!”
    Everyone is screaming and I’m not sure what is happening until I look down. A man has been released out of the prison through a side door below us. He takes a few steps away from the wall, stunned, then runs back, trying to get inside.
    “The people’s calls will bring the Floraes,” Jacks says.
    “ This is his trial?” I shout.
    “This is Fort Black justice.”
    The man is still at the door, banging desperately. His mouth is moving, and I reach up to my ear to turn on the sound amplifier.
    “Please,” the man begs. “Please let me back in. I’ll do anything.” He falls to his knees, sobbing.
    A Florae appears on the rise across from us, pausing at the same housing development I rested at before approaching Fort Black. I don’t have my Guardian glasses, so it’s just a speck, but I know what it is by how quickly it moves as it jumps from the edge of the development down to and across the highway. More people have spotted it, and the chanting becomes more frenzied. Closer it speeds, and still the man blubbers next to the door.
    “Run!” I scream, my voice lost in the crowd. But of course it’s too late. The Florae hits him so hard, the man slams into the wall and bounces off it. He tries to push the Florae away, but it’s already feeding on his flesh. Its claws secure in his sides, its face in his stomach.
    Before I can turn off my amplifier, I hear gurgling as blood spills from the man’s mouth. Then a gunshot sounds and the Florae lies still, its head blown open into the mess of the man’s stomach. Another gunshot, and the man’s body twitches, blood pooling around what is left of his head.
    Some people stick around to watch the guards pick off the other Floraes attracted by the noise and blood, but, with the spectacle over, most of the crowd slips back into the prison.
    “That was barbaric,” I say at last.
    Jacks doesn’t answer, but drops his arms, allowing me some space.
    There is another volley of shots—more Floraes, probably—but I don’t look for them. I continue to stare at the remains of the man below us.
    “In the place I was before,” I say, “they would banish people sometimes, but they wouldn’t watch gleefully while the person was devoured.”
    After a moment Jacks asks, “And does that make it better, not watching?”
    I turn to face him.
    “No. I guess not.”
    He nods. “Shutting your eyes doesn’t make you a better person. It just makes you a coward. You’ll notice my uncle didn’t watch the man he sentenced to death actually die. He turned away.”
    I close my eyes and think of Dr. Reynolds. He had the same depravity as the crowd, the same delight in doling out punishment for transgressions, real and imagined. I open my eyes again, looking at Jacks. I’m so tired of running. I so desperately want to trust him, to have a real friend.
    “I shouldn’t have brought ya here,” he says, his tone filled with concern, his accent more pronounced.
    “No. I . . . was thinking about the Ward.”
    “You talked about the Ward before, then you freaked the hell out. Over a hospital?”
    I shake my head. “No, it only looked like a hospital.”
    He doesn’t say anything, just waits for me to go on.
    “I . . .” I’m trembling, but I want to tell him. I have to. “I was placed in the Ward, a sort of institution . . . because I questioned the rules of the society I was living in. But when I was in the Ward”—I pause for a moment—“there was a girl I knew . . . I didn’t even like her, but she didn’t deserve what they did to her. They damaged her beyond repair.”
    I picture Amber’s lobotomy scar. The dead look in her eyes.
    “What happened to her?”
    “They didn’t kill her, but they destroyed everything that she was. They . . . unmade her.” I stare down at my shaking hands. I grasp them behind my back, trying to hide them.
    “Were they going to do the same to you?”
    I swallow hard and nod.