“We are gathered here today before the eyes of justice, which so graciously offer to show us the errors and deviations which we cannot see in ourselves; to look upon us, unclouded by judgment or personal bias, and see within where the truth lies. Regardless of the verdict rendered today, know that it is delivered without malice; it is solely because we wish to preserve this garden for our children that we must sometimes prune it.”

The judge concluded his speech and reclined back into a great leather chair before the bench. All inside had been waiting an anxious hour for him, Judge Rudolf, to make his appearance. There was a palpable electricity in the air, despite the fact that euthanasia hearings were routine and happened several times a week in this district. Most of them were foregone conclusions; proceedings put on for the illusion of something being done, but it was a different case with those that came from superscrapers or other very affluent circles— they had a chance— and thus, it was excellent theater.

The courtroom was packed by the time Aster found the strength to turn around and observe it. Over a hundred faces, she estimated, must have looked back at her, and— feeling her heart sink at the sight— turned back around. She was consumed in a horrendous figure eight of thought that stemmed from her having to take the stand later that day. A tumult of contradictory thoughts left her unsure of her position, and the number of people she had just seen behind her had left a sheen of numbing anxiety over her entire mind. Getting up on that stand was as impossible as gazing at the sun and retaining your vision. Yet nobody listened. Nobody would hear of Aster refusing to take the stand; nobody paid any mind to the significance of her anxiety or treated it as anything other than something to get over.

She felt she was going to go insane. Her morning, begun very early and before the sun had even fully risen (an occurrence rarely before seen in Aster's adult life), had been one muddled blur of hustling through checkpoint after checkpoint, interviews with party officials, and a two-hour wait in the courtroom under the never-wavering gaze of police sentry, which did as much to unravel Aster's grip on herself as did all of the considerations weighing down upon her.

Everywhere she looked— and everywhere she didn't— there were cameras, microphones, and mood analyzers that scoured every single inch of the room and building. There was a banner that hung in the courtroom which stated “Privacy is Not a Virtue.” She squirmed under the blanketed glare, and not a muscle moved in her face or in her body that wasn't directed intentionally, unnatural and full of awkwardness.

The morning had a similar effect on her father, who, having begun the day with a surprising store of candor and energy pulled from that reserve maintained for significant life events, had now seemed to have withered and was slow in his motions, like he was desperately searching for that energy once again. Aster looked over at him time and again, and he always made sure to put on a show for her, replying to her glance with a strong smile, which Aster knew was affected, but still took encouragement from.

Dahlia, however, was radiant. She woke up like one on Christmas, feeding off of her father's earlier optimism like a stove consumed coal. She was absolutely adamant that her mother would be freed, and at every opportunity declared her unwavering faith in both the justice of the state and in the trustworthiness of Marienne, who was to be one of the prime speakers in Margreta's case.

Also in attendance were Aster and Dahlia's Aunt Margot, the exceedingly wealthy heiress of one of the last dating app companies. Aunt Margot was a stout, towering matriarch of sixty-something, whose booming voice and aggressive demeanor made Aster cherish the fact that she lived halfway across the world, and thus never saw them, as one of the only lucky breaks she had ever received in her life. Aunt Margot was joined by several other members of Aster's maternal family, which she represented, while her father headed the group of Aster's paternal relations who were close to Margreta. This was the way euthanasia hearings worked, she had been told. They were different than normal court proceedings, which although both questioned every person the defendant had made contact with within the previous year, euthanasia hearings put special emphasis on having one's immediate relatives vouch for or deny the benefit they offered society. This was, as told to her by the handful of officials she encountered that morning, to help cultivate a stronger society.

What society is there to strengthen? Aster thought in a daze as the chatter resumed around her following the judge's speech. Excited faces were in abundance and nay a voice could be distinguished from among the clamor. To Aster's left was the jury; the loudest portion of the court, who were composed of randomly selected party members who took great relish in treating their box like a spectator stand.

She looked at them with utter disgust, then pulled her eyes away. There was a dull, whirling sensation in Aster's brain. Her quickness of mind felt blunted; covered, as though she were peering through the world from beneath a silk shawl. Fucking bitch, she hissed in her thoughts. Yet again Marienne had brought nothing but more misery to her life and left her with the echo of that horrid, mysterious memory.

That memory was still oscillating within, still calling her attention to it with its vivid and grotesque scenes of what she did not know. She remembered them clearly— the depiction of them in the drug— but it was like recollecting the pages of a dream. They were disoriented and made no sense to her, but she couldn't shake them off— it felt like they were strumming a chord deep inside her, like there was some material weight to the recollections.

She shuddered thinking about the experience again. It had continued for an hour after Marienne left, her father said judging by her cries, though to Aster it had felt like days. Devoid of Marienne's guidance the scene had stopped changing, and the dead boy lay for what seemed an eternity beside her, fading away softly but not before his image was scorched into mind's eye.

What had Marienne done to her? What had she found? And most of all— the question which chilled her and her father to the bone— what made her renounce Aster's sessions, and hand them over to somebody new?

It spelled nothing good, Aster knew. And it only deepened her hatred of her sister, who was still glowing as strongly as ever in her admiration of that vile, wretched person. She sneered with disgust at the empty ignorance Dahlia exhibited when she discussed Marienne in front of their father, who seemed even more distraught over her than Aster, though how that was possible she did not know. She had resolved to fight her should she mention her again, but luckily their whirlwind trip to the courthouse left her with no time to continue.

Amongst this dullness of the brain, Aster felt herself falling into the grasp of sleepiness, only kept awake by the situation around her. She and her father had scarcely slept in the days leading up to the trial. He in particular took a marked downward shift that could only be described by Aster as having plummeted off a cliff. Not even Dahlia, radiant in her love of the state could be buoyed by that zeal to ignore the gaunt shallowness that was now coming over their father's face. His eyes were almost as dark as Aster's, now.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"There is true evil, everywhere you look," he said to her, hoarsely, one morning a few days ago. It was unprompted and not followed up. Aster received it with deep alarm and struggled to figure out what it meant. She could not help but feel she was in a life raft gliding over some giant, inexplicable mass, known to everyone but her. The answer to it was there in her father's eyes; in the way he beheld her with fear; she just didn't know how to read it.

—

The family's planned defense (as was rehearsed rigorously the past week out of earshot of any listening devices) was to corner the jury into a position where the very act of condemning Margreta to death could only be seen as treason against the state. By playing up Margreta's past as a prominent figurehead in AI ethics, wherein she served at many of the corporations that formed the revolutionary council, they could make it so that the jury, composed of nothing but sycophants, would rather acquit than poison the party.

This effort was to be spearheaded by Aunt Margot, the first notable personage to take the stand. She would speak to Margreta's career achievements before and after the revolution, while Dahlia, following, would evidence the work she had done with extra-curricular political activities— particularly in helping Dahlia herself join the Sunshines. Finally, Noah and then lastly Aster would put a sensitive touch on the case, showcasing Margreta as a caring member of society whom only a band of monsters could think to execute.

Aster, however, was swimming in doubts and had nothing to cling to. She drifted through the week of family rehearsals only half paying attention to anything that was said, and was so overwhelmed with confusion on her position and devoid of assuredness that she wavered like a tree in the wind, utterly unsure whether her mother deserved her defense or if she was evil for even thinking of forsaking her.

But it was not easy to decide which was which, nor was it at all clear. Aster's life since late childhood was built on a familial bedrock of what she used to believe included an unshakable, unfaltering hatred of her mother; a reciprocal loathing. They never saw eye-to-eye, and Margreta's oppressive, sometimes physically abusive behavior convinced Aster that there was no love to be found; that she was merely a trial Aster had to endure for seemingly ever. As the blind once lived without sight, and as burn victims lived an existence of omnipresent, eternal pain, Aster believed fully that Margreta was just her cross to bear.

And yet, this belief now rested on no foundation. Like a million bits of torn letter scattered to the wind, so many justifications, arguments, and contradictions flew this way and that, leaving Aster within a muddled web of deeply convoluted feelings. Did she hate her? Did she love her? Where did the truth lie within that deep gradient of filial sentiment, if there was any true truth to be gleaned at all?

Aster at least thought that whatever it was, it didn't go as far as love. She did not feel thoughts of her mother, try as she might, warming her chest in the same way that thoughts of her father or Sylvia did; but she couldn't feel an absence of anything, either. This thought infuriated Aster, causing her cheeks to light up in a deep, angry blush. How, after all she had done to her, could she have Aster still care for her?

It's not fucking fair! If anybody is deserving of this, wouldn't it be her? She's never been there; she's hit me, she's made fun of my dreams, she's yelled. She's made it so fucking difficult to live! I leave my room with a weight on my chest; I leave a prisoner in my own home! I'm scared to death of her confronting me, and directing whatever anger she feels that day towards me.

Is it so much to ask? What is so wrong with me? So what I'm weird; so what I like old music! Does it really justify treating me like fucking shit?! They all say she loved me, but how is that true when I've never known anything but hate for her? If it were true my body wouldn't be coded to hate her; it's in my instinct, it's in my blood. How can I go against my blood and defend her? —Yet, how can I spill my own blood?

And thus Aster continued to drift from one position to the next, never settling fully on a specific point but harvesting all the stress and anxiety that comes from intense self-reflection. Judge Rudolf was now reading to himself several items concerning the case, and there was a general commotion as first this staff member and then that one raced to and fro. Robot security sentries made their way up and down the aisle, and patrolled the hallway as the order was given to close the court— the hearing was now officially ready to commence.

Aster felt a noxious lurch in her stomach as the stately doors glided closed and locked. In looking back at them she again saw the large crowd, which to her complete horror had only increased in size since she last looked at it. She nearly passed out from the sight and immediately began to perspire as her body pleaded desperately for an escape.

But there was no fleeing. The sentries locked the gates to each audience box, and eyes scoured everywhere one could see.

I showed her my favorite song, Aster suddenly thought, recalling a moment from her early childhood. She was six years old and was utterly delighted with a tune her father had shown her. Aster listened and danced to it relentlessly, like a little doll with a battery pulling its reserve from the sun. She cherished it and it made her happy beyond compare, so it was only natural she would share it with her mother. She ran to her one day when she came home from wherever she had been, and was animated. Her father had been playing the song on loop for her, and she wished to show her mother her dance moves. This was interspersed with the disorganized, excited ramblings typical of young children, where she declared emphatically that she would learn the guitar and 'be a rockstar'.

Margreta looked at her with absent eyes and scowled upon hearing the song emanating from her husband's study.

“Mom, listen!” Aster said excitedly.

She did not.

“Stop fucking around,” is all she said. And walked away.

—

Looking back on their relationship she saw nothing but abject misery. Broken moods and discarded feelings littered her memories like the trail of carnage left behind a razed town, and nowhere did a glimmer of optimism even dare to shine.

If her recollections of her mother were people they'd be maimed and ill folk who straggled along the side of the road, looking up at passersby with broken, jealous eyes, envious of the able-bodies who passed them. Margreta was that who razed, and Aster was the broken townsfolk.

Yes! she suddenly cried in her mind, with fire in her belly. It wasn't wrong! It was justice! So long as she didn't expressly forsake her, she couldn't blame herself for feeling what she did. She became excited; the chains of doubt gnawing into her skin were suddenly loosened, and she felt a delirious eagerness overcome her.

And then, a call was heard. Every head in the room turned to the back right corner, where another heavily fortified door was gliding silently open. Several officers exited, and behind them followed a sight that stripped the color from Aster's world.

A pained cry was drawn from her father, lurching as though stabbed as he collapsed his head into his hands. Dahlia, upon seeing his reaction and overcome by her own utter revulsion broke into hysterical sobs as well. Aster looked at them, numb, and then back at the sight floating before the courtroom, walking silently and shakily to the stand as though the floor were made of clouds. There, Margreta sat, not appearing to know where she was. The fiery glint in her eyes Aster despised so much had fogged up, like a hot iron splashed with ice water. Her frame was emaciated, her cheeks were now sallow and sunken. What Aster saw before her was not the icon of hate she knew, but a pathetic, delicate frame that she could not bear to look at, much less hate.