From the vantage of her bedroom, Aster watched as her father, standing in the front doorway, talked at length with a uniformed man. The soft, nonjudgmental demeanor typical of his countenance was not present and shadows filled the signs of exhaustion that had formed in the last several hours. The two men were engaged in an intense discussion— one that was not without a few glances thrown towards Aster's direction. It was all over as far as Aster was concerned.

Her breakdown the night before had been the last straw for her mother— who, through only the sheer strength of her father and sister holding her back, had been prevented from strangling Aster.

The events that followed were a blur. Her mother had completely lost control and no attempt on the part of her father had been able to calm her down. She rambled and howled and threatened at length to kill Aster, as Dahlia wept and tried likewise to grab at any rational thought that may be floating around in the unhinged shell of her mother's mind, in hopes of pulling her back.

Aster had long since lost a commanding grip on her comprehension, and these terrible events— accumulating with ever greater speed and intensity— could only be perceived by her as one fit of a terribly grief-stricken mind in her exhausted, deluded state. She saw not a succession of events, but a dynamic portrait of woe and illness rolling out its tapestry in dedication to the fragility of the human state before her. Eventually their commotion led to neighbors calling security, during the fallout of which she saw her father weep for the second time in her life.

By the time her sore eyes opened, beams of morning were fluttering through their home, Dahlia was asleep on the couch, and her mother was nowhere to be found. Aster heard what sounded like the faint conversation of her father and an unfamiliar woman, and crawled to the end of her bed, opening her bedroom door to see who the visitor was. However, she nodded off without warning, only to wake up once again to the present scene of her father in the doorway, now talking to the man.

As she returned to some semblance of awareness, the terror of potential consequence from her failed meeting with the Vanguard filled her with an unimaginable, suffocating dread, doubly exacerbated at seeing the strange man in their doorway. There was some shred of relief in seeing that her mother was not in attendance for the conversation, but Aster knew that he could signify no good.

There was a deep, mournful feeling in watching them talk, for she had always trusted her father with her well-being. Each and every time her mother would threaten re-education, he had acted as a touchstone for reason and common sense. With more stubbornness and zeal than she had ever seen him show towards anything else in life, he would argue that their daughter would not be sent away. Her mother would scream and whip Dahlia, who was always at her side, into a fit, but he would not relent. He pushed himself to great lengths to always show his wife an alternative. Had he finally betrayed her? Had Aster finally become too much?

At that moment Aster looked up to find Dahlia standing in the doorway. She had just awoken, judging by her red and swollen eyes.

“It's your fault,” she muttered.

“—What?”

“What do you mean, 'what'?! She's gone because of you!” Dahlia screamed.

Aster looked at her sister in complete confusion, her mouth agape.

“I—”

“She was right! She was right about you! You only ever cause trouble for people because you're nuts, and now she's gone because of you! She's never coming back—”

“Dahlia!”

The two girls froze. Dahlia turned around, to see their father still standing near the front door. The uniformed man had left, and their father's attention was now fully on them.

“But—” Dahlia sputtered in response. She shook as tears streamed down her cheeks, the shock of their father's exclamation having rattled her so.

Aster had seldom heard him raise his voice in that way. Perhaps even, that was the first time she had ever heard him yell.

His expression struck her deeply. The look across his face was one of absolute discipline and firmness, of eyes desperately trying to mask something falling apart.

He proceeded towards them, at which point Dahlia fully descended into hysterics. He grabbed Dahlia's cheek, and pulled her face up to look at him as she wept.

“Dahlia, your sister will not be to blame for problems outside of her control.”

“What do you mean?! It's only because Aster was always such a brat to her that she went crazy!”

Their father said nothing in response. A look of total heartbreak replaced the expression of strict discipline, such that even Dahlia temporarily ceased her screaming in the face of its intensive aura of sadness.

“Dahlia. Get out of Aster's room, now.”

She obeyed begrudgingly and shuffled away to her room with deep, miserable sobs following her in procession.

He turned to look at the dazed girl who sat at the edge of her bed. Aster's face displayed total confusion, but with a notable lack of comprehension for anything that was going on. He glanced around the room, finding it odd how clean it suddenly appeared.

He sat down beside her, and let out a great sigh.

“Aster, your mother is going away to get some help. After last night, I'm sure you'll understand. It's not safe for her to be in this environment.”

“Not safe to have her around me, you mean—” she retorted.

“Not safe to be around herself, really.”

“She's not returning, is she?” she asked after a brief silence. Her father clasped at his jeans.

“Aster. Don't talk like that. Of course she is.”

A heavy silence settled into the room. A dull morning-bled-into-noon daylight drifted into her dark abode from the hallway, through which Dahlia's horrendous fits could be heard clearly.

The world was over, as far as Aster was concerned. Her chances to get her hands on the device were thwarted, her family was seemingly growing to hate her, and her own father looked to be selling her out to the institution.

“Am I that bad a daughter?” she wept, breaking the silence.

Her father turned to her. That deadly serious look had returned to his face.

“You have never been anything but a total joy to me,” he uttered as he stroked her wet cheek.

“Get up and get dressed. We have somewhere we're going.”

Aster's heart fell into her stomach. This was it she knew.

“I'm not going. I'll be better, I promise.”

Aster's father raised his eyebrow. “You don't even know where we're going, Aster.”

“To institutionalize me! Because of last night. I saw you talking to that guy—”

“That man was regarding your mother, Aster. Regarding your mother's re-education. Now, get ready.”

—

Though her father had made assurances which won her cooperation— assurances which had caused Aster's whole body to shudder an intense, cathartic sob of relief— a slight pang of paranoia and anxiety still gnawed at the back of her mind.

They traveled down the halls of their tower and up several elevators, to the near top of the building.

Aster had never seen the tower from such a height. Several thousand residents separated the floor they finally arrived on and the one her family resided on. The smart, faux-elegant art-deco bred with brutalist style that adorned their level had shed its contrived air into genuine elegance, which displayed itself as a cascading sheen of silver and gold that seemed to line every visible surface between marble.

“What are we doing up here?” Aster mumbled to her father.

“To meet somebody.”

His response fed the paranoia churning within her. Her father never met with people. He never left the house. Who would he possibly be taking her to meet?

They soon arrived at an apartment. The giant glass windows which adorned the scraper sat directly outside its front door, affording a view so high up that the city was no longer visible, instead replaced by the grand, sagging curvature of the Earth.

Her father paged the front door, looking into the camera.

“Aster, I don't want to see you become your mother. I love you so dearly, and I will not let sadness own your heart.”

The door opened and stole Aster's breath.

“This is Nancy. She's going to be your guitar teacher.”