The ruins of Neo-Amara glittered under a black sky freckled by artificial stars. Towering holograms flickered, advertising long-forgotten brands, their pixelated smiles eerily alive against dead city blocks. A dense fog coiled between the skeletal remains of skyscrapers. Stray embers from burned vehicles sparked sporadically, casting brief hints of orange against a perpetual bluish haze. Beneath an overpass peppered with neon graffiti, Evana “Stitch” Meredyn adjusted her gauntlets. Her hands, stained with dye and the faint smell of singed fabric, fumbled over an uncooperative thread. The battered remains of her sewing kit lay scattered on a nearby crate.
Stitch stood about 5’6″—sharp and wiry, built like someone who ran as much as she stitched. Her skin bore the warm undertones of burnt bronze, and her shock of curls, dyed streaks of purple and aqua, spilled messily from a makeshift ponytail. Her outfit—a blend of dystopian grit and artistic audacity—boasted a half leather, half feathered jacket, patched cargo pants scrawled with chalky runes, and combat boots hand-painted with glimmering circuits. It wasn’t just a look—it was her message. Her rebellion.
“Evana,” a voice called sharply behind her. Stitch turned, her eyes narrowing against the faint crimson glow of a plasma torch carried by her longtime friend and occasional saboteur, Jax Riven. Jax—tall with an athletic frame softened by quiet sorrow—wore an outfit of function rather than flair: a fitted armored vest, tactical pants, and a bandana tied askew across his ash-blond hair. His face was streaked with soot, his usual lopsided grin absent.
“You have to stop,” Jax pressed, his voice edged with desperation. “This cosplay thing—it’s getting to you. People are saying you’ve lost your grip. That you actually believe you’re some heroine meant to save us all. You’re just Stitch, not…not Stardance Astra!”
Evana’s jaw tightened. She turned away, her hands absently weaving iridescent thread into a silk-like strip that caught the dim light. “Do you even hear yourself?” she muttered, half to herself, half to him. “This isn’t cosplay. It hasn’t been for weeks. Cosplay is pretending. A mask you take off when the con is over. But Jax…” She paused, shaking her head as her hands trembled slightly on the threaded needle. “What if it’s more? What if Stardance Astra is real, and the mask… was always me?”
Jax exhaled sharply, stepping into the pool of flickering magenta light thrown by a shattered electric billboard. “You’re grieving, Evana. For the old world. For Neo-Amara before it burned. Astra was someone you made up—a fantasy to cope with all this,” he gestured around, the remnants of the once-thriving metropolis stretching endlessly in its desolation. “You can’t save these people from the Ash. You’re only going to destroy yourself trying!”
Evana shot him a glare, her charcoal-smudged cheekbones glowing faintly with suppressed anger. “Destroy myself? Isn’t that the point? You think I don’t know what they say about me? That I’m crazy? That a stitcher with a wicked sewing hand doesn’t belong on some rooftop, playing vigilante?” Her voice cracked, and she blinked hard, forcing the tears back. “But Jax, I’m the only one trying. What have they done? Huddled in shadows, waiting for some miracle that’ll never come?”
Jax fell silent. His grip on the plasma torch tightened, casting light within the smoky hollow they found themselves standing in. Above them, a drone buzzed lazily by, its camera lens shifting like an unblinking eye. Its red light glared at Evana’s jacket for one hovering moment too long before it zipped upward out of sight. Jax glanced nervously at it. “You were seen.”
“Good,” she hissed. “Let them know I’m here.”
The Call to Action
Hours later, the two crouched atop the skeleton of an old civic library. Evana was threading the final touch—a glittering emblem of stardust and flame—onto a stolen uniform. Below them, a cadre of enforcers—mercenary remnants of a corporate oligarchy long thought destroyed—marched in formation, their mechanical exosuits gleaming in the somber moonlight.
Every step resonated like a countdown, their boots leaving perfect trails amid the ash-choked remnants of Neo-Amara’s streets. They were hunting someone—a frightened refugee kid, judging by the scattered screams earlier in the evening.
Evana slipped into the stolen attire. The uniform clutched tightly to her form, its gleam hiding the exhaustion etched into her face. Jax watched, his lips pressed into a line. “Evana, they’ll see through you in seconds. This is insane.”
“Maybe. But that won’t make it less real.” She looked up at him, her leather-gloved hand resting briefly on his forearm. For a moment, they both stood, frozen, in a world where there were no choices left to make. “Astra isn’t just a persona, Jax. She’s a story. A spark. And if I can be that story for just a moment longer…” She smiled faintly. “Then it’s worth it.”
Jax nodded reluctantly, but his lips curled into a small, sad smile. “Then let’s make it one hell of a story.” He handed her the plasma torch. “And don’t die wearing that. It’s way too predictable.”
The Final Stitch
The clash was chaos incarnate. The enforcers turned at the sound of her war cry, barely registering her star-stitched figure before Evana descended like a comet. Her every movement was a perfect choreography—perfectly stitched in time with the lights, smoke, and debris that whirled through the air like improvised stage props. Beams of plasma ricocheted as she ducked, weaved, and struck, her gauntlets discharging bolts of brilliant amethyst that left her enemies’ suits crackling.
Jax was chaos’s shadow, moving in tandem as if their shared rebellions had given them an unspoken language. He disabled suits, clearing paths for Evana, who pressed forward, her neon-lit uniform a beacon of chaos and hope.
As Evana stood over the fallen leader of the enforcers, her own breath ragged and her body sagging under the weight of exhaustion, she heard the faint cheers of scattered survivors. The city wasn’t saved—not yet. But for now, Neo-Amara had seen Stardance Astra in the flesh.
She wasn’t just cosplay anymore.
The Source…check out the article that inspired this amazing short story: What does it mean to cosplay as someone?
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