Lucy Fly

"Death follows me. It always has."

- Lucy Fly

Louisa Fly known as Lucy Fly is the main protagonist of the 2019 mystery thriller film Earthquake Bird. She is a Sweden expat who has been living in Japan for over 5 years, after fleeing her hometown due to a tragic family incident. She becomes a suspect in the mysterious death of her friend, Lily but everything is not as it seems.

History
When she was 8 years old, Lucy was sitting on-top of a tree close to her family home reading a book. Her seven brothers arrived and began teasing her, throwing rocks at her from below. One brother, Marcus was ready to pick up a rock but Lucy dived from the tree and jumped onto him and he accidentally fell and hit his head on a plank of wood with a rusted nail in it. He died shortly later and her parents blamed Lucy for the incident. Estranged from her family, she learnt Japanese with the hopes to escape and left for Japan years later.

1989 Tokyo, and Lily arrives for work at her office job as a translator. She is called in by the police who have found the body of her friend Lily Bridges in the water and they suspect her to be involved. She recalls her relationship with Teiji, a handsome photographer who insisted on taking photos of Lucy one afternoon - who is currently missing too. Their relationship slowly develops into something more romantic, but she feels like he is hiding secrets from her.

During this, Lucy is introduced to Lily by her friend Bob who thinks they could be great friends, since Lily needs help settling into Tokyo having travelled from America. Lucy is reluctant and doesn't gel with Lily's loud personality but Lucy eventually warms to her. Lily insists on meeting Teiji and Lucy invites her out to eat at the restaurant where Teiji works. He asks if they want to hangout after his shift and the three of them explore Tokyo's night-time attractions, where he takes photographs of the women.

Teiji begins hanging out more with Lucy and Lily, and Lily starts to get jealous of Teiji and Lily's fascination with each other. While on a trip away, Lucy feels sick during a hike and lays down to rest. Once she awakes, she finds herself alone and discovers that Teiji and Lily left to explore gold mines without her. This angers her and she storms off in a rage, but later reconciles with them. As they return home, Lucy says her goodbyes to both Lily and Teiji, but before she steps on the train she sees that Teiji has lied to her and has secretly gone off to see Lily again alone.

Lucy is angered and shuts herself off to both of them after discovering their affair. Lily arrives at her place and apologises, telling her she might be in love with him and she didn't want to hurt her. Lucy shuts the door in her face, but a few moments later decides to follow her to confront her again. However, Lily has gone.

Back in 1989 and Lucy, filled with rage at Lily's betrayal confesses to killing her and she is booked and held in jail by the Tokyo police. Although, new evidence suggests that the body found in the water was not in fact Lily and therefore Lucy is released and her false confession is recanted. Curious about Teiji's whereabouts, Lucy goes to Teiji's house and uses his hidden key to enter it. She sifts through his photography files and discovers a photo he took of Lily after he killed her, she is dead on the floor covered in blood.

Lucy considers going to the police with this information but chooses not to. As she returns home she sees Teiji sitting on her sofa, he asks her to run away with him and starts to cry. Lucy comforts him and they embrace but she rejects his offer and tells him it's over between them. In a rage he throws her down on the sofa and starts to strangle her. In the struggle, she manages to grab the fishbowl on the side of the table and smashes him around the head with it.

A shard of glass is lodged into his skull and he dies moments later. Lucy contemplates how death follows her - from her brother, to Lily, to a friends' father who abused her when she was 14, to an elderly woman who fell down the stairs in her presence and now Teiji and she meets with her Japanese friend Ms. Kato in despair.

Ms. Kato confesses that it was her fault the elderly woman died, because she waxed the floors two days prior and that it was nothing to do with Lucy. Lucy finds some sense of comfort.