Chapter Text
The pain searing through my limbs and lungs were nothing unusual as I fight to stay conscious. Hunger is no foreigner to me nor my sister but I could never decide what was worse; the pain of slowly fading into nothing from lack of basic needs or staring into my sister’s eyes as her frail body suffered the same fate. I pull her closer into a tight hug, brushing away her mousey brown unkempt hair away from her sallow face.
This world was supposed to be fighting for something better. Something new and improved that would save them from suffering. Instead, it had been a slow build up over the last three years towards what is undoubtedly a violent end. The skies were darker these days from the smoke of distant fires and though the officials were most concerned about the air quality for civilian lungs, it was the constant stinging in your eyes that drove you mad.
Wake up? Your eyes are watering.
Walk to the trade centre? Your eyes are watering.
Lay down and try to forget about the day? Eyes. Are. Watering.
There was no relief, no reprieve from the torture of living and our hope was slowly fading. Diplomatic agreements my ass. Though that is not what I tell Whisper. Her hope is the only thing holding her bones and organs together these days. At this point, if the devil was to appear on our doorstep and offer me a bargain to save her suffering I would take it. And I do. Every day. I step into the shadows and take what I can from who I can. The innocents, the guilty, anyone who isn’t part of my family is fair game. I block out their screams as I rip their only source of warmth from their shivering bodies or hold my blade to their throats as I take their daily rations. It isn’t a choice I like to make but if you don’t take first then you become the victim.
Hartley stokes the fire, I watch the muscle in his arm shift with the movement. How he manages to maintain such muscle when we can all barely fill our bellies astounds me. He holds the most power in our small group, the most rations from our daily scavenges and honestly is the closest thing I have to a brother. He’s blood thirsty and terrifying to most but, like most people, he has a soft spot for my sister. I have never seen the monster so gentle as when he hands my sister her share of our feasts as he likes to call them. Still, I never let my guard down when he is near. I have seen him literally rip apple sauce from a mother feeding her baby and pummel a man to death in the street. I have no intention of ending up in the mass graves like our parents. They didn’t have the strength to survive and I will not allow Whisper to fall to the same fate.
“Echo, grab the first watch,” Hartley sighs as he stands, “I need to see a man about a dog.” I wonder how much younger he would look once you washed all that age and grime from his face.
“Whatever you say Boss,” I lay my now-sleeping sister as gently as I can into the pile of dust that we have claimed as our bed for the night. I stroll over to the water bucket and re-dip my makeshift bandana-facemask before tying it at the back of my head ensuring it is firmly fitted over my mouth. I grab a piece of metal we use as a shiv from the bench. The blade is old, battered and dull, like most of us I suppose. Too much surviving, and not enough TLC. I grab a seat near the door of the abandoned building. One way in, one way out. Just the way Hartley liked it. I always questioned the sense in not having an emergency exist but he always insisted
“anyone dumb enough to walk through that door ‘aint walking out again in one piece.”
Which has proven true for all but Graye, who waltzed in one day and talked his way onto Hartley’s bad side. They rolled in the dirt for 45minutes before they called truce. Graye is the only person I have seen who was a match for Hartley. Not for physical size but … stubbornness I suppose. His sheer ability to take hit after hit.
I gaze out at the haze where I imagine the stars hide. My eyes water into the bandana as I search for even the slightest glimmer.
And then. I see it. A flare of light in the smoke. It ripples through the puffs and billows of grey as it streaks it’s way to the heavens. I don’t remember starlight streaking out as brightly as that. Hope sears through my veins as I stare at the light. I don’t even realise I am standing now, Whisper clinging to my leg as she stares wide-eyed at the light. I place my hand on her shoulder, the other gripping the doorway too-tight.
“Whis, do you see that?” I’m breathless at the view. “You see that too right?”
“Yes,” She whispers, “Yes, I see it.”
“What do you think it means?”
The light continues to streak through the sky, mesmerising. Entrancing. Hues of yellow infiltrate the pure white.
A yell rips my attention away. Hartley is pummelling back up the road waving his hands frantically. I try to make out what he’s screaming about but I can barely hear over the roaring inside my ears. He’s gesturing frantically at the sky and keeps running full speed toward us.
“I know! Hartley! It’s beautiful!” I grin wide, tears slipping from my eyes steadily.
He bowls into me, grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me hard. The roaring in my ears explodes around us – or was it always around us? – and finally his voice breaks through the noise.
“-YOU ASSHOLE MOVE! IT’S A BOMB! MOVE YOUR ASS INSIDE! AH FUCK-“ Hartley dives past me, grabbing Whisper as he goes. Air whips my clothes and hair as I am pushed backwards to the floor by the sheer force of the wind. My head cracks onto the dust covered concrete and my vision goes black.