Blessed

Here's something I wrote September last year- but slightly edited. Just a short two-page bit of apocalypse drama that I wrote for fun. It was at first intended to be a prologue for a longer story called Blessed, but I dropped the idea and ended up with this instead. I don't need too much critique as it was written about half a year ago, but still, feel free to let me know what you think! :)

~

Bloody sky streaked with strips of ragged grey clouds. Like frayed bandages.

Bone-white ash drifting down in the hazy fog of a dead world.

Cars crushed like discarded soda cans. Buildings toppled and strewn like a toddler’s playthings…

Broken.

I was shaken back to reality by my older sister’s voice. “It was so sudden, you know?” I didn’t answer. I just stared at her from the other side of our fire.

Meg’s hair spilled down her bony shoulders as she shifted into a more comfortable position and strands of it got into her eyes. She didn’t blink or brush it away. She just stared into the red glow of the fire with an apathetic gaze, her mouth tight and grim as always.

It’s funny how even after a whole year it just didn’t seem real. It only ever did once you were slumped on Death’s doorstep, bleeding your life out onto his doormat, begging for relief. Only then did you realize how wrong everything was. And how no one, not even you, are saved from the fate of this world. How every life ends in death…

“Hey. You even listening?” Meg snapped.

I heard her, but I didn’t bother answering. I was floating in memories. Memories of fire, blood, ash, smoke, screams. Vaguely, as if it was happening miles away, I heard Meg whispering. “Are you even in there anymore? Mom’s death really messed you up, didn’t it.” I stiffened and suddenly I was back in the present.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

Meg jerked her head up, an unexpected relief evident in her watery eyes. I tried to be reassuring, collecting my frayed thoughts and pushing the nightmares to the back of the head, “Don’t worry. I’m still here. Still here…” I smiled weakly, not entirely sure of what I was saying.

Meg only looked even more upset and she looked down, clenching her hands into fists. “You are different. You’re not the same. It messed you up…” She gritted her teeth, screwed her eyes shut, and whispered to herself, “First it was dad. Then mom. And now you’re broken and soon you’ll be taken away from me too… No food or water. No medicine. No help. I can’t take this. I can’t take this anymore. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t..” She chanted it to herself, tears spilling down her face, broken sobs racking her body, fists smacking the dirt. I don’t think either of us was quite sane at that point, but is anyone really sane in the first place?

For a few moments there was silence. The dark trees seemed to press in around us. The dusty red sky darkened above us.

Meg finally stopped crying and whispered, “I’m gonna put out the fire now. To try and sleep…” I managed to whisper back, blankly staring at the weak yellow flames, “I’m sorry. Sorry. So sorry…” The mantra played in my head.

I just wasn’t sure what it meant anymore.

~

I woke up to darkness and a ghostly pale red moon. My head burned with a splitting headache and my body was soaked in cold sweat. I immediately glanced around for Meg, but the dusty clearing was dark and empty, trees windblown and ash gusting through the old park in waves.

With a split second of clarity I decided to follow the park path and look for my sister. I wondered where she could have gone. I know.. I know she wouldn’t have left me…

I walked along the path for about ten minutes, not knowing where I was going. For some reason I was drawn to the park entrance, an overgrown bridge that crossed a gorge and led to the old, cracked road on the other side. I squinted and finally noticed the figure at the bridge. Meg?

Shocked into clarity, I suddenly realized what was happening. My sister was balanced on top of the bridge railing, arms outstretched, hair whipped back by the wind heavy with the night’s first drops of rain. At the last second I realized what she was about to do and screamed, “Meg!!!”

My sister’s head whirled around and she stared at me in surprise. My sister. My guardian. Even across the distance between me and the bridge, I saw the turmoil in her eyes. Sadness. Anger. Guilt. And the blissful relief, the knowledge that all her problems were about to disappear.

She smiled. Tears- or maybe rain- rolled down her hollow cheeks and off her chin, caught by the wind.

Then she jumped.

In that split second it seemed as if the world froze. All I could see was Meg, suspended in the air over the gorge with her legs straight beneath her and her arms raised as if in prayer, her hair billowing up above her. Her face was slick with rain and tears, yet glowing with that last smile, with that last moment of exhilaration as she was carried by the wind and rain...

Then everything began again. Meg was whipped out of sight and her thin, broken body fell to the water below. I never heard its impact through that night’s pounding rain, that raging storm that was almost sentient in its fury.