Flower Gangs: Memento
Sooo... yeah, I'm far too obsessed with this idea. I had this Flower Gang scene idea that I just wrote out between classes and it is terrible and I didn't revise or double-check and the ending is rushed because I got bored, but I wrote it so bleh, might as well upload it?
I had a bit of difficulty since this is just a concept and there are no character names or anything, so I had to be so vague and use pronouns and whatnot, but whatever I should stop rambling >3>
I think only FrustratedPen06 is the only person who'll understand the context of this though...
------
His death was inevitable.
If not him, it would have been someone else.
As their rivalry bloomed, as each side scattered its seeds in the population, the stakes had grown ever-higher. Carnations and Violets. This game was dangerous – it had been an obvious fact. Every member had been all too aware, yet… yet they hadn’t actually thought that one of them would meet their end. They hadn’t actually thought that one of them would… would die.
Flower Gangs.
What a deceitfully humorous title.
They gave him an open casket visitation, open to the entire school. His body lay in the glass coffin, treated of wounds, made whole again until it seemed as if he were merely sleeping. But he would never wake. They all knew that.
The incident was written off as an ‘accident’, but those who heard the rumors already knew the truth. That poor boy’s death was no accident, and the ones who knew that fact best were those lined at either side of the coffin, violet flowers tucked in buttonholes, behind ears, or simply caressed within their hands.
They watched, distracted, each member lost in their own thoughts, as one by one, parents, students, teachers – the people who knew nothing – walked up to honor their late comrade, knelt in prayer or mourning. Each attendee laid a memento upon the altar, trinkets of the past, or shattered hopes for the future. They had told the public that violets were his ‘favorite flower’, and unaware of the special meaning behind that flower, many guests even brought a bloom to share and lay upon his corpse before they left.
It was a quiet, almost peaceful, event.
Until the doors opened once more.
Each of the Violets stiffened at the familiar sound – one by one, they looked up, eyes wide with confusion, shock, or simple rage. Each of them had felt drained, numb, had thought they could feel no more… but obviously they had been wrong. That brisk-paced stride, the clicking of heels, it was a sound that was all too familiar to them.
Familiar and unwelcome.
She was dressed in black, a dress hemmed at the knees with neck cut low. A suit-jacket pulled over that. How lovely she was with her face all made up. The teachers, the parents, how they were fooled by her distraught expression, her eyes brimming with tears… but the Violets knew better. She was a model student to the rest of the world, but oh, they knew so much better. They had learned so much during their little war.
She was a Carnation, and never to be trusted.
As she approached, they all tensed, gritting teeth, fists trembling. If it weren’t for all the unwanted eyes, they would likely have slit her throat then and there. “It was a terrible accident,” she whispered, drawing closer to the altar. From an outsider’s perspective, nothing would have seemed out of place. Just another attendee paying her respects.
But from where the Violets stood, they could see everything.
As she knelt down, she cast them a glance, and her painted red lips twitched upwards into the slightest of smiles. “It must have been so hard on you.”
The Carnations were cunning – in their mourning, they had forgotten… or rather, perhaps they had thought that not even they would go so far. They had wrongfully thought that even the Carnations would have the honor to respect the dead. But they were wrong, and she had them now. No matter how the Violets wanted grip her neck, throw her down to the floor and just hurt her, they couldn’t.
Not with all the outsiders watching.
Not at his wake.
And yet she closed her eyes, made a mockery of a prayer, before rising, and giving each of the Violets a flicker of a look. Then, deliberately, she reached inside her jacket and slowly drew out a stem. A carnation. And she smiled, knowing they could do nothing to stop her.
Before any of them could even think to stop her, she had let it go. The flower that they all so despised, the flower that he had died fighting, seemed to fall almost too slowly and too fast at the same time. One of them started forward to knock it aside, but too slow – before the moment even passed, the flower had landed upon his corpse.
The ultimate disrespect.
“A memento,” the Carnation murmured, expression once again one of grief – an act for the audience, they all knew it. “I wish you all the best.”
And with that, she was gone.
And the Violets, they were left brimming with rage, despair, desperately holding back the emotions that threatened to escape in one violent release. They could do nothing but endure the murmurs around them, ‘a carnation’, ‘how beautiful’, ‘a symbol of love’ – no. They wouldn’t stand for that.
The leader of the Violets stood, nails digging into palm, staring at the flower that marred their comrade’s body. With a quiet breath, all that was said was this:
“She dies tomorrow.”
