Everything was dark. Harlow looked around in utter confusion, where was she? A bright light suddenly engulfs the engineer, blinding her for a brief moment.
~~
Screams. Many screams filled the air, once the light faded away the scene at hand was horribly gruesome. There was a dead body on the ground and other people.. No, CHILDREN were pressed into the corners in pairs.
"N.. No. Not again!" Harlow was Henry again, he held a blood soaked knife in his hand and immediately he panicked and threw it away. No, he couldn't be doing this again. He was different!
It's your fault Henry, you weren't good enough!
You killed us Henry, you deserve no mercy!
Die. Die! DIE! DIE!! D I E!!!
Henry screamed, tears rolling down his cheeks. Make it stop.. Make it STOP!!
He… Talon sat on his bed, shifting through papers that were assigned during the day, not making a peep while his pen scribbled furiously on the work set out before him. Math was no problem; he got through it without too much trouble. Science was done in a flash. Taking a risk, he added a little doodle of Bill Nye on the side of the paper to add a little personal flair to it. World studies, though it was a pain and took the longest to complete, was finally finished by the time it got dark out.
Today wasn’t too different from any other. At least, that’s what he thought to himself, stowing everything away in the bag at the end of his bed and hissing as pain shot up his arm, a deep gash that was a day old becoming agitated at the movement. He hugged his arm close to himself and laid down on his bed to let his mind wander. Keeping it warm made it feel a little better.
As he laid there, he idly let his gaze drift over the room, mostly barren save for a small closet, the bed, and an ancient toy chest in the corner. His jaw briefly clenched as he thought about his old teddy bear.
Keeping his arm hugged against him, he slowly got up and wandered to the chest, picking out an old, decrepit bear that was missing an eye and had several holes burned into its fabric. His best friend that he had to stop bringing to school when some of the bigger kids decided it’d be a fun hacky sack.
The bear used to move around, talk, and play with him when he was bored, but one day it just fell to the floor. Every time he checked on the teddy, he hoped that it would spring back to life, but it never did.
There was a thud from downstairs that made the door to the barren room vibrate briefly. He jumped, his heart beginning to beat faster. He hadn’t even heard the car pull into the driveway, or hear the garage door slam shut.
The air around him took on a whole different feeling as the sounds from outside his room muted. He stowed the bear away, straightening to attention as he walked towards the door, his heart practically pounding in his throat when he went to walk downstairs. He had to do his chores. He… He’d be mad if he didn’t do his chores.
“Boy.” A phantasmal voice came from the base of the stairs, the burly shadow of a man waiting there. Its very presence seemed to make everything around it shrink.
It was his father… Shaking, the boy swallowed hard and was forced to look at its featureless mask, only for the details to sharpen immensely the moment he made eye contact, seeing clearly a black-haired man with an angular, almost elven face, pointed ears, and yellow irises. Despite the differences, he did look like Talon himself.
That’s… That’s who he was. Talon. The boy…
Short, shallow breaths escaped his lungs as he tried not to panic at the sight, and he hoped his dad would ease off if he’d just been late getting downstairs to do his chores… But he found himself at the top of the stairs, the man at the base, leering at him.
Talon swallowed. His throat hurt. Had he been able to yell, he would have. Panic ran rampant through his systems. Running was useless. Hiding was useless. He was going to die. He was going to die and nobody would even know what happened or where he went.
“Your school apparently got bombed the other day… No shrapnel or anything was left over.” His father was slowly ascending the stairs, maintaining the deadly eye contact with his son and holding him in place with the glare alone.
No, this wasn’t what it was about…
“No shrapnel, just a sudden, spontaneous explosion that came close to collapsing the building… The librarian’s account was that it just happened randomly. Everyone considers it ridiculous to think that it was all just fire… But it was, wasn’t it?”
He knew.
It hadn’t been his fault! Talon wanted to scream that it wasn’t his fault. But his throat hadn’t healed yet. He couldn’t speak, and despite his body doing all it could to heal, his throat was still shredded. But it was his fault. He’d gotten so scared, he was hurting too much, and it just… happened. They were lucky nobody had been killed when it happened, but–
“They didn’t catch anyone suspicious fleeing the scene in all of that confusion, and nobody else has stepped up to confess what happened…” He made it to the top, halted, and tapped the railing of the stairs on the second floor with his right index finger. “It’s strange… and to think, I didn’t get the call about the bombing until late last night. But I already knew… There were kids in the hospital. Burned.”
As the father slowly began to advance again, Talon eyed his father warily and shuffled back against the wall, pale enough that he could have been mistaken for a ghost.
“Then to find out that my son was missing for the rest of the day before getting an emergency call from some distressed woman about a delusional, dying boy fleeing from her care? How… strange.”
The wound in his arm was throbbing again. Talon, cornered and frozen, avoided eye contact as his father stopped in front of him. He crouched down to Talon’s eye level, grabbing his head and forcing his son to look him in the eye.
“What. Happened.”
It wasn’t so much as a question as it was a demand for Talon to tell him everything he knew. Their eyes were locked onto one another. Unable to look away, his son stared back into the cold abyss of his father’s pupils. Minutes ticked by in silence, but it seemed like an eternity. Talon just looked back at his father, fearful that his cold stare meant “murder.”
Watching as his dad stood to his full height, Talon was quite surprised to find that his head was no longer in the vice-like grip that forced him to look him in the eye. Afraid, but curious and confused, he watched as his dad crossed his arms and leaned against one wall, mumbling something that even he had trouble hearing.
Unsure of what to do, Talon just stood there, glancing between his dad and the stairs. So, when his dad finally shifted position, he jumped slightly.
“Where are you so eager to go today?”
Talon, after a long silence, hesitantly shrugged.
“Don’t you lie to me.”
Talon cringed, pressing himself against the wall as his dad stared him down again, skin becoming splotched with a deep, dark red. The light within the room seemed to fade out. The air became thick and heavy as it vibrated with some strange energy. All he could hear was a loud buzzing, and his father’s voice.
Suddenly towering over his son, the man blocked the view of the stairs, his voice horrifyingly clear to Talon’s ears as the nightmare-memory picked up.
“I’ll ask again. Where are you going today?”
Slipping down the wall until he fell on his ass as he stared up at the man, Talon choked on air as he tried to say something, anything, to get his dad off his back. His mouth worked, but nothing came out. His shredded throat rendered him helpless.
“I’m waiting.”
It felt like he was suffocating, or being strangled… Maybe he was. His vision was beginning to fail and sounds were becoming completely muted.
In a last ditch effort to save his skin, Talon darted towards the stairs, dragging himself along in a bid to escape. An immense wave of fear washed over him as he heard that all-too-familiar roar. His clothes pulled sharply against him before going slack, and Talon no longer felt the cold wood of the floor beneath him. He felt himself scrape the ceiling and freely fall a ways until he hit the stairs, an audible crack resounding in the room before he bounced off and skipped across a short section of floor like a flat stone on a lake. His journey was halted by what he assumed was a wall, another crack following, and he dropped to the floor.
His vision doubled and became dusky, but he could see the base of the stairs from a floor’s-eye view. Pain wracked him every time he tried to breathe, as if fate was laughing at him for trying to get away from what had been suffocating him. Worse, his father was coming back down for more. He curled up to protect himself as best as he could, his ribs screaming at him as he did.
A deafening crash of thunder shook the windows and rafters of the house soon after the frenzy of adrenaline and violence had played out. As the light patter of the rain against the glass began to become audible, whatever had been in his stomach from the day before was violently spewed onto the floorboards to mix with the half-dried blood that had pooled underneath his limp form while he was out. He whimpered slightly, but it came out as a gurgling as his body once more rejected whatever had leaked into his throat.
Before any more bodily fluids could soak themselves into his clothing, he drunkenly propped himself up with his elbows and knees and dragged himself out of the biohazardous liquids. His lungs, muscles, and the tendons between his joints seemed to scream from a lack of oxygen, forcing him to gasp for breath, nearly choking him with his own bile. He coughed harshly to clear his lungs as he looked towards the mess; half of it was already dried to the hardwood floor and the fresher stuff was slowly dispersing further across in a flood of crimson and bile.
He hadn’t noticed that his lungs had started to spasm or that he was sobbing soundlessly. It was late at night; So late, that his dad had the audacity to fall asleep on the couch, and the early morning news had been running quietly in the background. He had to get upstairs… Get upstairs, and… and clean himself up…
At some point, he managed to get to the bathroom, using the sink to get back to his feet before trying to survey the damage in the mirror.
But all the boy saw was a dying, broken man that he didn’t know.
Talon lurched where he laid in the grass, his heart racing and his eyes wild as he took in the serene views around him. It was a dream, it was all a dream… Nightmare…
The feeling of gasping for breath was useless, but it was a reaction tied to his flesh that helped him try to vent, much like tears. He just hoped that his dreams didn’t seep into the mind of the Queen of Hell again.
Brown eyes shot open at the sound of crying. It was the baby, of course. Darkness enveloped the room, though gradually Cana began to see shades of black throughout the room. There was a small candle in the corner of the room near the cradle. She did not want to keep the baby away from them, but given Nev and her sleeping patterns, it was best to not endanger the baby.
The crying went on for a moment, before dying down. Maybe he would be self-sufficient. As Cana waited, her eyes drifted to Nev resting beside her. He seemed to be resting better now. Sometimes she wondered if he had his nightmares still. She meant to ask about that. On rare occasions, she had nightmares of his nightmares...
Memories not her own flashed through her mind of the time in Orr. True memories of when he braved his past and made it there came to mind. Nevyrn had pushed himself for everyone.... for her .... but mostly for himself, she hoped.
She gave Nevryn’s arm a kiss, nearly ready to settle back on go him. However, Rowen spoke up again. Cried, really. Cana threw her sheets off and hobbled to the baby crib. She had to see what the butterball wanted.
Father Time was a stubborn old goat, but even he was loathe to deny a request from Odin Allfather. One hundred years of picture perfect winters for his vikings was the price of Odin's assistance. Only then would the Viking god request anything on Jack Frost's behalf. No more than a year would be allowed, for Old Man Winter wouldn't fill in for longer- a blip in the life of an eternal spirit. Only a leap year- the only time when Burke's winter was in the hands of a spirit other than Jack.
Wind was younger when Jack arrived; he realized. He could just tell. It roiled and bucked in confusion for a moment before calming and promising to not let him meet the Jack of this day and age. After that, it greeted him like an old friend and they were off to Burke.
It was much older than it was when he last saw it. The buildings were worn and weather weary- a far cry from the brand new homes that decorated the island shortly after the end of the dragon war. The house on the hill where his friend lived was larger now, having an addition that appeared suitable to both him and his steed. And there, in front of the house, heading toward the center of the village- there he was.
He was much taller. He most likely matched Jack's height now. The dragon at his back looked the same, but there was a war-weary kick to his four-legged stride. The boy... no he was no longer a boy. He was around the age Jack had been. His face had filled out, and the mop of brown hair which hung over it was adequately shaggy. He had traded in the fur vest and breeches for something Jack could only describe as a leather flight-suit. His prosthetic leg had been modified, and Jack could only assume it would have suited some form of contraption related to flying. He strode with a kind of confidence the younger version would not have been in the least bit capable of. Elation rose to his throat and wound a lump there. Joy sprung to his eyes and poured down his pale cheeks. Wind coiled behind him like a spring and he shot toward the man with break-neck speeds. He latched his arms round his shoulders and buried his face against one of them. "HICCUP!" He held on as though the man would disappear if he let go. "I missed you."
confession: i'm always a little scared to go to sleep.
when i was a little kid, my panic attacks would happen when i was trying to sleep. they got so bad at one point, i had one of my parents in my room every night while i cried about not wanting to die and about how awful and huge the world was.
i still feel that visceral dread when i turn off the light.
