Aftermath || Closed - PurpleTinkerTurtle
There was something strangely muted about the city from up high. April could see, could logically see dozens upon dozens of people going about their business on the streets below, hailing cabs and catching trains, checking their phones and meeting up and waving good-bye. She could see it, but it didn't seem real. Paper people in cardboard buildings, living little lives of make-believe. The clamor of her neighborhood had long since faded into a blunt and distant hum, indistinct and muffled, as if she were losing her hearing along with everything else. She leaned her head against the brick outcropping she had perched beside and let her eyes flutter shut.
It made no difference. Open or closed, all she could see was her father's gruesome outline.
Dusk had settled long ago. The last traces of color had bled from the sky overhead and left her with a flat, starless expanse to wrap herself in, nearly as blank as she felt. It was getting colder, but April hardly noticed. Maybe that was an upside to this mess. Maybe mutants didn't need to stay as warm as actual people. Maybe she could eat less, too. Save some on groceries.
Ha, ha.
Experimented on. What did that even mean? What had her mother suffered for her sake? Not human. Not human, not human, not human. The words rolled endlessly around her mind, hulking and ominous. What did that make her mother? She wasn't sure she wanted to know. Maybe it was better if she didn't. There was no making this better, April realized. There was no way around this. It was what it was.
Her t-phone had been buzzing insistently for the better part of an hour, and April had to physically swallow the urge to throw it over the ledge of the roof she sat on. Everything was blurring together now, and she wasn't sure she could handle one more voice adding to the clamor. It buzzed again, familiar letters flashing on the front display.
April leaned her head atop her knees and quietly began to weep.
