Summary :
In an ever-changing world, it's always comforting to find those few rare normalities that have yet to be turned peculiar. But, death? Its hooded vale has always hung over the world. It's one of those things that is neither kind nor fair. Death snatches where it can, taking those who are far too young and far too good. It's permeant and it's forever. Yet, as Hattie stood staring into the fixed and vacant eyes of a woman dead on the floor there was no sense of comfort present. "Come on, lets go." It was rare but on random occasions Hattie could feel the sentimentality for those lost attempting to surface. "Alright." And, in those fleeting moments she only needed to remind herself to not associate them with humanity.
Prologue of Paint Me Red
There was no silence just mindless panic joined by wild eyes, dilated pupils, a racing heart, and a synapse within her brain firing off hyperactively. The cerebrum within had even frozen and seized from her shrill screams, causing the billions of neutrons and glia's that formed the cerebral cortex to run aimlessly in chaos.
Hattie knew tensing against the shaking of her limbs was useless but still she instinctively did it, as she tried to suppress for a few more moments what she knew she couldn't keep at bay for long. She knew that covering her ears and hiding her head between her legs wouldn't block out what was going on, but still she tired.
It wasn't just the military's betrayal as they dropped bombs on Atlanta. It wasn't just the vibrations rattling through her bones as terrible explosions of red, yellow, and blue lit up the city. There was so much more to why it felt like the air was leaving her lungs as she frantically breathed.
'I had no choice.'
She couldn't stop the trembling, especially in her right hand where it still felt warm from the back splash.
'She didn't give me a choice.'
Red-hot tears ran down her face as she bit into her bottom lip to stop the quivering. The sorrow that flowed within thin veins had deadened her mind. Leaving a trail of poisons through red and white blood cells as it burrowed into the thousands of budding nerves before reaching her spirit. It was hollowing her from the inside out, yet still cries shook her vocal cords.
She was losing everything. She couldn't pretend anymore that everything was going to be fine, because nothing was going to be fine.
'I had to do it…' Hattie had no wish to believe. She had no will nor want to. She was not brave enough for this. '… I didn't have a choice …' And, it didn't matter if her eyes were open or close she could still see what could never be erased. It didn't matter which darkness she let embrace her because both left Hattie feeling nauseous and on the verge of hyperventilating. 'She should have watched where she was going…. she should have been more careful.'
This was breaking her. Hattie was going to crumble. This, she was sure of. Just as she knew for certainty that Atlanta had fallen to the dead and that the government had finally abandoned those still living.
Hattie's whole body recoiled further in on its self as yet another explosion sounded, reverberating through the city as efficiently as a thunderous clap. Each bomb deafened with its monstrous noises just as each of its explosions sent tremors that curdled her blood.
Still her desolated sobs continued. It was another fruitless endeavor but nonetheless Hattie screamed and begged with all her might. It was all she had left, all she could do, and even as her lungs burned from lack of oxygen she continued to scream. All in the desperate hope that someone might hear her and save her.
She was breaking, cracking, fracturing. She couldn't escape what she had done and what was being done.
It scared her, so very badly, and it only made matters worse that this was only the beginning of the end. The very concept made Hattie even more terrified, if that was even plausible.
Minutes would turn into hours before the bombings would cease. Before the dust would settle and before the dead would regather in even larger swarms. In this period of time silence still would not bless Hattie.
For silence is a gift for the saints not the sinners, and Hattie is no saint. Unless a saint is a broken sinner.
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