af·ter·math
n.
1. A consequence, especially of a disaster or misfortune: famine as an aftermath of drought.
2. A period of time following a disastrous event: in the aftermath of war.
Alice sat on the cold, hard bench of the army bus. The travel home was worse than the journey there could have ever been. The outward journey had been filled with anticipation and excitement. It had been filled with the hope of helping soldiers and injured young men. Alice had hoped to help her country. She'd hoped of forgetting what had brought her here to this desolate warscape in the first place. Alice wanted to forget why she had left. It wasn't easy when she'd given up with little to no hesitation. The frosty, rock hard landscape shook and blurred past the small gap in the canvas of the bus. Flashes of almost-grey green and muddy brown caught Alice's eyes. The bus rattled on towards her destination.
Alice's mother wasn't expecting Alice home so soon, or if she was honest, at all. Her father had disappeared and had been announced missing in action. The Kirkland's hadn't expected anyone else to come back home. Alice had been a front line nurse. She'd left home just under a year ago. She left after nothing more than a telegram to her mother. It explained why she'd left. She took a small bag filled with soap and food, and a steady and determined attitude. Alice's four older siblings had moved out of the family home years ago. Shortly after Mr Kirkland's death. So Alice came back to her cold and unforgiving mother. All her mother had was bad news.
"Arthur died."
Alice's mother spoke with next to no emotion. She didn't cry. Her voice didn't shake. It had shaken when she'd received the telegram about her husband. Missing in action. She didn't break down over the sentence, either. Not like she broke down whenever she heard the name 'William Kirkland'. Alice's mother recited the words as a fact. She knew that crying and shaking and breaking down wouldn't change a thing.
Alice knew it couldn't change a single thing. But even she had to let out a broken cry and clasp her hand over her mouth when she heard the news. She shut her eyes closed and prayed. She prayed that it was all a nightmare. She prayed that she wasn't losing everyone she loved. But the facts were as cold and morbidly real as the writing on her father's gravestone. She counted her losses.
The loss of her father. The loss of Amelia. The loss of her once-loving brother. Lives that had all been claimed by the same wretched war.
Alice's father had gone to be a pilot in the RAF at the beginning of the war. A telegram came on the first of December, 1940. It declared him missing in action, and most likely dead.
Amelia had been Alice's first love. They had spent a good few months together healing soldiers on the front line. They found comfort in each other. Alice had to confess that Amelia was beautiful and kind. One of the best women she'd ever come across.
Amelia ended up catching malaria from one of her regular patients. She died in the night. Leaving the hospital she had once been the life of.
Amelia's death was the reason Alice had come home.
Arthur had been caught in a German bombing raid the week before Alice had returned. He'd been sitting in the living room with his girlfriend. They must have been so scared. The planes had whirred over, almost silently. The bombs had crashed. There was a bright light. It was all over quickly, but it was so unpleasant. The whole row of tightly terraced houses was gone now. Nothing to show the once-lively neighborhood that once stood in the place of what was now no more than rubble and fire and soot.
Alice didn't talk about her time as a nurse. She didn't mention Amelia. Nor the patients that she helped back to health, or the young women she'd worked with. She didn't talk about how much she'd fallen in love while she was gone. She didn't talk about the terrible loss and the heartache that she'd experienced. The pain she felt whenever she remembered Amelia's sweet smile, or her bright blue eyes. Alice didn't talk much to her mother. She did not apologize for leaving home without warning. She'd gone to help her country and that's what she had done, as far as her mother was concerned. There was no need to apologize, her mother should have been proud.
Alice had been away for months and months. She'd never once been involved in an air-raid strike.
The sound of the siren hit her immediately. She wasn't asleep to begin with. Alice gathered her outdoor coat. She guessed that she would need it. She looked out of the diagonally taped window. Her mouth opened a little as she gasped out loud, taking in what she could see.
The aerodrome she lived near was on fire. It was emitting a dull orange glow from underneath the thick, black, smoke. The sky was lighting up like a camera flash. An overwhelmingly large thud sounded. It felt like a drum was being hit. The glass in front of Alice's face lit up for a brief moment. She watched fragments of glass split apart and shatter. Terrifyingly close to her eyes. The tape on the window did almost nothing to protect her face. Alice ignored the paper thin cuts on her forehead. She turned away from the once-intact window. She scrambled under the Morrison shelter. It was under a thick oak table.
Alice breathlessly grasped at the thin, criss-crossed wire on the shelter. She pulled the door open. She placed herself in the small space, closing her eyes and mumbling.
"Bloody hell!" she said. She could hear German planes above. Chopping at the wind and pulsating. They grimly flew over innocent villages and dropped vile bombs.
Alice touched her face and noticed the fragile splinters of glass littering her skin. She winced as she pulled a fragment out of her upper cheek with the gentle care of the nurse she was. The difference was that she'd never had to pull glass out of her own skin. Alice inspected the tiny piece of glass. It was all she could concentrate on. She felt another incredible thud. It sent her lurching forward in the cramped shelter.
A burst of impossibly white light tore through her tortured and ripped curtains. A noise so loud, it physically hurt her chest. It rang in her ears. She screamed so loud that her throat felt torn.
Lighting and thunder at the same time.
Sounds so loud they physically hurt.
Force so hard the ground shook.
White space.
Ears ringing.
And then nothing.
And she swore she heard Amelia's voice…