"Start Chapter Two: Goodbye, Blue Sky.
"Did you see the frightened ones?
"Did you hear the falling bombs?
Did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter when the,
'Promise of a brave new world unfurled beneath a clear blue
Sky?"
Jayne landed with a winded thud, covered in cream and laying in a pile of squashed fruit and pancakes. Hot coffee spilling off the edge of the table and on onto the small her back. Stars danced in her vision and a high pitch ringing in her ears made it almost impossible to hear anything else. Dazed and reeling, Jayne gripped the edge of the table and hauled herself upright, now standing on shaky legs. What had just happened?
"Mom? Dad?" Jayne called out, or she thought she did. She couldn't hear herself. She blinked, unable to see and reached up to push her tangle of messy ringlets from her eyes, her fingers coming away sticky and warm and tinged red.
"Mom! Dad!" She screamed, and this time she could just barely hear her own panicked voice over the shrill shriek in her ears. Her vision, while blotched and dark in places, gave her a rough enough idea as to the layout of the house in front of her and she staggered around the kitchen table towards the hallway that led down towards the bedrooms. A large section of the painted 'salmon' -as her father had defensively corrected her mother- wall was missing, revealing the horrors that were unfolding outside the 'safety' of her home.
Smoke billowed upwards from houses on the horizon. People were running and screaming children held in their arms. Fire and ash mixed with the clouds and the sky was no more a crystalline sapphire. It was tinged grey and a deep menacing red and Jayne had the horrible thought 'this was what reality looked like' before she was stumbling away, coughing and choking on the metallic tang of blood and the cinder-y taste of ash.
"Dad, Mom? Where are you?" She called out, dragging her heavy limbs down the hallway towards her parents' bedroom.
The door, while still closed, was bowed outwards and half hanging off of its hinges. Jayne gripped the handle and pulled, silently readying herself for whatever
'Please let them be alive. Please, let them be okay.' She silently begged, yanking and twisting at the handle. The door refused to budge however, and Jayne had to resort to throwing all her weight against it before it would budge.
When it did however, she stumbled into the threshold and immediately tripped, going down hard and with a startled cry.
Her hands flew out to catch herself, but the skidded in something warm and wet on the floor and she ended up smashing her face against the edge of the bed. Her lip burst against her teeth and she bit down on her tongue accidentally
"Mom? Dad?" she wheezed, trying to push herself up enough to see past the blur and the veil of her hair."Where are you guys?"
The entire left side corner of the room was missing, the dressing table that had been there was nothing but splinters of wood, and the wardrobe was busted along its side, as if a giant hand had reach down and squeezed until it popped, throwing clothes in all directions.
Something touched her leg, and Jayne scrambled to get away from it, looking back once her legs were clear to see… her mind couldn't register what it was seeing.
Bile rose in her throat. Tears stung her eyes.
Her brain refused to acknowledge what it was seeing.
"M-Mom?" Jayne croaked, eyes locked on the mangled fingers reaching out to her, bone peaking through the matted flesh.
"Oh god, Mom!" she cried, flopping from the edge of the bed she'd climbed up onto and crawling towards the lump of burnt and mangled meat in front of her. Bits of wood and bedsprings jutting out of the thick slap of flesh shielding her mother.
Oh god. It was Mark.
That… thing laying across her mother, that unidentifiable chunk of cooked flesh was her father. He'd probably tried to shield her mother from the blast, coping the brunt of the explosion so Jennifer wouldn't have to,Jayne turned her head to the side and wretched, abdominal muscles wringing every last thing from her stomach pitiful gushes.
"Oh God, oh God…" She wasn't aware of her perpetual moan until a rasping croak cut over her softly spoken mantra.
"Jay-ney…"
Jayne shivered, horrified and sickened by the sound. It was like something out of her worst nightmares. The voice of a demon that had taken up residence in her mother's flesh. Jayne curled in on herself, wailing. Wordless and broken, mind shattered and heart in pieces.
Don't look. Don't look. Don't look! Her brain repeated on a loop until it was all she could think.
"Jayne…look at….me." oh God, the thing was talking to her again. Her mind rebelled. Unable to associate that…thing with her mother. No. it couldn't be. It wasn't!
Her mother was beautiful. Laughter lines either-side of her mouth, vibrant red hair glossy in the sun with her brown eyes gleaming with intelgence. That was her mother. Not... not this thing.
Jayne looked up through the veil of her hair and promptly wished she hadn't.
Her hands flew to her mouth and she had to bite down on her lip to keep from sobbing. Or throw up again.
But it was definitely her mother. It was Jennifer. Sad doe brown eyes. Only one wasn't in its socket. And half of her mother's face was nothing but blackened muscles and bone. Jayne could count her mother's teeth through the shredded cheek tissue.
"Oh God, Mommy, what… what… what do I do? How do I help you?" she crawled closer, reaching out then stopping, unable to force herself to go that extra inch and put her hands on her.
"Jayne..." Jennifer was starting to slip, her whispered gurgle growing fainter. Jayne bowed her head to better hear, holding her breath against the smell.
"Live..Jayne…live."
Another wail pulled itself out forcefully between her teeth and left her screaming her throat raw, wanting to hold her mother as she …as she slipped away, but not wanting to inflict any further damage.
"Not without you, please… not…not without you. I just... I only just got you back." Jayne begged, pleaded, just wanting a few extra moments.
It felt like kindling slivers wrapped in sausage mince touched her cheek, and Jayne had to keep herself from physically flinching, lifting a hand to cover the one cupping her cheek.
"Live …for…me?" It was a barely audible whisper, the signs of immanent death as clear and evident as the knowledge that Jayne was about to be alone. Completely and utterly alone. "Fight…for…me?" Was tacked on and it sounded like it was painful for Jennifer to speak. Coughing and gurgling and foaming froth thick and pink on her charred lips.
Jayne nodded, unwilling to open her eyes and unable to speak past the lump lodged firmly in her throat.
"Prrr-omi…se..me…"
Jayne nodded again, tears trekking down her cheeks, through soot and blood and cream.
"S-saay it." Her mother prompted. Jayne didn't want to. She wanted to lay down next to the jumbled mess that was her parents bodies, flesh fused from the heat of the explosion, and join them in the afterlife.
"I promise." Jayne gasped raggedly, sniffling and sick all at once.
"G-good." Jennifer's 'hand' when slack in Jayne's and she clung to it as she wept, keeping it pressed to her face, pointedly ignoring the way it squelched and moved like liquid.
"B-bed..Jayne..the..be...the be…be—" Jenifer's body twitched, arm thrashing and legs juddering as Jayne clutched her mother's hand like a life-line. Thick ropes of yellow and red erupted from her mother's mouth and then she went still. Her chest didn't rise again. No shaking rasp or final goodbye. Jennifer was gone.
Jayne was alone.
It was as if her mind and body had become disconnected from one another during her mother's final moments. Jayne leant over and gently closed her mother's one good eye, carefully avoiding the other which oozed, eyeball hanging on by mere optic nerves. Carefully, almost automatically, Jayne pressed her lips to her mother's forehead, whispered "Goodbye, I love you," and then she stood, heading for the bed. Every step was like a physical blow to the chest. It hurt the further she moved away from where the remnants of her family lay.
"If this was living, Jayne wasn't sure she wanted to.
End Chapter.
Just a short one since there was a lot happening the chapter itsself was very dark. It only gets darker in the next few chapters from here, but it does get better.