Author's Greetings: Lots of inner turmoil on my side of the world over the past few months, but I have finally come to a resolution. What I mean is that, as a writer, the time has come for me that all writers must face at one point in their lives or another.
That time when you realize that if you want to become a serious writer, you have to start writing that novel idea of yours.
Or in my case, start writing your fanfic as though it were a novel.
Yes, I am tackling the novel-writing business for the first time in my life and I am doing it with my other fanfic: "Eternal Autumn." Haven't read it? Go give it a look-see when you're done here, chances are you'll enjoy it.
So yeah, from here until I have written the final sentence in the rough draft, I am placing "Eternal Autumn" into a writer's lockdown. No more chapters will be uploaded for that story until the final draft is completed and excised hopefully by this time next year, after which I will upload them one at a time on a regular basis.
Fret not, though! Between the breaks of writing my "novel," I will continue writing side short-stories such as the ones I have been writing for "Black Sun Kittens." Even now I am wrestling with a new short-story idea in my head that I will begin writing as soon as I get through with at least the next three chapters of the "novel."
Until then, here's a chapter with a healthy dose of feels, inspired by tromboneking87's AMV of the song by "Imagine Dragons." Don't forget to fave, follow, or leave a comment!
(P.S., When I talk about "The Cataclysm" in my fanfics, that's me referring to whatever final climactic battle the show seems to be leading up to that the girls will face but that we have no idea of the details. Non-specific events are the fanfiction writer's saving grace. No one can say it's not canon! XD)
Hope you enjoy!
xXx
Black Sun Kittens
Written by M.E. Grimm
(Chapter Two: I Bet My Life)
xXx
Seven months after the events of Chapter One…
The last thing he remembered was the first time he saw her. It was a Wednesday. Yes, through the throbbing and ebbing waves of consciousness, the memory flickered to life behind his eyes. That day. He would never forget that bloody Wednesday. Not one second of his life went by when he didn't think about it. When he didn't think about her. Out of worry, regret, or pride, she always managed to cross his mind in one way or another.
He never got to tell her. She would never hear him say how proud of her he was, and the pain he felt from that truth made the loss of his right arm seem like a pinprick in comparison.
"He held them all off… he held off every last one of them-"
"Stop with your gawking and hold this! I'm gonna try and stop the bleeding!"
"He saved us all…"
The ground jolted and he felt weightless for the briefest of seconds. It returned with an abrupt force that clicked his teeth and bounced his eyes in his sockets. That's right, he thought, I held them off. I held them off while the workers and their families escaped.
What was I thinking about again?
He remembered, and a sudden warmth in his chest halted the creeping chill at the edge of his senses.
Oh right.
Her.
No one expected the violence that Wednesday. The White Fang would later publicly blame Vale authorities for not taking prior precautions against local Faunus hate groups. He would never admit aloud that he could find at least one small understanding on Vale's part. There was no way anyone could have expected there to be so many of them.
At the time he was only nine, an apprentice under the training of his master. The weapon he brought wasn't even a sharpened blade, but in the heat of the moment, anything that could stop a bludgeon proved useful. The splinter of protesters he followed found an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city to take shelter in after what seemed like an eternity of running. People who didn't have any serious injuries were immediately recruited to aid the medics with the many, many wounded.
He walked around the room, his anger festering with each horror-stricken face he passed.
Then, between two recuperating protesters, he noticed a girl sitting against the wall, her legs hugged tightly against her chest. She rocked back and forth to an unending rhythm and when he listened closely, he could just barely make out her soft mewling through the cacophony of misery pervading the building. Neither adult sitting on either side of the girl seemed to be paying any mind to her. She didn't belong to them. A girl who seemed no older than seven couldn't have come to the protest alone, there was no way.
Where were her parents?
He sat down gingerly in front of the mewling girl and carefully slid his hands along her arms. "Hey."
Her head snapped up. Her golden eyes, red from too many tears, fixed on him with doe-like terror, amplifying the deathly pallor of her pale face. She hadn't seen a ghost but after the things that happened today, he was sure she'd seen things much, much worse.
He heard the slam of her back against the wall as she dug her dirty sneakers into the ground. She kept pushing and pushing in spite of the obstacle preventing her from moving any further. Her breaths were labored and ragged with renewed fear. He hadn't understood what true terror was, but he imagined it must have sounded something like the weak whimpering he could hear beneath her gasps and heaves.
"Shhh, shhh, it's okay, it's okay..." His rough hands glided along her smooth, soft skin as he crooned on with as many reassurances as his nine-year-old mind could conjure. It took some time, but her little face gradually regained a fraction of its natural cream-white color and her eyes softened back into two golden halos shimmering with fresh moisture. In the back of his mind, he felt proud of himself. It wasn't every day he could say he calmed someone down from a panic.
"Wh-Who are you?" asked the girl softly.
He smiled wide as he answered. "Name's Adam. Adam Taurus. What's yours?"
The girl brought up a hand and messily wiped her nose across her face, running it through her unkempt waves of raven-black hair. Adam watched a little pair of black kitten's ears perk up atop her head and felt the warmth of affection bloom inside of his chest at the sight.
"Blake," answered the girl.
"Just Blake? No last name?"
She shook her head vigorously. "N-no, my last name's Belladonna."
"Oh, okay." He chuckled and ruffled her hair with one hand. "For a moment there, I was just gonna call you kitten and have that be that."
Red blossomed in her cheeks. She turned down to look at the floor as though it had suddenly become immensely interesting. "J-Just Blake, please."
The man sitting beside Blake suddenly bolted to his feet and ran somewhere behind Adam. When he turned, he saw the man embracing another Faunus woman so tightly he thought she might break if he constricted his arms any more. They wept between the passionate kisses they shared with one another and Adam realized he did not like seeing adults cry. Crying was something kids did. He was there for Blake, but he couldn't imagine if someone might be there for other adults.
He turned back around just in time to see Blake's eyes overflow with big wet tears while she watched the couple behind him.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
Her lower lip quivered, then a powerful sob wracked through her small body. "I don't know where my mommy and daddy went!"
Adam held her little hands in his again and rubbed them as he looked about the room. So many were bruised and bloodied, some bandaged, others moving and bustling about. Every single adult walked past them like they weren't even there, and he reached the disheartening truth that there was no way he would be able to tell this girl's parents out from the crowd.
"Do you have any pictures of your parents?" Adam finally asked Blake.
"N-No," she answered, her words bringing forth more tears. "Mama was always the one w-who h-had the c-camera…"
"Shhh, shhh, okay, it's okay..." Adam looked to the woman sitting beside Blake and, holding both of Blake's hands in one, reached over to grab her attention. "Ma'am?"
The woman turned wearily towards him. She was holding a bag of ice against a broken outcropping of bone where her second antler once was. She smiled weakly, her eyes slightly unfocused as they circled around the general area of Adam's presence. Adam immediately regretted disturbing her. "I-I'm so sorry to bother you, ma'am…"
"It's alright, sweetie," said the woman, "did you need me for something?"
"This girl, her name's Blake. Do you know her or her parents?"
The woman squinted at Blake, then motioned her to come closer, which Blake obliged. Her unfocused eyes skirted over Blake's features for not even several moments before pulling away with a solemn shake of her head. "I'm sorry, I've never seen this girl before."
Adam cursed under his breath. Blake looked at him with shock, but he wasn't paying attention. He looked quickly to the woman and bowed respectfully. "Thank you very much, ma'am."
She waved her hand kindly, then Adam stood and pulled Blake up with him. "You remember what your parents look like, right? What they were wearing today?" he quickly asked Blake. Before she could even nod in reply, Adam walked onwards through the crowds. It was all Blake could do to try and keep up with this boy's quick pace as they went hand in hand out and around the warehouse.
Adam remembered how red her cheeks were when he first yanked her up to her feet, and he tried to laugh. He did laugh once, twice, then his breaths devolved into fits of coughing. A spray of blood flew from his lips, and the intensifying coughs brought back his pain. And reality.
"Shit, they got a lot of good shots on him."
"There's so many. How are we gonna dress them all?"
"I… I don't know. Start with the serious ones and work down."
"We don't have enough first-aids to get them all, sir."
"That's all I can tell you. I'll get started, you keep looking for any more you can find. Go!"
Adam tried to move around, but parts of his stomach were not listening to his commands, sending a bolt of pain through his system each time he tried. He felt like a marionette with half its strings cut while he jerked out a few more failed attempts. Eventually, someone's hand finally pressed down on his chest while a person spoke to him in a soft voice.
"Please lie still, sir. A lot of people want to thank you. They need you. Be strong for them, please."
Be strong for them.
"Come on, Blake, be strong for them!" whispered Adam to Blake. The day was descending into night and they had searched all across the warehouse to no avail. The evening waned and more people went in and out of the warehouse. But most often the ones who arrived were other White Fang members come to check up on their fellow members, and the income of stragglers from the protest had slowed down to a trickle long ago, none of whom were Blake's mother and father. Blake was starting to revert back to the way he'd found her; sniffling and huffing quietly with each second her parents didn't break through the crowds.
He didn't want to admit to himself that he was losing hope as well. Adam looked all around himself, afraid.
Then he saw another White Fang member enter the warehouse and say something to the makeshift camp's head officer. The man listened to what the scout said, then an appalled expression spread across his face.
Alright, Adam thought in frustration. He turned to Blake and with a tiny smile said: "Come on, this way."
Blake followed Adam without a word. When he reached the group of officers, he bowed respectfully before introducing himself. "Adam Taurus, Apprentice. This is Blake Belladonna, I'm trying to help her find her parents."
The officers acknowledged Adam's presence silently, then all looked to Blake with grim faces. Behind him, Blake watched Adam with wide, awe-struck eyes. She hadn't the slightest inkling that the boy helping her was a member of the White Fang guard! Then she saw the superior men towering above her and she shrunk against Adam. They were all looking at her with an expression so sad it was beyond her young mind to understand what it meant. She didn't like it. She didn't like it and neither did Adam.
"Could you please help me find them? Could you…" Adam's words trailed off as the officers looked to one another without saying anything to him. A feeling of dread crept somewhere deep inside him as he asked: "What's wrong?"
The officer who walked in was holding a piece of paper in his hand which he looked to before speaking to Adam. "This girl's last name is… Belladonna?"
Adam glanced to his side and saw Blake peering up at him fearfully. He nudged her encouragingly to answer the man, which she did. "Y-Yes," she answered, "my last name is Belladonna. My name is Blake Belladonna. Do you know where my mommy and daddy are?"
The officer took a long breath as he glanced back to the head officer with a grim expression and nodded, who in turn hesitated for several moments before nodding back.
"What's going on? What's happened?" asked Adam.
The officer knelt before the two kids, ran a hand through his hair, and spoke. "We've got confirmation of seven deaths…"
Adam and Blake both went rigid. Blake gasped.
Then, with a trembling hand, the officer handed the paper to Adam. "... and the names."
Adam took one quick look at the list and felt his heart stop.
Two shared a last name: "Belladonna."
A tiny hand inched forward to point at the two names on the paper.
Oh, no, Blake-
Adam was too slow to hide the names from Blake's sight. A failure which was reaffirmed as he turned and saw Blake staring wide-eyed at the paper in a stunned, horrified silence. "No. No, that's mama's name… and that's papa's..."
Quickly, Adam thrust the paper back to the kneeling officer and held Blake close just as she screamed out in wretched realization. Adam didn't speak a single word while Blake's rage and anguish crumbled into a horrible wailing. With every sob and every cry, Blake's little body felt more and more fragile in his arms. Anger boiled within him. In his heart he felt a hatred strong enough to eliminate the entire human race for making this innocent girl- this innocent child- break down in tears.
But in that same moment, that hatred withered into nothingness as quickly as it had cultivated.
Don't cry.
Hatred won't stop her tears, he thought.
Please don't cry.
Adam craned his neck to plant a gentle kiss against her crown of midnight-black hair.
"I'm so sorry, Blake," he whispered. His tears fell hot atop her head, and her cries began anew from his words. She pressed herself tight against his robes and he silently waited just as before for the tears to stop.
"I'm here," he said. "I'll take care of you."
I'll take care of you.
I'm so sorry.
"What's he saying?"
"I don't know, but we're losing him!"
Later that year, some time after Blake got used to the idea of living under Adam's care, she told him he was like a big brother to her. In spite of her distant nature born from that day, moments like that were welcome reminders of the life still flickering brilliantly inside her golden eyes.
He smiled.
That same year, she began training alongside him under his master's tutelage. The new leader of the White Fang wanted the humans to pay for their crimes against the Faunus, and doing so required soldiers. He and Blake jumped at the opportunity to forward the cause.
Deep down, he knew she joined because of him. He never said to anyone he wished she didn't.
His smile disappeared.
They were partners. An inseparable duo whose missions yielded a success rate higher than most adult operatives. The White Fang became a force not to be trifled with due to the success of some of their missions. For ten years this went on. With the passing of each one, he became more and more enraptured by the strength of the cause. In his blindness, he couldn't see her grow farther and farther away from it.
Until...
"Goodbye…"
His smile died.
His thoughts of her didn't. Not once for the decade that passed in her absence. He sent operatives to check on her once a month for twelve months, every year for ten years. Even after fighting against her during The Cataclysm, he continued to watch as she grew and flourished in the life she made for herself.
She made friends, graduated a Huntress.
Fell in love with and married a Faunus who treated her better than he ever could.
Gave birth to a lovely baby girl, then had a beautiful baby boy a not even a year later.
A boy with golden eyes just like hers…
He smiled one last time. Tears ran down his face and onto the grimy floor of the vehicle.
I'm so proud of you, Blake…
When he tried to cry, he coughed up blood again. The pain was beginning to vanish, as was everything else.
I'm so sorry…
There was only an ocean of cold surrounding the diminishing island of warmth that somehow remained.
Tell her.
Adam grit his teeth.
Tell her.
"W-What?"
With the last of his strength, Adam searched out with his remaining arm and his fingers wrapped tight against the uniform of a shocked medic. He pulled himself up where their faces stood only centimeters apart. Adam's eyes glared into the medic's with an unbreakable determination as he whispered, "Tell her…"
"Tell who, sir?" asked the medic with wide eyes.
Adam pulled himself to where his lips brushed against the man's ear.
"Tell Blake..."
"Who?"
"Blake… Belladonna… Tell Blake… I..."
xXx
They huddled at the backdoor together, everyone clad from head to toe in only the thickest coats, the wooliest scarfs, and the heaviest boots. Sun looked to Blake standing on the other side of the hall and smiled goofily. His eyes flicked down to the children. Oh, how they gazed up at Blake with such impatience, their restlessness palpable through the layers of fabrics they wore. They were like little dynamos as they bounced in place at the door. Blake suddenly found the image of her children spontaneously combusting from excitement enter into her head. It drew forth an amused snort from her, and she couldn't hide her chuckling.
"Mama…" whined Dawn. Blake began laughing after making eye contact with her daughter and the child's cheeks bloomed beneath her scarf with frustration. "Mama, come on! What're you laughing at?"
"Nothing, nothing." Blake stifled her laughter poorly and held the doorknob in a mittened hand. "You ready?"
Dusk and Dawn nodded their heads frantically, their eyes ablaze with anticipation. Blake turned the handle, pushed the door open, and her kids' faces lit up instantly as they saw the fresh layer of virgin snow sparkling in the early morning light. Winter's first snowfall covered the entirety of the valley while they slept, and as she promised them last night, it was all theirs to play in.
"It snowed!" cried Dawn, "It really snowed!"
"It's so pretty…" whispered Dusk, his wide eyes looking off to the Three Mountains with their fresh blankets of pure white snow. "Like sparkly vanilla icing…"
"Mmhmm." Sun knelt between the two and held them in his arms. Just as they were about to hug him back, Sun picked both kids up, ran across the snow-covered porch, and lept backwards into the undisturbed cushion waiting beyond in an explosion of white powder. His children laughed gleefully in his arms as the snow fell down all around them.
From the porch, Blake shook her head and laughed. Only Sun, she thought, only Sun.
"Alright, go!" Sun yelled, flipping both kids out from his arms and pushing them forward onto their feet. "Go on, go, go, go!"
Dawn rolled out a small distance and scrambled into a mad dash, running around the backyard in a wide circle and giggling incessantly with each cloud of fresh snow she kicked up during her sprint. Dusk, however, took a few excited hopping steps forward, looked around himself, and tipped backwards to fall beneath the thick snow. Blake could hear the quaint chuckling arising from the boy's indention in the snow as she appeared before her husband. Their eyes met, and Sun pointed to the back of his neck with a grin. "Some snow got in my coat."
"Idiot," said Blake, smiling as she offered a hand and pulled Sun up to his feet. Beyond, Dawn came back around and fell into a roll exactly where Dusk was making his snow angel. There was a rustling of snow, a bump, a surprised cry, then a victorious laugh as Dawn bolted back to her feet with Dusk in hot pursuit. Blake watched as the two ran around, Dusk yelling and Dawn laughing over her shoulder, and felt Sun's arm wrap sweetly around her waist. She leaned into his looming presence and breathed a tired sigh. "Those are your kids over there."
"Eh." Sun grunted as he pressed his lips against Blake's head. "They get the craziness from you."
"Yeah, sure," said Blake with a giggle. She ran her hand along his chin and lifted her lips to meet his. She took a moment to enjoy the warmth, then parted and nudged his side softly. "Well, you'd better go play with them now. You've got to work in a bit."
"Yup. You're right." With that, Sun sprinted across the yard, lept over the numerous trails Dawn made into the snow and intercepted his daughter with a loud and playful growl. Blake watched with amusement as he lifted her high above his head before faux slamming her into the snow and tickling her while she was down. By the time Dusk reached his father and began helping him punish his sister, Dawn kicked up a fine white mist with all her struggling.
She was so entertained by the whole scene that it took a moment or two for her to notice her scroll vibrating in her coat pocket.
Pulling it out, Blake looked at the screen for the caller I.D. and saw the number was blocked. Her brow furrowed.
Weird. Wrong number, maybe? She answered the phone. "Hello?"
Nothing. There was only the faintest sound of breathing on the other end. Blake spoke again. "Hello?"
Silence again.
Blake was about to pull the phone from her ear and end the call when finally, a voice spoke.
"All animals are of the Earth."
A chill ran through Blake. The old code. She hadn't heard those words spoken to her in well over a decade. Not since... "Who the hell is this?"
"All animals are of the Earth," the caller repeated.
Blake whipped around to where her family was playing in the snow. They couldn't see the worry in her eyes, and they definitely couldn't hear her conversation. Out of habit, though, she turned away and completed the code so her family couldn't see. The nostalgia of the words as they escaped her lips was nauseating when she realized that it was once again her voice saying them. "But hate is of the cold heart."
"Are you Blake Belladonna, ma'am?" the caller asked. With their clandestine act out of the way, the voice of the person calling now took on a much more subdued, almost tentative, tone.
Blake glanced back once more to her family in the snow and was shocked to see Dusk now facing her, the quizzical expression on his little face giving the impression he knew something was going on.
But he couldn't know. There's no way he could know, Blake thought to herself.
Right?
Still, Dusk sat on his haunches and continued staring with his big golden eyes as his father continued playing with Dawn in the snow beside him. If Sun noticed him staring…
With a breath, Blake broke from her son's unflinching gaze and hurried towards the house. "How did you get this number?"
"The White Fang has its ways of collecting and keeping information," the caller answered.
Another chill. "Then you know I left long ago. Don't call this number again."
"Miss Belladonna, it's-"
"You leave me alone," said Blake with a growl. "Leave me alone, leave my kids alone, leave my husband alone, leave my family alone. I have nothing to do with you people anymore. Goodbye."
"Miss Belladonna, it's about mister Taurus."
Her hand froze around the back door as she heard his name. Blake felt her anger escape from her heart, but now a far more confusing plethora of emotions took its place. "Adam? What about him?"
"Are you alone, ma'am?" asked the caller. The speaker's voice caught as she asked the question, and Blake felt a growing worry take hold inside of her. She glanced over her shoulder. Sun now noticed Dusk staring and was talking to him.
"No," answered Blake. "I'm gonna try and find a place where I can speak."
"Go ahead."
With a twist, Blake yanked the door open and walked through it, slamming it shut behind her. She strode into a nearby bathroom and shut herself inside.
"Alright," she said into the phone. "I'm alone. Tell me now."
xXx
Dusk watched his father come from nowhere, sweep his sister into his arms, pull her up, up into the air, and slam her down playfully in the snow when he first heard the whispers. Sun was growling funny things while he held Dawn down and tickled her mercilessly, so Dusk figured he was probably just hearing things his dad was saying.
"Come on, Dusk, help me!" yelled Sun just as Dusk reached where his sister thrashed about in the snow. The little boy fell to his knees eagerly and threw himself into the task of tickling Dawn with deft fingers.
But then he heard the whispers again-
(White Fang Please No Please)
-and realized the voice and the words were his mother's. He stopped his tickling and looked from side to side. Sun was kneeling next to him and Dawn was on the ground, but his mother wasn't anywhere near him. Dusk glanced over his shoulder. Blake was standing in front of the porch like he thought, but the way she stood seemed odd. Her body looked stiff and her eyes wide with what Dusk figured to be shock or surprise. In her right hand she held her scroll to her ear and was talking to someone-
(Hate Is Of The Cold Heart)
-who was making her uncomfortable the longer she spoke to them. And for some reason he felt he knew the things going on inside of her heart as they radiated about her and within her like a mirage, a swirling flurry of colors and words stirred up by the conversation she was having with the-
(White Fang)
-person on the other end of the call.
He cocked his head. What's a White Fang? Looking at it, the word made no sense to him, but he could tell it certainly meant a lot to his mother. All that made sense to him was the sudden change in the colors inside Blake when she finally noticed Dusk staring at her. The alien feeling pulsed from the center of his forehead and when he concentrated, it was like he was-
(Listening To What I'm Saying? Impossible, He Couldn't Know. Could He?)
-seeing a hue of deep pink. Like someone blushing, but much more serious than that. He couldn't put it into words and he didn't think he wanted to.
Blake turned on her heels and walked quickly back towards the house. Dusk kept his eyes on her and saw her colors curling slowly from pink to-
(LEAVE ME ALONE LEAVE MY FAMILY ALONE LEAVE US ALONE)
-dark scarlet as she stopped at the door. She was hunched to the side and speaking into the phone with quiet, jerking movements. They were quite familiar to Dusk, and he remembered the rare times when his mama became well and truly angry with someone or something. Only this seemed different than those other times. He could see a lot more now with this new, alien feeling of his than any of those other times.
With it, Dusk knew the name of what he saw: Fear.
Out of nowhere, the colors changed again. Images began to appear in the storm inside of Dusk's mother. Images of-
(Adam?)
-a person Dusk had never ever seen. Images of a boy, a teenager, a man with blood-red hair and two horns curling back atop his head dancing about in undulating shades of scarlet, crimson, and vermillion; photos tossed along in an updraft. If Dusk was confused about Blake's feelings before, he was completely lost now. Love, bashfulness, anger, and sadness were only a few he could understand. Sometimes it was one of these, often at times it was a collection of these, and other times none.
Then there were the words caught in the updraft.
Friend.
Enemy.
Terrorist.
Murderer.
Brother.
Big Brother.
Big Brother?
"Dusk?"
Dusk blinked and Sun was shaking his arm. Beside him, Dawn lifted herself, panting with laughter, to sit upright. When she saw Dusk, her head tipped sideways quizzically.
"You alright, Dusk?" asked Sun. The playful expression from earlier now replaced with gentle worry. "You were looking a little pale for a minute there."
Dusk swallowed and found his throat inexplicably parched. He lifted a dimpled hand to his forehead. It was as though the foreign sensation from before had never existed.
"Dusk? Buddy?" Sun took off one mitten and lifted it to Dusk's cheek, trying to check the warmth in his face, and Dusk flinched from the chill. "Woah, you alright there?"
Dusk laughed a little, uneasily. "Yeah, dad. You're hand's cold."
"You alright? You look like you saw a ghost," said Dawn.
"I, uh-" Dusk looked quickly to the house and saw that Blake had already gone inside, said: "I'm fine, I just need to go to the bathroom." Without adding anything further, Dusk jumped to his feet and ran back into the house. He reached the door and, knowing his mama was somewhere around here, shut it carefully behind himself so as to not make too much noise. Each step he took was careful, tentative, as he walked through his home and tuned his ears, both pairs, to listen for the sound of his mother wherever it may arise.
Then, he heard it.
Dusk knew his mama's voice. It was smooth, calm, sweet, and sometimes powerful whenever something really got under her skin.
He'd never heard her voice like this before.
"What… what do you mean, Adam's…?"
He'd never heard it tremble.
Following it, Dusk found himself staring up at the door of the bottom floor bathroom. He took off his knit beanie and pressed an ear softly against the tall, wooden surface. Inside he heard his mother's soft, rapid breaths rise and fall while the caller on the phone spoke a conversation he couldn't make out. Words his mother tried to speak died in soft croaks before she could complete them. Dusk didn't like the sound. His mama was strong, calm, and kind. Sad didn't fit into her description.
But then what was she hearing? What was the Fang-person saying to her that was making her so sad?
Without warning, the alien sensation pulsed forward from Dusk's mind through the door to where his mother was and he saw her there: her hand pressed tight over her mouth, her golden eyes wide with horror while tears trailed down her face in relentless, unending streams. Her feelings had become a grainy snow gently falling. Images of the boy, the teenager, the man with the red hair and horns crumbled away into nothingness, disappearing into unending whiteness.
Gone
Adam
Dead
Gone
Big Brother
Dead
Gone
Blake took in a sharp breath after a long silence and exhaled. The person on the other end of the call said something, to which Blake said, "Y-Yes, I'm still here..."
The conversation continued, but Dusk didn't hear any of it. His sight blinked abruptly back to normal and he took some steps away from the door. Something dripped from his chin down to the floor. When he felt it with his fingers, he realized tears were streaming down his cheeks.
Dusk then heard his mother place the scroll on the sink countertop with an uneven clack and he knew her crying would come next. But it didn't come the way he thought it would. There were sounds like heaving, quiet at first, which grew steadily into a wheezing as though it were suddenly difficult for her to breathe. There was a soft thump against the wall, then a shifting of fabric which traveled down to a gentle bump. Dusk moved close to the door as he heard the first of his mother's sobbing, and placed a small hand where he knew her head leaned helplessly against the polished surface.
Don't cry.
He pressed his own head against the door as he felt his tears fall again.
Please, don't cry.
Somewhere, the backdoor opened and Sun called out to the house for Dusk. Footsteps rounded the corner and Sun was shocked to find his son curled up against the bathroom door and in tears. He bolted forward and fell beside Dusk, holding his little face in his hands as he inspected the boy with an intense fervor. "Dusk! Dusk, what happened-"
Sun's attention snapped to the door as he heard Blake's wheezing sobs inside the bathroom.
"Babe?" muttered Sun. He lifted Dusk and placed him away from the door before rapping his knuckle hurriedly against the surface. "Babe, are you alright?"
There was no answer. Blake's ragged breathing continued from within. Sun reached for the handle, and upon twisting it, was relieved that Blake had neglected to lock it. Dusk, who sat against the wall with his legs held against his chest, watched as his father pulled the door open.
It was surreal to see his mother- the woman who'd always been there to soothe him down whenever he cried- sitting there with her legs held tight against her chest as she sobbed into her knees. As Dawn rounded the corner and laid her eyes upon the sobering scene, Dusk knew she was more than likely thinking the same thing.
Sun was beside Blake in a flash, casting his mittens aside as he whispered softly into her ear and rubbed her quaking back in small, gentle circles. Blake's head slowly lifted, and Sun's hands flew up to hold her tear-stained face while she looked blearily at him through puffy, red eyes.
"What happened?" asked Sun. He stroked her hair from where it clung soddenly against her cheeks.
"Big brother's dead…" she said miserably.
"What?"
"Adam's dead, Sun… Adam's dead, he was..." Blake tried elaborating, but it was all she could manage. She collapsed into another bout of heaving cries and Sun held her close against his chest, stroking her hair gently while she wailed and sobbed relentlessly into the fabric of his snow-soaked coat.
And all the while, she didn't notice Dusk as he came up behind her and rubbed her back with his tiny, dimpled hand. He whispered words to her he'd never spoken before today, and somewhere deep down Blake heard them. Not in her son's voice, but in his voice.
Please don't cry, mama.
Please, don't cry.
