Lily groaned as she turned her head and blinked at the glaring, unforgiving light above her. Dust fluttered down onto her face like grey snowflakes in a chilling world of despair. A light bulb hung limply from the ceiling, omitting a strong, buzzing glow. She tried to pull herself up onto her arms but found herself too weak to even move. Silence rang in her head, like the eye of the storm. That was where she was, the clear before the cloud, the silence before the sound, the…but where was she? She didn't recognise the tattered plaster peeling off the walls around her, the hole ripped unmercifully in the ceiling or the pieces of wood jutting form the walls.
Then she saw it. Peaking out from behind a slab of tiles that had fallen from the roof, like it was waiting. Waiting to be saved and hugged and loved was the face of a tiny teddy bear. Its glassy black eyes stared mournfully out into the chaos right at Lily's own large green ones. Lily felt a lump wrenching at her throat, fighting to escape. She gasped as she looked at her son's crib buried under the rubble and half pulled half crawled her way to the other side of the room. Her hands were raw and bloody and tears fell like rain don her pale face. Like her eyes knew what her brain was trying to comprehend. Her son was dead. She grabbed the edge of the slab and pulled. It didn't move but stayed quite still, taunting her. She shuddered onto the floor and lay there as she screamed into the night, a terrible sound penetrating the unbearable silence. Lily beat her hands against the tiles, using all the strength she had left until her muscles burned and she lay sobbing against the remorseless wall of death that separated her from the body of her dead son. As she lay, choking on her own grief, she felt the tiles shift slightly and slide away as she slipped off the pile of rubble. With a desperate effort she scrapped at the last of the roof with ragged nails and saw her son's broken crib. Harry lay there, in the wreckage, almost as if he were merely sleeping, the bed sheets stained with blood. Lily grabbed her son, holding his lifeless body close. Listening for a heart beat that wouldn't come, waiting for the crying that could never again escape from his motionless lips.
"My son." she whispered quietly as she held him close to her breast. "My beautiful baby!" she rocked softly back and forth. "Hush, hush, don't cry now little Harry it'll be alright. I'll sing you a lullaby now Harry and hug you so hard so you don't get cold, my darling, you'll never be cold." She lay down next to her baby, her eyes open and her body shivering. "Don't be afraid, nothing to be afraid of now. Mummy is coming Harry. Mummy is coming."
And with those words Lily gave into the darkness beyond the flickering light bulb. She gave in, as she held Harry in her arms, to the clear before the cloud, the silence before the sound. That was where she belonged. Asleep, with Harry.