Authors Note:
Wow thanks for all the reviews and compliments! Some of you requested a continuation of this fic and so I delivered. Not quite what you guys requested but what can I say? Before healing comes a lot of pain. (Like a lot)
I've decided to restructure this chapter a bit cuz I found it a bit chunky. Long paragraphs are often harder to read so I separated the text a little.
Suffocating.
The only thing she feels is agonizing pain. A constant pressure she can't shake, suffocating her, letting her take a breath only to suffocate her once more.
Leaving her feeling like she's on the brink of death only to cruelly let her live. Making her question if she even wants to take that breath or if she could just stop breathing and join her hermana in the heavens.
Wouldn't that be nice? She could then beg her sister for forgiveness, she could explain that she was sorry for failing her, for not being there to protect her, for dropping the ball. For not being a better sister and letting her die.
Numb.
She feels nothing. Nothing… Her baby sister just died, and she feels nothing.
People move around her, someone… Father Matiás maybe? has covered her hermana in a blanket, a hideous white blanket that her colorful hermana would've despised.
The heavens pelt down rain and hail, she's soaking wet, yet she can't feel the cold, can't feel a thing in fact. Mira would've laughed seeing her like this, all soaked like a drowned rat, the perfectly drowned ratta of the family. She wishes her hermanita was here to make fun of her.
She finds herself not caring what she looks like, probably to abuela's great horror. Why didn't she stand by her colorful and lively sister, why did she yield to abuela…?
She just sits there not moving a muscle, staring at that hideous blanket, drenched, frozen in place.
Fear.
His family is broken, and it all started with him. The villagers look at him with those accusing eyes filled with fear 'your fate is sealed when your prophecy is read.'
Mirabel never looked at him like that, Mirabel loved him like he loved the family. Even in her last moments she didn't blame him and wanted him to reconnect with the family.
He is uncertain if he can fulfill her dying wish, unsure if the family or anyone other than Mirabel could love him to their dying breath. Glancing to the wooded area next to Casita's ruins, he wonders if he should leave now before they cast him out?
Unable to move from the rock next to the wreckage, unsure how he even made it there in the first place. He sits there for hours, tears streaking down his cheeks as he stares at the hand that last held his niece's steadily colder one.
Shock.
She feels her mother's grief fall down on her, sees people move around her, talking to her, moving onto other family members.
She should hear it all, all the talk, the cries, the pain filled screams. But the first and last thing she heard when she got her powers back was her cousins last, incredibly weak heartbeat and then… Then there was just rushing water, blocking all else.
Heaving a breath as she looks at her sticky hands, covered in a red sticky substance. She examines them, ''how odd.''
She doesn't know how long she just stood there examining her bloody hands, she doesn't move, not when Mariano tries to speak to her, not when he picks her up and carries her away, not when he washes the blood off her hands, not when his mother changes her dress and not for a long while after.
Denial.
Antonio doesn't understand. Why is everyone acting so strange…so sad? And why are they letting Mirabel sleep outside, on the ground when it's raining.
He doesn't understand it at all. His father is telling him that Mirabel has become a star like abuelo, and that means that she'll never wake up. But that can't be true because Mirabel is right there and she told them all that she'd be closing her eyes for just a bit, she just needed a nap.
And Mirabel would never lie to him, not that he thinks his dad is lying or anything, but he's probably just confused. Sometimes grown-ups just don't always understand and that's okay, they'll be extra happy when Mira wakes up.
Suffering.
Looking at the puddles of water on the ground he gets spooked when he finds himself staring back into lifeless brown eyes. Turning around he sees that Mirabel isn't behind him, ''of course she isn't, she can't be, not ever again.''
He realizes that he has unconsciously shifted his eyes into Mirabel's, but not her soulful lively eyes no, all that the water reflect back are dull-lifeless eyes. Shifting his eyes back he is haunted by the image of his cousin.
He tries to imagine her beautiful chocolate eyes full of life, face full of laughter and happiness only to realize he can't. It's like his mind and gift are punishing him, erasing the beauty of her for he is not worthy to remember her like that, he isn't allowed to bask in her laughter any longer, none of them are.
Pain.
She sits there holding her baby's hand, listening to the cries and screams that surround her. It takes a while before she realizes she is the one who is screaming, she doesn't stop screaming even after the realization.
Someone is hugging her from behind and when the screaming gives way to heart wrenching sobs, those arms tighten holding her from collapsing in on herself.
Her child is… Mira, her baby… is dead… How can she go on living like this? With this gaping hole in her chest, with this gut-wrenching pain.
Children are supposed to mourn their parents not the other way around, it goes against everything in nature. How can the world be this cruel? What did her baby ever do to deserve this?!
Drowning.
He holds his wife as she screams and sobs in his arms, trying to hold back his own pain. He needs to be strong for his family.
He looks around, looking for his eldest daughters. He finds his first born kneeled right next to… next to his youngest, unfocused eyes staring at Mirabel his little butterfly.
Looking around he spots his second daughter bend over a rock, heaving heavy breaths. His sweet Luisa, so much like him, always trying to stay strong. Pain, grief, and helplessness swallowing them whole.
He wants to protect them from this pain and console them but he's only one man, he can't help his wife or his daughters, he's barely holding on himself. Hugging the love of his life tightly as she sobs, he feels himself breaking.
It's like he's drowning, seeing his entire family struggle to stay afloat but failing to do so. They're all slipping under the water, and he can't do a thing to safe them as he sinks further under the water himself, lungs filling with water, unable to scream or do anything other than suffer.
Anger.
How dare they! How dare they take both her father and her niece?! The sky cries and screams with her, acknowledging her pain and anger.
''How dare you…'' She whispers heartbroken.
She looks at the candle, that stupid candle! Two madrigals have died and for what?! So that the surviving Madrigals can get some stupid 'gifts', gifts drenched in Madrigal blood.
How could anyone call that a gift? Looking around her she only sees pain.
When it becomes light out again, she suddenly notices the villagers walking through the wreckage of casita, guiding her family away from it. Her children are already being led away.
She spots her brother-in-law guiding Julieta, her poor sister, away from Mirabel's body. Leaving Isabella to hold vigil over her body unwilling or unable to move. Swallowing her anger at the world she sets of to comfort her grief-stricken niece.
Regret.
He doesn't have a gift and never would, but he was a Madrigal through and through.
And as a non-magical Madrigal he should've looked out for Mirabel, protected her. Taught her to love herself, to value her life even if she never got a gift.
Of course, his situation wasn't the same as Mirabel's because she should've had one, she deserved to have one.
But he and Agustin should've taught her that she was all that her sisters and cousins were. They should've spoken up sooner, stood up and explained what it is like to be ordinary living among the extraordinary.
They all saw her grow up and fumble more and more to find her place among them, yet no one reached out their hand to her. They should've, he should've.
And now she's dead and all the good intentions and declarations of love came too little too late.
Guilt.
Abuela sits there in the grass as Doctor Emmanuel checks her vitals. Her granddaughter is dead… her family is broken, because of her. Because she forgot who the miracle was really for. Because she was unable to process the loss of her better half, oh how disappointed Pedro would be.
''Alma, we have to get out of the cold. Come on, I'll help you up'' Emmanual says reaching out to her.
She doesn't respond.
''Come on Alma, Pedro would kill me if I let his love sit in the pouring rain like this.'' Emmanuel says wondering how much more loss this woman can take. She was already a mere shell of who she used to be before Pedro died but now… He fears for her health.
She looks up from his outstretched hand to his face, voice cracking she admits ''I did this Manual, I've destroyed everything I hold dear.''