Warning: Graphic content with possible triggers.
Hope
The sun bled crimson on the jagged slopes as it dipped into the horizon. Below the sky, ash hung in the air, which was thick with the smell of blood. The ground was covered in dust so thick and heavy it swallowed your ankles like quicksand. Jutting from this spread of ruined earth were the remains of a family. Mother and father were stripped naked, their torsos ravaged with lacerations. Their young daughter laid face down a few yards away. When Haruka turned her over, she found herself looking into a pair of eyes as blue as her own. Her mouth was agape, frozen wide into a silent scream. She couldn't have been more than 12.
Michiru stood by, a hand on Haruka's shoulder. "There's nothing we can do for them."
Haruka heaved a sigh. She swallowed the growing lump in her throat and stood. The combined stench of ash, dust, and blood was making her nauseous, but that was nothing compared to the racing thoughts in her head. She could only wonder what the girl's last moments had held, what horrible sights had been burned into her eyes as she struggled against her killers. The deep bruises on her arms; the ragged cuts zigzagging down her bare stomach; the hideous bite marks tattooing her neck and undeveloped breasts. Haruka balled her hands until she felt her nails digging into skin. It was all she could do to keep herself from screaming. "We shouldn't linger here." She heard Michiru, but her lover's voice seemed like a distant call in her ears.
"It had to be them." Haruka's shoulders quaked as she spoke through clenched teeth. "Those bastards. Those sick fucking bastards. "
Michiru gave no reply. She wrapped her arms around Haruka and felt the shudders wracking her body. "I will kill them. I will kill them all," she kept muttering, her boyish features creased with tortured rage.
Ash continued to fall from the sky, which had turned a bleak shade of purple. The lifeless eyes of the child stared at the two women as if to plead for help. Dust had gathered around her cheeks and mouth, which worsened her pallid appearance. In another life, she would have grown into a beautiful woman.
"We have to get going, Haruka." Michiru's voice was soft and even, a dash above a whisper. But Haruka saw that her eyes were downcast. Aquamarine bangs covered the trembling tears that brimmed in her eyes. Flecks of ash had settled onto her head and shoulders, and the shadow on her face seemed to deepen with the sky. Her anger no more, Haruka brushed the ash off of Michiru and held her tightly to her chest.
The shriek of bats trilled from the east.
"Alright. I'm just gonna check…to make sure..." Haruka's voice fell mid-sentence, her words feeling as if they were being forced through a pinpoint. Michiru raised her head. Sorrow remained in the deep wells of her eyes, stagnant but encapsulating like darkness. She nodded once and loosened herself from Haruka's embrace. "Don't take too long," was all she could say.
The family had been travelling in a van, its burgundy exterior eaten away by rust. Its double doors were bent and hanging from the hinges. Upon sticking her head through the opening, Haruka cringed at the gangrenous stench that seemed to arise from the worn leather seats. Holding a hand over her nose and mouth, she bent her way inside, just enough to catch a glimpse of a dirty bundle, lodged unceremoniously amidst cardboard boxes and plastic bags, in the back of the van. She crept further to the bundle and saw that it rose and fell. It was an infant girl. Haruka gathered the bundle in her arms and stepped out of the derelict vehicle.
She had ivory skin and dark violet hair, and her eyes were locked in gentle slumber. Haruka couldn't help but smile at the delicate sight. "I got you kid. You're gonna be alright." She stirred but didn't awake. With a thumb, Haruka brushed off what little black flakes had landed on the infant's plump cheeks.
When Michiru saw what Haruka held in her arms, she fixed an incredulous look on her lover's face. Haruka returned the look with an expression that stamped out whatever rebuke was about to spill forth from Michiru's lips. Even so, the smaller woman shook her head. "You know she can't come with us."
"Actually, I don't," came the terse reply.
"Haruka."
"No. We're taking her away from here and that's the end of it."
Michiru pursed her lips, her gaze unwavering against Haruka's. A moment of silence, interrupted only by the shrieking bats, fell between them.
"She won't survive," Michiru said finally.
"Don't jump to conclusions just yet," Haruka shot back. "Do you have so little faith in us as to think that we can't even protect a baby?"
Michiru narrowed her eyes. "That is not what I meant."
"Either way she's coming with us, and that's the end of it."
Michiru sighed. The things she wanted to say, in their suppression, had clumped into a burning mass in her throat. She wanted desperately for Haruka to understand their situation yet something, a tightening in her gut, an emotion that struck her with the sharpness of a whetted knife, which only grew and intensified upon looking into the infant's sleeping face, killed whatever desire she had left to pursue the ill-fated debate.
She placed her hands on the grime-covered cheeks of her lover. The muscles around her jaws had hardened like knobs of burnt rope. "I suppose there's no arguing with that tone," the smaller woman said.
"You're goddamn right," was Haruka's gruff reply. Her eyes however, had softened considerably.
Michiru chuckled. "You're cute when you're being hardheaded."
Haruka snorted, but with no contempt. "Whatever. Let's get back to the truck. I'm getting sick from just standing here."
Darkness had descended upon the earth when the two women were back on the road. The truck rumbled forth, its headlights dim, but pulsing against the thickness of the unknown. Like fireflies in a storm cloud.