This Is A Time For Running (TC fanfic)

Jerome

We hobble along as a strange pair, a Bacca and a human boy, walking towards smoke.
But I know where the smoke must be coming from and that is my home.
So we go, as the afternoon is passing. We are starting to get closer, and my senses pick up the smell of smoke and fire, and another underlying smell that burns my nostrils and makes my hair raise. I start recognizing the surroundings and break into a run, Mitch following me best he can, but he soon catches up.
I stand at the edge of the destruction, my teeth bared but tears slipping down my face at the same time. The fire and smoke makes it hard to see, and I wander around half blind until I find the house. My house. My family's house.
It's burned, but not as badly. I avoid the bodies lying in the street and make my way up it, terrified to enter.
A hand falls on my shoulder, and I know it's Mitch.

"Do you want me to..." He trails off, and I nod slowly before entering the small opening, Mitch following.
The first room is ransacked, all the small trinkets from over the years gone. The other rooms prove empty as well, and my heart lifts slightly.
But then I enter the backyard.
Three bodies lie strewn around the grass, bleeding, red.
Grass I know, grass I played on with two of the bodies, stained red. I let them lay where they fell, my brothers. I look to my mother, and sit, carefully rolling her over to see her face. She looks scared, so I close her eyes.

Then I wail.