Whistling Down the Sky

ONE: Flynn the Nobody Dies

"Stop. You have ten seconds to get the hell outta' here."

A boy laughs in reply; it starts from his chest and comes out in warm bursts, like when the sun beats on your face after a long year of April rain.

"Nice try; we're just here for the party."

He steps forward, his cheeks a rosy red, a smile etched on his face, his left hand clenching a pale top hat.

From across the storm shade asphalt a second voice cries out -

"Flynn, he's got a gun! Get out of there! Get out of there!"

"I said, stop!"

"We're here for the par - "

A gun shot fires at point blank range.

A man rushes behind closed doors, his wife's screams muffled by the warm wind. The second boy sprints to a neighbor's house, face pale, feet running, running as if on its own, far from the up-down chest falling heart beating quickly. Vermillion's pourin' out of his lungs, see; scarlet ink's bleedin' through cotton white. Agony, agony was all that he knew before reaching for quick gasps for air, only to fall short and cut off in his chest, feeling the warmth of blood seep onto his raised hands and oh, the agony...

"Flynn...my God...Flynn..."

He bangs on a crooked sign, and a girl opens, a take-it-sleazy grin put on, fruit punch in hand.

"Winfred! Hey - come on in...what's happened? What's made you look so horrid - "

The boy's in tears; his hands clasping tightly around the girl's own.

"Call 911...just call 911..."

He sprints back to the body spurting crimson, already a shadow of its former self. An inaudible whimper escapes his breath. Winfred cradles his head in his arm.

"Flynn, please, speak up, would you?"

His last words, "It's not fair."

It's not like in the movies, when the blood spurts spontaneously. It's a continuous stream, slowly seeping through clothing and dripping down the dark pavement, without any rain to wash it away from the two boys.

At the sound of a siren's sudden pitch change Winfred raises his head slowly, lost in a daze of glaring lights and a sea of blue uniforms. As the medical team pulls Flynn into a stretcher Winfred is denied permission to board the vehicle with Flynn. The ambulance swiftly drives away, crushing in its path a patch of roses before its lights sped off and into the distance.

That memorable night was the last moment Flynn Battle would ever be seen alive in the public eye again.

When local authorities pound on the front door of the bungalow Mr. Hepburns, the man who fired the fatal shot, opens the door - his eyes wide, and his large, plump wife beside him. A brief questioning ensues with Mr. Hepburns, his wife, and Winfred, who is deemed in too much of a shock to give a fully verified account of the events. After a quick confirmation of roughly the same story from all three witnesses officers at the scene release Mr. Hepburns and further decline to charge him with any crime. When later asked by the press for their reasons for doing so, officials stated that Mr. Hepburns "was fully within his rights to shoot the trespasser, who was clearly bypassing private property".

Upon seeing her crushed rose garden Mrs. Hepburns breaks down in tears, whimpering, "I wish I could've thought. If only I had thought." Her husband pats her shoulder gently, whispering, "Boy, I really did mess up; I made a mistake, I made a mistake."

A full hour after the fatal shooting, sixteen year old Flynn Battle dies en route to the hospital, right hand still clutching a stained invitation, his face stained with tears.

Just as the Reformation Acts nine years prior entailed, officials chose not to disclose Flynn's corpse to his family; their reasons stated as confidential. The funeral conducted two weeks later buried a coffin filled with his belongings; his body presumably left in a private crematory. Though initially simply questioned and released, after protests from the public and pressure from the press Mr. Hepburns was later charged with manslaughter, though after trial he was acquitted.

Soon enough, the seasons had came and gone; the clock moved on its own again. Time stopped for no one, and the world soon forgot Flynn's blissful, everyday smiles. At first glance there was nothing really special about him anyways - his grades weren't at all that great, he was good looking, but not that good, his family wasn't exactly royalty, and as with any young death, friends and family had gathered 'round to remember his "oh-so-great" legacy, which of course, was far from anything on a substantial level. He had not won any national awards, done an extensive amount of community service, nor did anything of great significance on even a small-scale level. For practically every pair of eyes who had come in contact with and ever felt the faint glow of Flynn's personality most all of them could testify with the utmost certainty that the lifespan of someone such as Flynn Battle was nothing more than dust in a sky of stars; yet another soul who had left the face of the Earth. Yes, he was missed - but only for the briefest of times.

But perhaps the most curious and only special aspect about the death of Flynn Battle was exactly how he died. He died, of course, just as Charlatan had planned - kidnapped, murdered, and literally wiped from the face of the Earth. And even then - he was simply one in a million others who were done away in the exact same fashion.

Seems harsh, I guess, but hey - Flynn was basically just a nobody. But posthumously, oh, posthumously, he was the embodiment of a generation's dreams.