Man in the Mirror || irwin (DOING SOME MAJOR EDITING!)

[ 44 ] 2013

[ 44 ] 2013 

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"Seeing how happy we were just makes it hurt more."

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Michael helped Arthur dispose of the body. With a bit of difficulty, the dragged Rohan up the metal ladder that led to the outside world and were gone for a while. 

Arthur told everyone to remain where they were. He said he was going to contact the other hunters and give them orders to stay away from Sydney. Since Rohan had been dealing with two families, Arthur feared he could have called othe hunters to help get the job done.

She paced the room impatiently, with her arms crossed over her chest. Harley stopped dead in her tracks when her leather boot stepped on something that cracked beneath her weight. Her eyes squinted in the dim light to see it was broken glass from the photograph Ashton broke when he knocked Rohan unconscious. Curiously, she leant down to get a closer look.

The picture was upside down and she picked it up in her hands carefully, hoping she wouldn't get cut. She turned the picture over and sucked in a breath, surprised at what she saw.

The family picture had four people she didn't recognize and one she knew well. There was a man and a woman, two children, and a teenage boy, all of them smiling wide. They looked like the perfect family, standing in front of her house, on a perfect summer day.

"Ashton..." She ran her finger tips over his smiling face.

In a flash, Ashton was standing right beside her. "You called?"

She straightened up and offered the picture to him. As his hazel eyes scanned the picture, she looked around the room more closely. "What is this place?" She asked in amazement.

"Bomb shelter." He replied.

"Bomb shelter?" She repeated, her voice coming out as a question.

He nodded slowly. "In the beginning of the sixties...the Americans and the Russians were fueding. There were rumors of a possible nuclear war that could destroy life on earth as we knew it." He explained to her. "So people started building bomb shelters, my father was one of those people. Its essentially an underground house that runs beneath the entire property that belonged to my family."

"That's why the entrance was on the neighbor's yard." Harley concluded.

"The family never used it, thankfully." He continued, "But I remember Harry and Lauren would sneak in and use it as their club house. Towards the end, mother used it as a storage place for her countless photo albums too." Nostalgically, he seemed to drift off in his thoughts before adding, "Before today, Harry and Lauren were the last people who sat on those couches. Isn't that interesting? Of course, they're dead now." His words sent a shiver down her spine.

"That's kinda scary." She admitted. 

He was quiet for several seconds while Harley watched him. He continued to hold the old photograph in his hands until he walked forward and placed it where it had originally been, except this time it no longer had a frame. Harley found it curious that he set it face down.

"Why faced down?" She wondered.

"I don't know." He shrugged. "Its been fifty years without them. Seeing how happy we were just makes it hurt more."

Harley didn't know what the correct thing to say to him was. She had obviously never been in a situation where something like this had happened. What could she say? Hey, you'll be with your family soon cause Calum is planning to get rid of you? This was an occasion where no amount of words could help.