Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
□ mara □
I know they're here. I see them, smell them, sense them. But I don't care. I feel my muscles burning as I move through the... house.
A structure is now what it is, but only just.
The lawn is burning charcoal in some places, the house is in sharp pieces scattered across the said lawn with just some planks still standing, and I can barely see anything in the dim light of the moon.
But I sense them.
The bodies, I know they're here.
Whether they're alive or not, I don't know. I don't want to know, and I just can't know if it's...
I can't lose another brother.
I can't.
"Mara! Wait!"
I keep moving, stumbling, twitching, and turning. I can't stop. The ground is charred beneath my feet, as it crunches and starts to send more heat through my shoes.
My breathing becomes labored the closer I get to the house, which is partly because of the smoke and my anxiety spiking through my body like a pufferfish, but also because I feel more and more trapped inside the stench of death.
Death of not a bachelor, but hey, the death of a family member.
I can't take that.
I can barely keep my act up by myself without getting killed - all of which is my fault by the way - but then again, it was partly Jason's fault that he didn't listen either.
I swallow now, trying to lessen the overwhelming presence of the Wayne family friend (death), and I keep spinning around, smelling the heat burn the inside of my nose, wavering into my throat.
"Mara! Come back here!"
I take one step backward, suddenly a pain shoots into my foot. From my heel to my leg, my knees give out, and I slam too quickly onto the hot ground below me, feeling its still-fresh ash burn against my clothes.
But I can barely notice it, not when I'm on my knees, staring directly at something familiar.
It's Alfred's hand, of which I place my own over, fiddling with the wrist. I try to find a pulse, but I can't find any; whether I'm feeling in the wrong spot or he doesn't have a pulse I don't know.
I drop it quickly.
My eyes burn, the heat from the explosions still encapsulating me in its deadly warmth, and I let the tears fall once again. It's not of loss or melancholy I know that; it's of anger.
