Shynonie's Shorts

This Is My Worst Nightmare

This is my worst nightmare; having to watch as one of my adult daughters grieve the loss of her partners and infant son. Our home had fallen into a mass of chaos shattered ruble in the middle of an eerily quiet forest. The kind of quiet that comes before a storm that'll flatten any tree or structure it comes across; the type of quiet that falls when people hold their breath as the hope and pray for someone to take another breath, to not be dead. My daughter, Ru, was digging in the ruble in an attempt the find what was left of her broken heart; this only made her hands bleed more and paint the pieces of our home a sickly red.

"Ru, they're gone. We need to leave before that deity returns." My voice was rough from shouting, from barking orders in a failed attempt to make sure everyone made it out alive.

"I don't care about some stupid god! I want them back! My baby, my loves, everyone. I want everyone back!" Ru shouted as she dug, not bothering to look up and at me. Knowing her grieving process, she would go from frantic to manic by nightfall only to disappear inside the nearest bar.

"Nonie." The soft, distraught voice of my older sister sounded behind me before Melia came to stand beside me. "We need to go. Olive has a shadow open, a new destination has been picked so we can rebuild. The others have already gone through after finding a belonging or two of the people we've lost. We'll mourn them once our family is safe. I must insist you pull Ru away from the ruins; if not, I'll ask Olive to open a shadow beneath her so she will be forced to leave."

"And forcing her has never led to anything good. I'll bring her in a moment. Go to the others, no one should be alone now. I'll be there in a moment."

I watched Melia go, her usually elegant and clean attire now reduced to ash stained rags that were no better than my own. Once she was out of sight and presumably through the shadow, I worked my way down into the pile of ruble. My feet were bare and bruised, cuts on the bottom stinging as I carefully climbed the mounds of ruble to come to crouch beside my kneeling daughter. Remaining silent for a few moments, I had the displeasure of truly taking in my daughters appearance. Clothing caked in more blood than dirt or ash, ripped in many places; some of which making me question how it still clung to her body. The cut on her head had stopped bleeding, yet her face remained stained with dried blood. Fingers who's nails were usually long and painted now held no nails at all, Ru's insistent digging having resulted in all ten nails being ripped off; tips bleeding freely much like her battered palms. I had previously pulled her twin away from the broken body of her friend, my adoptive daughter Olive away from the remnants of her friend who had sacrificed himself to save her. My sister from the corpse of her wife who had been the first casualty of the day, killed by a rogue ally and thus starting an unplanned battle. I had managed to pull myself off of the corpse of my fiancé who had failed to keep our large home standing even with the strength of his abilities. I could already feel that our unborn son would not have the privilege of taking his first breath. But above all, watching my usually confident and fiercely strong daughter Ru dig in what was now a mass grave in search of heartbeats none could hear was my worst nightmare.

"It's time to go, my love. We can't stay here, you know we can't. Melia and I have already gathered what belongings we could find of our late family members. We'll hold our own burial once we have settled elsewhere. But right now, we have to go." Sliding a sore hand up and down the stiff back of my daughter, I kept my voice soft and kind.

"He...he asked me to marry him. Right before the house starting shaking, he asked me and I said yes." Holding up her battered left hand, Ru showed me the gleaming engagement ring. Its band was thick silver, decorated with smooth rubys and black obsidian; red and black being her favorite and most worn colors. Jasper had been a good man, just as Jules had been the perfect woman for my daughter who was capable of loving and maintaining a multi person relationship.

"Ru..." Voice thick with wet emotion, I pulled my shaking daughter into an embrace which she surprisingly returned. She and I had never had the best relationship, so this hug was much more than just that. "Come, we have to go. If it is safe in the near future, we'll come back to retrieve everyones bodies so they can be properly put to rest."

Getting no response, I pulled the both of us to our feet and led the way out of the ruins of our once grand home and through the blood soaked burnt grass to the open shadow leading us somewhere new. A new forest that held what looked like an old abandoned manor, something that desperately needed fixing but would easily be a project the rest of us could focus on instead of the most recent tragedy we had to face. As the shadow closed behind us and Ru stepped away to embrace her sobbing daughter, I eyed the manor and hoped that the experience we had just shared would be the only one of the list of my worst nightmares to come true.

But it's never that easy, is it?