THE DOZEN

MONTGOMERY.

Almost instantly, she yanked the door open and began shouting, "Ayden! Ayden, honey, Mommy's home!" It was a desperate shout that had faded into the frigid Boston air by the time the rest of the subjects arrived at the porch. It was more than unkempt; with dozens of envelopes stuffed into the small mailbox, miscellaneous objects clustered into the corners. It was almost saddening.

The first to step in was Subject Nine, just like she was the first to take a step outdoors, except this time she was limited by decorated walls and dusty floors. The floors she paid no attention to, but one picture lazily hanging on the wall caught her eye: a picture of a woman, blatantly Subject Eleven, yet much younger and much more... at ease. Nine knew she'd be at ease too if she had a smiling baby in her arms and a handsome man at her side.

Another small detail caught Nine's eye, and it was The Montgomery Family neatly scripted into the bottom of the picture frame. She hesitantly ran her fingers across the engraved words, feeling every ridge and curve of the simple inscription, but pulled them back with a sharp breath as a haunting shout of, "Ayd– Oh, my God!" sounded throughout the house.

A hand over her trembling mouth, blocking the panicked breaths that fought to escape, Eleven couldn't tear her eyes from the scene before her. There was just... It couldn't be.

That couldn't be her mother; that couldn't be her son.

Just the very thought of the two of them... She didn't even want to think about it. The sight before her was enough - enough to submerge her in a never-ending pool of sadness and anger and catastrophic calamity; enough to cause a bloodcurdling scream to erupt from her mouth. Not even her unsteady hand could muffle the ear-piercing shriek. 

She didn't believe the man who made his voice heard by all twelve of the subjects when he said that the dead had risen and begun feasting on the living. She thought it had to have been an exaggeration, something to scare them into going to DC.

But she knew now. There was no way to deny the sight before her; the blood, the squelching, the way those cloudy eyes once belonging to her mother fixated on her and only her. The body once belonging to her dear mother, now rotted down to nothing more than an empty shell, slowly turned to face her, standing to its shaky feet. Eleven's eyes met with the ones that used to be a soft shade of hazel, now just a milky shade of ivory.

She found herself unable to move in the wake of the wheezing body's first step towards her. She wasn't sure if she even wanted to. Was there any life worth living if those she loved most weren't by her side? Was there any hope to remain after losing the only light she'd known?

She couldn't even somehow formulate a sufficient answer. All thoughts got interrupted by two gunshots blaring throughout the room, coinciding with the two bullet holes suddenly appearing in the dead one's shoulder and neck. Three more gunshots, muffled by the ringing in Eleven's ears, then the body finally collapsed to the ground with one last wheeze. Her eyes widened, but they didn't flicker to the side to see who had pulled the trigger. That was the least of her concerns, especially with the lifeless body of her son lying in a pool of blood not even five feet away.

She wasn't sure what she did first: fall to her knees or rush to him; and maybe she did both simultaneously, she didn't care. In that small moment that she rushed to her son's motionless side, she swore she didn't care about anything except him as if somehow that declaration would bring him back. Her trembling hand hovered above his colorless cheek, her other hand just barely touching what should've been his abdomen, but was only an assortment of exposed bones, muscles, and organs.

That was when his blood began to pool onto her aseptic hands, and that sight was what finally caused a strained sob to escape from the tormented mother as she pulled her son's body closer to her own.

She wished she could hang more of his ridiculous photos on the side of the fridge, congratulate him for every passed test, walk him to school every morning like she used to before agreeing to be a part of the project. She even had high hopes for what she would see him accomplish after the project was over and done with.

She wanted to see him graduate, for her his eyes to meet her proud ones as he walked across the stage and received his diploma. She wanted to embarrass him on his first day of college, pack his lunch even when he was more than capable of doing everything on his own. She wanted to watch him become a father, a husband; watch him do whatever it was that made him happy.

She wanted him to be happy. And now he was gone, and that small realization was agonizing. Torturous, almost. The minute it hit her like a speeding truck, she knew the pain would be everlasting. Losing one's child was just a different kind of pain - just the word pain itself didn't even seem to summarise and adequately display every single heart-wrenching emotion that Eleven had no choice but to accept.

It was blatant that the mother was unaware of the rest of The Dozen's presence. They didn't expect her to be, not with her eyes clenched shut and her own cries muffling every small noise to be heard. Maybe it was an invasion of privacy, maybe it was just simply rude, they didn't know.

All they knew was that the Montgomery family wasn't much of a family anymore.

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this was originally supposed to be the first chapter but too much, though it may not seem like it because I split the original chapter into two so it wouldn't amount to like 5000 words.

chapter two and all the characters aren't even introduced yet yay me
dw tho if characters don't get at least some part dedicated to them in this first part, part two definitely will make up for it just because of how much it really does single everyone out

word count: 1627