Saviors (Completed)

57. Life Or Death

"I..." 

What was I supposed to say? Thank you? That just appeared odd, but it shouldn't be. She had given me a gift, a modest thank you should be in its place. 

My mom had been an artist in speaking words in discussions and public speaking, while I had been it in writing them down and expressing them in stories, supplying them their own purpose, instead of employing them as a tool. She would have been able to say something and at least look like she meant it. Guess I am not precisely like her. 

My own and Mother's silence circled around me like a compact coat of oblivion. Not warm or cold, hate or love, just nothing. It was as if dropping down a hole where the base wasn't in plain sight. Actually a little similar to Alice in Wonderland, however, this time the hole didn't settle in a land packed with wonder, but a dull place where only my family could be delivered to. 

"I understand if you're speechless. You've never been good at talking." My shoulders dropped together with my gaze. It fell down on the box in my hands, making my curiosity grown. "I know you want to open it. You've always been impatient, however, I'll need you to wait with opening until we depart." 

I glimpsed up, elevating an eyebrow. She spoke more complex than she used to. Her original speaking patterns breaking. Normally, she would spit everything out specifically as they were, but she was dodging telling me something straight by using words. 

Her arm went inside her jacket, staying there. 

I shut my eyes for a brief second. "Why did you come here?" 

"I wanted to give you that and tell you something. Something important." She glimpsed down at my finger, my ring glowing. "You're getting married?" 

I quickly shook my head. "No, it's a promise ring." 

She nodded, biting her lip like me. "Your father never bought me a ring. Not even when he proposed." She laughed, glancing at her shoes while dragging them around in a straight line. "What a hopeless man he was even back then and how naive I was to really think he would ever love anyone." She gazed out into the air, drifting away from reality. 

"What made him like that?" I asked something I had never thought about doing before. It was well only natural that something from his past could've sculpted him into this bad person. 

"Your grandfather believed that the only way you could raise a child was through violence, however, for many years your grandfather had put it on the shelf because of your grandmother. She died when your father was seven. Your grandfather then, from grief and loneliness, took on his morals about violence and abused your father throughout his childhood. 

Your father ran away at the age of sixteen and was taken in by a mechanic who would hit him every time he did something wrong. At that time, it was normal for your father to be hit. His life had been ruined by his parents." 

Like me. 

A single tear came thrusting and the purpose behind it was terrifying. All my prejudices about him vanished for a bit and a sensation of pity was left behind. I could place myself in his spot. I understood how it felt like to be destroyed by your own parents. 

"I didn't know..." 

"He wasn't proud of it and for me to even know it was only out of luck when he came home gibbering about it one drunk night." As she spoke, the arm there lurked her hand beneath her jacket tensed. 

"What did you actually come to talk to me about?" I asked her, rotating to the only thing there made sure I wasn't twisting around and leaving; she still had unfinished business. She was about to open her mouth when I stopped her. I had something to ask first. "Did you ever love me? Did you ever want me? Were you really ever happy with me?" 

She flinched, her eyes growing wide. 

"Darling I have always been afraid, but... but that wasn't your question, so let me answer, yes, I am happy with you, I love you and want you more than anything. You saved me." 

My eyes were glazed with a layer of salty tears, half of them already running down my cheeks. I blinked, making sure the rest of them followed the others. I swallowed hard, before opening my mouth with trembling lips. "I don't understand." 

Mother closed her eyes for a moment, her head nodding. "You never do and you don't have to." She took one deep breath. "Your father and I cursed you. For many years I watched it get worse, however, I want you to forgive yourself for not making us love you and accept that who we ended up to be has nothing to do with you. Please try to begin again, my love. Show your father that you're not weak. And trust me when I say that you can do this, even if it means that it's without me in your life."

My brows creased and my face tensed. I glanced upward, my mouth slightly open. I tightened my grip on the package in my hand. The crushing of dirt behind me, made me wince and look back in shock. 

Anthony. 

"What are you do..." He fixed his eyes on the spot right over my shoulder and at my mom. "Oh."

I twirled around again to look at my mom. "Take good care of her, Martinez." The hand there had been hiding in her jacket gradually sneaked out from its hiding spot. Fine metal was enclosed around her fingers. A trigger came into display first, then the rest of the destructive weapon was dragged out from the coats dusk. 

A gun. 

I went forward as she raised it to her head, everything proceeding too slowly. My hand grasped for her, but I was too distant. She located the gun right alongside her head, providing me one last smile. "No!" I shrieked with all my force. I expedited towards her at a mighty pace, but it wasn't enough. Anthony's arms swaddled around me, shielding me in his arms. 

Bang! 

One shot. 

One kill. 

"No!" I squealed challenging Anthony's strong arms, requiring to see my mother. She couldn't be gone! "Let go of me!"

I struck his arm hard enough for him to wince away, giving me passage to jump out from his embrace and out on the ground. I sat on my hands and knees, gawking at my mother's dead body on the ground, crimson blood drifting out from her.

My eyes increased and everything froze.

My pulse. My breathing. Even time itself didn't exist any longer.

I twisted my head away, my freshest meal wriggling up my throat. Voices could be caught in the distance behind me, but everything was dissolving, together with my view. I returned it to my mother, needing one last flash. Wanting to be certain.

"Mother..." I cried out, my mind demanding more questions than wanted. 

Panick began to cluster inside of me. Tension increased in my weak body as my breathing became more hurried. In seconds I was rolled together, the only movements were my trembling limps. Salty tears dyed the soil. 

The last thing I noticed was Anthony's face before I fleed into the blackness of my mind. 

I had one goal... one thing that I really wanted; to have a normal life. This just ruined it all over again. 

...

 The dandelion's petals flew from its core as it bled, 
dying on the solid floor, knowing that it would set its roots somewhere else
and bloom again
and again
 until the sun no longer rose upon this earth.

-Houzza