Daphodile

Aftershock

The smell is what hits me first; the charred flesh filling my nostrils. The scent was crawling up my skin, gripping its way down my nose and leaping into my stomach, disrupting whatever was left inside. My already spinning head automatically shot down, aimed toward the ash covered grass beneath me. Suddenly the blackened earth had a dash of dark green- a gift from my stomach. Seeing flashes of the ground  as I was sick made me feel even worse on the inside; knowing, that this place was now where I would always remember only the death and destruction of my home. The sickness of this moment.

I slowly tilt my head up, the blood rushing to my head, and take a step forward into the moonlit night instantly stumbling over a piece of disconnected marble that makes my heart race out of fear as I trip, catching myself before I fall again. I remain silent, unable to speak or even comprehend at the true extent of the situation before me.

As though I was floating in a dream, I somehow managed to keep my eyes straight ahead, staring at the gaping hole in the side of the castle instead of on the increasingly worsening corpses that lay at my feet as I walked forward through the night, tempting me to look. One life taken. Two. Three. Four. Five. I train my eyes on the castle and keep them there.

My peripheral vision catches glimpses of jewelry shining in the moonlight, still attached to those who thought they would be enjoying a night of drinking, laughter, and even courting, and then go home to see another day.

All I could think about as I took each dreadful dreamlike step towards the home of the destruction was are my parents okay? The repeating thought played through my head like a mantra, and It gave me a sudden burst of adrenaline. I needed to run to them. Why was I walking?

My feet picked up the pace, catching up with my thoughts. For some reason, although I approached the menacing hole where the explosion erupted, I still go to where the side doors once were and step through.

Please.

I can't help my thoughts from begging for the lives of my parents. To find them alive. Even the dad that despised my existence would be a respite from the nightmare I found myself in. He was family- one of the two of my only known family.

My bare feet covered in cuts and dust and dirt suddenly find their way on the broken marble floor still slightly intact and the second I step back into the actual ballroom suddenly the dreamlike haze slips away and is replaced with panic. The room was a wreck; the chandelier blasted from the ceiling now mixed with the glass from the windows, coating everything in a glimmer sheen. The tables that were once full of food and drinks was pulverized, wood chippings and food splatters the only sign it ever existed, but worst of all the stage where my parents once sat on their thrones, watching over their people, watching over me, was obviously hit the hardest.

The stage was no longer there and a pit where layers of marble used to lay now took its place, concave and broken.

I take two steps forward before I can't anymore.

There weren't even bodies.

There was just destruction.

The ballroom where the explosion came from cleared everything in its path, throwing some out into the garden and killing others by sending them into oblivion, only piles of ashes and rubble left to remind me of their lives. The explosion took it all away- like my mother and father were just deleted. Not survivors, not corpses, not my family. Just gone.

I fall to my knees and they slam into the ground with a thud, and I let the pain being held back inside of me go; the realization hitting me hard. They were dead and I was an orphan.

My heart shatters into a million tiny pieces and I scream, ripping my vocal cords to let out the knot that stuck itself inside my stomach, and suddenly I find myself crying out profusely. My lungs were gasping for air as my body produced never-ending tears, telling the world I was broken even though there was no one around me to listen. I wanted to curl up and just lay there until I no longer existed. I wanted the pain to stop.

But it didn't, and my sobs echoed, lonely, through what was left of the room I was in. I bend over hugging my arms to my chest as the tears continued to pour down my face. My voice turned into a silent scream with nothing left to say.

It seemed as though I was going to stay like this, the entirety of my being inside and out forever hurting, until I heard a noise faintly coming from behind me.

My head quickly snapped up and into attention even as the tears still rolled down my cheeks, my mind was now on high alert. Who's there? The dangerous reality of the situation suddenly rolling through me.

My heart came to life, beating with anxiety, anger, and loss.

But as I twist my body to look behind me, not yet ready to stand, I hear someone call for me.

"Princess?" It was a male voice, speaking my identifier with a soft yet passionate tone, like they'd just checked to see if I was awake; beckoning me to answer.

The unidentified voice suddenly came into view, stepping through where the side door used to be and I realized it was him- Alex. I'd completely forgotten that he'd been outside with me when it happened. We both were the farthest away from the ballroom, and if I survived, of course he did.

My mouth turned slightly downward, and a frown appeared as I connected eyes with the only other person alive from tonight's event. His brow furrows upon seeing me and for a moment we're both frozen in place, looking into each other's eyes from across the room, reading the pain on each other's faces.

For some reason we both started moving at the exact same time, and he and I both started to jog and then run into each other's arms, needing mutual comfort in the tragic moment we experienced- we're experiencing. I swiftly moved through the rubble and suddenly this gentleman, the one who I've barely spoken more than five sentences too, was holding onto me. His now dirty white button down shirt pressed against the front of my cut up red dress, the last thing my mother ever gave to me before she died.

Alex's passionate embrace made me feel safe, his arms wrapped around me as I lay my tearstained cheek onto his chest and let a few more silent tears escape.

"I- didn't even get to say goodbye..." I whisper out against him into the air. I wasn't sure if he heard me because he made no acknowledgment to my words, he simply just kept hugging me as I cried.

He too was cut and bleeding, and it seemed as though a piece of debris cut a wide gash on his forearm, revealing the smooth skin underneath his clothes and a thin line of blood that begged to be bandaged. We both were feeling nothing but pain internally and externally and I felt as though I could stay in the protection of his arms forever.