Saving Rowan

Chapter 2: Revelation

It was absolute chaos everywhere Hannah looked. The dark roads were jammed with cars, honking and beeping, swearing, people shouting and babies crying. The occasional splitting gunshot. On all sides ancient buildings encroached. Objects littered the sidewalks, some stained with blood or char. The sky was filled with roiling, inky smoke from houses that had been abandoned in a hurry, some with dinner cooking in ovens or devices left plugged in to overloaded sockets. Inside Hannah wondered if their apartment on the fifth floor had become one such house, and it saddened her to think that her precious portraits of the family and friends she'd lost would be burnt to ashes. It wasn't fair! It was supposed to be her birthday, a happy day. Instead the world was ending.

When something massive happens, humans tend to split into groups. In this case, there were three types of people in the traffic jam. Some people were trying hard to solve this problem with rational, calm thinking, directing people to get back in their cars and wait. But there were those that were truly desperate; Hannah could see it in their eyes, the way they looked, the way they struggled so desperately to get through the jam and reach the open road.

And there were those that had given up. Those were the people that truly scared Hannah, and she wanted desperately to reach back and cover Rowan's eyes as hers went roving over them. The suicidal ones. Who didn't see a way out.

She hoped they wouldn't have to become those people.

"Mama! Look! It's Yui!" cried Rowan, stabbing the window with one pudgy pink finger. She turned and sure enough, Yui was there in the front seat of the car in front of them. She was one of Hannah's pupils (had been one of her pupils, Hannah reminded herself). Upon seeing Rowan, Yui turned to her mother and asked her something they couldn't hear. It appeared that the mother had said no. Yui turned back to the window and waved, pouting, and Rowan smiled back.

Suddenly Yui's face lit up. She undid her seat belt and scrambled to the back of the car, which was absolutely overloaded with bags and belongings, to grab a large piece of paper and a pen. A moment of scribbling, then a message held up to the window.

hey, Rowan!

He giggled at Yui's innovation and searched for something to write back, but of course there was nothing in the strange car.  Looking sad, he stared out of the window at her, unmoving. But Yui, who had been "the gifted one" in class, had another idea.

Soon, a paper plane came soaring out through an open window and through the smashed passenger seat window next to Hannah.

The note read,

Rowan i am hapy to see yu, i thot you ran of 

Silently Hannah passed the note back to Rowan. 

On the floor he found a piece of charcoal and managed to scribble, in his three-year-old handwriting on the plane,

happy to se u to and wher is yur dady

Less than a minute later a reply came back.

mama says dady is awa and we goin on vaction to frans

Hannah read the clumsy writing on the plane and her heart beat with sorrow for the little girl and her now widowed mother. Dady is awa. Daddy is away. And he wouldn't be back.

The note also said that the two were going on vacation to France. But with the traffic, Hannah doubted they would reach it in time. It wasn't fair that Yui and her family had to die. She was a good kid. It wasn't her fault she lived in a city with a timer that was slowly ticking down.

The car in front lurched forward suddenly as the entire jam moved forward a couple of paces. Hannah and Rowan were rocked forward violently as the car was rear-ended by the one behind, and Rowan screamed shrilly until Hannah had had enough.

"Rowan, will you SHUT UP? If we're going to DIE, can you at least BE QUIET FOR ONCE?!" Hannah exploded, finally releasing all the anger she had bottled up under her numb outer shell. 

He whimpered, curling in on himself. She was instantly struck by a wave of guilt and reached backwards to comfort him. 

"Shh, shh, Mommy didn't mean it darling, it's ok, it's ok," she whispered quietly. He batted her arm away and started to sob louder.

"Mommy, why did y-you yell at m-me?"

Rowan's voice quavered, voice distorted by tears.

 "Mommy, are w-we really going to die? I don't want to d-die."

In that moment she had never felt such a sense of purpose than what she felt then. Rowan was going to live no matter what she had to do or how far she had to go. This child was her entire life. 

Rowan was going to live.