Failure of Glory

Chapter 4

It had been a week since Jolie had spoken with her father. Jolie kept replaying the conversation in her head, wondering what she could have said differently to make her dad see things her way. As she stared up at the ceiling she went over it once more.

"Wanna tell me what you were doing up there," Hasan said, voice hard.

"Any chance you'll believe me if I say that I was counting the rungs on the ladder," Jolie jokes, trying to relieve some of the tension. Truth be told she wasn't the best in serious situations. She was tired and her hand was starting to throb, she just didn't have it in her to get into it with her father.

"Jolie, your hand," her mother exclaimed, coming into the kitchen.

"It's nothing mom, really. I just cut myself on the way in."

"On the way in," Hassan shouted. "So you were out there."

"Oh be quiet Hasan. Let's take a look at your hand sweetheart." Jolie sat at the kitchen table while her mother searched through the cabinets for medical supplies. She came back with the bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a box of gauze. She gently pulled Jolie's hand into her lap while Jolie rubbed her head, trying to ignore her fathers burning gaze.

"Look, if what you want is for me to say sorry you had better forget about it because I'm not sorry. Not even a little bit," Jolie spoke softly. "What I found out there can help us." She winced as her mom began wrapping her hand.

"Oh yeah and what'd you find that was worth your life?" Jolie looked at her father, his words seemed caring but his face was anything but that. His face was masked with something she had never seen on him before. She looked to her mother who had sad, downcast eyes. As of lately Naomi had been less and less inclined to get in the middle of their arguments and Jolie hated it.

She pulled her hand from her mother to take off her backpack. She pulled out the pictures and the journal that she had found, spreading the pictures out for viewing.

"This," she pressed down on the leather journal. "Everything that we need to know about the surface, including the fact that the fog only comes out during the day." Hasan and Naomi furrowed their eyebrows in confusion and looked closer at the items on the table. "And these," she motioned towards the pictures. "Everything that we need to know about Howlers."

"Howler," Naomi repeated, the foreign word coming out sluggish.

"They're blind but highly dangerous," Jolie informed them. "I've seen how fast they are, how precise they are, and what they'll do to people that interrupt their silence," she said, images of the praying man flashing through her head. She took in the horrified expressions on her parents' faces and was quick to explain. "But it's alright, as long as we stay silent they can't find you." She pointed to one of the pictures. "And there is a way to kill them. That means that we can live out there."

"Absolutely not," Hasan spoke. "I will not have my daughter out there while I am stuck here."

"Then come with me. I can make you all masks just in case-"

"No," he boomed. "Pick up all of this and go to your room. You're grounded."

Jolie scoffed in disbelief. "So I risked my life to find a way for us to start living again and you ground me," Jolie shouted, finding it hard to keep her temper in check. "Well I'm sorry that you were too scared to do it yourself,"

Hasan ignored her comment. "You will stay in your room and only come out for meals."

"You know what, why don't you slide my meals under the door or don't feed me at all. I don't want to eat with the likes of you," Jolie spat.