Secretive - Bucky Barnes

19 || Humming

Steele has dropped his corpse like one of a decayed flower; it happens in slow motion for me. A decayed flower whose petals have lost all color, wrinkled already and has been sucked entirely out of life and vividness. Dark hair falls to the ground, almost like a puddle of pitch spreading on the expensive marble floor. The angle causes one of my angels' face to roll over in low speed, and I am lucky that I do not breathe, because I surely would have my air stuck right on its path. His bright blue eyes open, equaling the shade of the romantic symbol of desire and beauty, of goal and longing, every ounce of happiness I once saw in them escaped, every ounce of sarcastic humor lost into nothingness. Empty. Bygone. Hopefully ended up in whatever heaven it is they believe on in this planet.

My heart clenches.

I did this.

These sunken, cold features. This stiffness having captured all of his being. The sick paleness of his skin. This smell of death poisoning the dusty atmosphere. These laughing features, these hopeful glances, these supportive actions all turned into memories, who will distance from me with every day that passes. With every month that passes. With every year that passes. Part of me has doubted it, but now, there is not a single bit of denial left.

I did this.

But I do not show any of this. Do not show how hurtful my heart clenches, knowing there is nothing else to blame but my selfishness. Do not portray the rough fight inside to the outside, that is causing my tears to stay back, my features to not move an inch. Do not scream as I want to at the sight of his corpse, still wet from the ocean he was born in, and which welcomed him in his last moments. I think it was his wish to die in there, and it only fuels my anger that Steele has dug out his leftover from his last residence.

There are still stenches of blood on his clothing, the clothing he wore the day he died, a light shirt and dark trousers. Right where the bullets hit him, his stomach and his leg, the spots are washed but still soaked into the fabric, clearly illustrating where exactly the holes are underneath.

Regardless of the fact that I already knew, or was sure to ninety-nine percent that Alistair is dead, seeing it is a slap into my face, leaving me physically feel the burn. But not just at the spot that hit me; everywhere. My mind makes a rollercoaster ride through my consciousness, my memories, not only of him, but for what he stood. How he taught me, helped me, came after me although knowing the risk. Let himself be tortured for years with me, at my side, had an eye on me, tried to explain my heritage to me. 

And how he elaborated his point of view on people, the human race. Slowly, understandable, and over and over again. With watching him fall, hit the ground lifelessly, all his explanations about us being better than any kind of human revive in my brain, and it almost corporally shakes me. It is like a flipbook. In the beginning, I start slow, seeing how he painted his world, my real world to me and how he saw the population. Something worth to protect, yet something inferior, and definitely not something he would count himself into. I did not share this opinion at all, but the more contact I had to him, the more let I myself be influenced. The flipbook increases in its pace, until all the little gears in my head run and run, bringing me in high speed to the point I was at when I met James again. Seeing people as something minor. 

But they are not. It is as clear as crystal to me now. Once more, but this time, it seems to be final, definite.

Before I can grab the resulting thought and form it into words, however, I escape death by a hair's breadth. Well, at least some major injury piercing three holes into the width of my stomach.

Just as I turn around with a boiling hot, golden shining trident in my grasp I just picked out of the air as I stepped out of its angle, Poseidon already stalks toward me. His face flushed with anger and despair, I can see his golden waterline having risen as his face contorts in pain.