Misfits (#2)

10.

flashback chapter so this one's a sad one. i listened to 'the sun will rise' by rhys lewis while writing and i think it fit <3

Seven Years Ago.

Sirens scream. Like a thousand sharp needles piercing through me. Through my hands that shake by my side. Through my mind that is stuck on a recurring loop, skipping like a broken record.

I ran.

Whispers of an accident at All Season's and I bolted. Out the theatre doors, into open air. My muscles seared until my lungs burned and until tears of exhaustion ran down my cheeks. Nothing existed outside of this run, to her. Time had suddenly stopped all it's movements and was enclosing me. Harrowing and narrow and inescapable. I ran to try and outchase it.

I don't know how many streets I tore through. In pointe shoes. These stupid pointe shoes.

Now, if time has caught up to us, I will tear these useless shoes to pieces. This can't happen. Not to her. Not her, not her, not her, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I slow to a stop and all I can possible hear are sirens shrieking, screaming. Everything's blurry and I try to figure out why, only to realise my tears act as the cause. Blue and red streaks of light, blinding and bright..

Move, Violet. I remind myself to move because I don't know yet. She could be okay. She is okay. Safe and secure. Fathoming that something's happened to her isn't even plausible. It's not...there. Not a possibility my mind can conjure.

Someone shakes me and the buzzing in my ears slowly floods out. I blink, looking to the man by my side. Standing tall above me in his gear. Concern etches over his features, looking over me and my leotard and tights and pointe shoes. I realise then how many people are looking at me.

I don't care how odd I look, pink and elegant in the midst of a tragedy. Suddenly, I'm in motion and I barge past people to follow the plumes of smoke. I shove and I sneak past and there are so many people, gasping and crying and concerned and I will not be. Because she is okay.

I reach the front and stagger back.

Flames, licking up the side of the building and devouring the structure whole. Ravaging and roaring and red, as if seeking vengeance. It rises, higher and higher and drags it's smoke upwards with it. Darkening the skies. Shadowing us. Shadowing everything.

My blurred eyes flit over it all. The ambulances and the firemen, pulling out the young kids. They cough and they cry but they're okay, breathing. Groups of them are sitting, being checked by paramedics. Screaming chaos that embeds itself right into the centre of my chest, pinning itself to my veins like a weighted badge.

"Miss." Someone shakes me again, "Miss, do you have a relative in there?"

Why can't I speak? Move? Scream? The woman shakes me more and eventually snaps me out of it. I nod and I nod again and I tell her that I need her. I say her name and I beg.

You need to save her. She's my girl. My sister's hurting in there and she doesn't like loud noises. I tried to crochet ear muffs for her. They weren't the best but she never takes them off and she doesn't have them in there.

My sister doesn't like being alone.

She grasps my shoulders, speaking above the roaring, "How old are you?"

Please don't let her drown in there. I'm sorry. I'm. Sorry. I'm. Sorry.

She asks me again, almost screaming and I breathe it out, "Eleven."