Fairy Tail Pirates Crew

𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

"Mama."

"Mama!"

"MAMA!"

"LAYLA!"

I sit bolt upright in bed with sweat beads glistening on my forehead and tears swimming in my eyes. It was the same nightmare again, but it somehow never got easier. It never stops shaking every fibre of my being.

I want to go to mama and papa's room. I want them to hold me in their arms until the morning. I don't want to realise that the nightmare wasn't just a dream. I don't want to remember that mama is gone forever.

I didn't want mama to leave us, but she still did. It was my birthday three days ago, too.

Mama gave me her leather pouch with Ms Aquarius, Mr Capricorn, and Mr Cancer's keys. Ms Aquarius scared me, but overall they are nice and cool. I was so overjoyed I forgot to ask her why she was giving me her only keys. She fell ill the next day, and it occurred to me that she knew her death was nearing all along.

I was being so selfish. Maybe that was why papa became distant from me ever since her death. I still want someone to hold and comfort me, but I can't be selfish now. Papa is having nightmares too. His screams get louder and louder each night. Sometimes I think that one day our yells will break the wall between us the destroy everything near it, including us. And if that happens, we will rebuild our family with mama in death. It doesn't sound so bad.

Dawn is breaking. It is approximately 6 in the morning now. I look at my calendar on the wall above my nightstand and scream into my sheets.

It is mama's funeral today. I will take it bad. Papa will take it worse.

✩✩✩

It is raining at her funeral. I don't like the rain, but mama did. She said the rain helps nourish the flowers and trees in our garden. She said the way nature organises itself is beautiful.

I say it is poetic how I cannot tell whether it is the rain or tears wetting my face. All I know is that the liquid on my cheeks glistens so much that it hurts my eyes. Paparazzi and cameras are everywhere, recording the day we let our grief take over and cry our hearts out. Papa didn't hire them, but he is not telling them to go either. In all honesty, I doubt he is even orientated enough to know how to speak.

Someone is reciting a speech about mama's beauty and intellect monotonously, but I cannot register a word of it. All I can think about is that she is gone, my idol, my protector, my mother, my everything. She's gone. She's not coming back.

After one minute of silence, papa and I go to the front to pay our respects as Layla Heartfilia's family members, not as the "Lucky" Heartfilias. We stand there in silence, tears rolling down our cheeks. Papa places his banquet of white roses before mama's statue while I clutch my bundle of Gladiolus to my chest. For some reason, I feel like the moment I put down those flowers, mama is officially dead, and I am trying to delay that moment for as long as possible.

Papa gently pushes my wrist, wordlessly telling me to stop denying myself. The Gladiolus fall from my grasp onto a hunk of concrete, and I collapse onto my knees, letting out a wail of misery while papa towers over me.

"It is all because of magic."

I look up at papa's clenched hands and twisted face. Huh?

"She died because of magic deficiency syndrome."

"Papa?" I have never seen him like this before.

"I am ridding the world of magic."

And that is just the beginning.