Mayhem || B. Bradshaw

Prolouge I

June, 2014

     "MAMA?" LIZBETH RUSHED THROUGH the familiar walls, her fingers gliding along the decrepit tapestry, feet hammering the floor in the rhythm of her increasing heartbeat.

     No sound of response passed through the walls, and Lizbeth, fearing the worst, hurried towards the slightly ajar door to her mother's room.

     "Mama?" Lizbeth tried carefully as she gave the door a light push, and peaked inside the silent room.

     It was tidy, as always, with summer decorations adorning the top of her mother's chest of drawers, while her shelves were filled with dust-covered books.

     In the bed in the far-end corner, was a woman tucked carefully under the sheets, though her chest rose and fell slowly. An inbrought machine emitted slow and constant beeps, and Lizbeth's shoulders dropped sligthly.

     She's not dead. Not yet, at least.

     The leather-brown chair beside her mother's bed was littered with summer magazines, and Lizbeth carefully collected them, and put them underneath the nightstand, before taking a silent seat.

     Her mother lay peacefully in her bed, her dark brown hair in a slight frenzy on the pillow, though her skin was paler than it ever had been, and a slight sweat was breaking out along her hairline.

     Despite her ill state, Lizbeth had never seen anyone as beautiful as her mother. She presumed it could be the latina genes from her grandparents, even though her mother had grown up in the U.S. as an American citizen. But, that wouldn't change her genetics, she supposed.

     Lizbeth mustered up a small smile, though tears were pressing behind her eyes. She hadn't even had the chance to change out of her Navy aviator uniform, she had been excused from work and rushed straight to her mother's house as soon as the word got out.

     Brain cancer.

     The doctor had told Lizbeth over the phone that her mother had come in yesterday after a neighbor had caught her collapsing in the garden. Several tests had been done, but all of them gave the same result.

     It was too late.

     The cancer had developed so far that it had grown into unreachable parts of her mother's brain, and there was nothing the doctors could do other than send her home with a heavy load of painkillers and visiting nurses who could make her last weeks, or even days, as comfortable as possible.

     Stupid Mendoza mindset, Lizbeth bit her lip, trying to prevent the tears from slipping down her cheeks. Her mother had always been that way. Neglecting her physical health's screams of help until the last day. It was a genetic mentality, Lizbeth was unfortunately affected by it as well.

     But this time around, it had gotten the best of Cecilia Mendoza, similarly to how it once had gotten the best of Lizbeth. Only when Lizbeth had gone too far, she wasn't the one who had died.

     "Lizzie?" Lizbeth's head flew up to be met with her mother's warm but tired glance, and Lizbeth carefully took her fragile hand.

     "I'm here, Mama," she whispered, a tear-filled smile covering her mouth. "I'm here."

     "My beautiful baby," Cecilia beamed weakly, reaching out a hand to stroke her daughter's cheek. Though, a thought seemed to get in the way of the moment, and Cecilia's face fell as she retracted her hand and put it on top of Lizbeth's. "I'm so sorry, honey."