Miss Yourself

I'd Let the World Burn (Part 1)

Tori's POV:

I wake up in the rubble. I can taste ash, there's smoke in my lungs, the world is spinning but not on it's axis. It's entirely upside down. 

A few days ago I was helping my dad clean out the gutters. Mum was cooking lunch, I was out of Uni for an unnecessary holiday, and the rain had been coming down for weeks already. Charlie was at school-

Charlie... where is Charlie? 

I remember the dam breaking. I remember the tanks rolling into town. I remember the flood, the pile up on east 13, the collapse of the Ignatius water tower in downtown, and the sinkhole that swallowed Truham. Oh god, the sinkhole... 

What I can't remember are the pieces in between. I remember people in suits showing up to the neighborhood, they were offering us water by the case, clean clothes, and groups of locals were gathering to cook food in the street on burning tins. Last night I woke up to see the Breeden house on fire. 

I got up... I went down stairs... I couldn't find mum or dad. 

"Hey." Says a voice. 

I look up at the hand reaching out to me. It's one of Charlie's friends, Tara. She doesn't say much so I don't hate her. I look around and notice her other half is missing. The gender fluid one. I accept her assistance and climb up onto my feet. We look out at the rubble of a fallen town. Houses all along the province either burned, toppled from the water pressure, or sunken from the massive holes in the earth. 

"Where's Charlie?" I ask, "Is he dead?" 

She shakes her head, "No. I remember seeing him when the suits showed up at the schools. They were shooting us, one by one, like a line-up. Then he did something and they took him away in a dark car with tinted windows. Imogen went with him." 

"No sign of Nick?" I ask. 

She shakes her head. 

"What about your partner? Darcy?" I ask. 

She shrugs, "I haven't seen them since the fallout."

She's wearing a denim jacket, a ripped up burgundy shirt, and some jean shorts. Her shoes have holes in them but she seems to be holding up okay. Her hairs a frizzy mess but her face isn't bruised, she's not bleeding, and I find solace in that. Where is everyone?

The atmosphere has a grey hue to it. I'm dizzy and I have to use her shoulder to hold myself up but my brain locks in on one thing; Charlie is alive. If he's out there I have to find him...

We're lost in the fog. As she leads me away from the collapsed shed and the flaming tires I fester in my chest with the worst of what's happened. My parents are dead. That much I know. I also know that Charlie's valuable to the people that did this. Otherwise he'd be dead by now. I'll stop at nothing to find him. 

There's a forest up ahead. That's where she's leading me. 

"How did you find me?" I ask. 

She's honest, "I wasn't looking. I went out to scavenge for food, clothes, whatever I could find to bring back to the commune. There's a sort of make-shift shelter in the woods. A group of us have gathered there for safety. A lot of people are dead and no one's been able to do anything about it. The bodies are piling up down-town. They wont let us in to get supplies, the wont let us bury the people we've lost, people are getting sicker and they're acting like we're criminals."

She swallows hard and then coughs enough to spit up blood, "People are trying to come to the border to help us and the military are turning them away. It doesn't make any sense."