Downfall [Punk Niall Horan]

4

Ryan Reynolds- Jim Owens(Tylie's dad)
Scarlett Johansson- Naomi Owens(Tylie's mom)

I didn't stop running until I was gasping to draw in a breath and it hurt for my lungs to expand and let air through the narrow passageway.

A slight burn still spread across my cheek, but it didn't faze me as the mild summer wind whipped past my face. The fact that my mother could do that to me and be so cruel for no good reason was beyond me. I knew I made her angry at times and annoyed her, but I never thought she would ever lay a hand on me. She didn't care about me or my health or anything at all. All she cared about was publicity and keeping a good name for herself. That thought welled up fresh tears in my eyes, and I pushed my legs harder, not caring if I collapsed from a heart attack.

My father was completely oblivious to the fact that something was terribly wrong in the city. This wasn't the first time something like this had happened so suddenly and for no apparent reason. Why he wasn't doing something about it was a mystery to me. Why didn't the stubborn man listen to me? Was he afraid that I was right? Something was obviously horribly wrong, but they were too selfish to see it. Val was still missing in action and that terrified me to a whole new extent. But my father hadn't even given it a second thought. Jim Owens dismissed a missing person as if it didn't matter. He could've sent out a search group, anything. Yet he played it off as a mere coincidence, that these kind of things happen all the time. If any thing had happened to Valie, I think I would lose my mind. First my brother.

Stop thinking about him.

Sometimes I liked to play with the thought that maybe he wasn't actually gone. I was still holding out a small sliver of hope that he might come home, and that was what was killing me and making my visions even worse. That small fraction piece that maybe he would come back some day was tearing me apart each and every day that he didn't come back. But at the same time, it kept me going at the thought that maybe he was still fighting my monsters for me. I didn't want to be in a nut house if my brother ever were to return, or in the ground for that matter. I had to stay strong, for him.

Even if he was never coming back.

They didn't find any bodies when my brothers station blew up, right here in Washington. It was like they all had just vanished into thin air, and the people blew up a barren land. But my dad told me it was so bad, it obliterated everything. And disintegrated everything into nothing but dust. It was a horrible thing to learn, but it was better to know that than to hold on too much hope. No bones were even found, so could they have gotten away somehow? Or were all the remains just completely incinerated into various pieces of ash and dust?

Rumors had been flown around that they were hiding underneath the city away from the people who tried to kill them, but I was forced to close my ears when someone tried to speak about it. Still I heard things about the underground Gang. Some even believed they were forming a whole new world right beneath us. But that was preposterous, even I had to admit. People creating a new world beneath our feet? Not possible. The idea was incredibly insane, and eventually people came to understand that. Even though there had always been a group that still believed it. Conspiracies of these things weren't uncommon here. Sometimes it scared me how far people's minds would go to console themselves.

Eventually, I made my way to the luscious garden in front of the house. I knew I could never make it past the gates this late at night, especially after what happened today. But I didn't want to leave these gates, because last time I did something horrible happened to me. Something that I'd have to live with the rest of my life because I made an awful decision.