MCSM: Petra's Escape [COMPLETED]

Gone

Petra woke up early, barely even feeling the exhaustion from her lack of sleep. The thought of the Wither sickness hung in the back of her mind like a malevolent cloud. She quickly cleared up her camp and left, not wanting to be found.

The good news was that, thanks to Orinn, she knew how get to the temple. The bad news, she would have to go past the place that the Wither Storm had been attacking the night before. It had been far away enough that she didn't have to worry about it, but she didn't think she could bear seeing more damage that it had caused. EnderCon had been bad enough. But if another piece of her life was ripped away from her by the Storm...

Petra didn't think she could take it. Even thinking about it made her want to cry.

The first part of the trek was uninteresting. The Wither Storm was long gone. It had left in a specific direction, as though purposely heading for somewhere, though she couldn't think of where or why.

She had to go past EnderCon once more, but didn't even stop there, just continued on. She didn't want to have to look at the catastrophic desolation again. However, a little ways further, she stopped.

There was nowhere else to go.

It was like a nightmare, or worse. When she had imagined the Wither Storm attacking her home, everyone else's homes, she had never imagined this.

It was gone. Everything, gone. She wasn't even sure if this could be called destruction, because there was almost nothing left.

She was standing on a hill that now formed a slight overhang, with nothing beneath it but rock. There was just a huge, desolate space where miles and miles of forest used to be. Where homes used to be. There was barely any wreckage, just a massive, empty space, floored with cold stone. Small fires were burning here and there, just salt on the gaping wound.

Still unable to believe what she was seeing, Petra climbed down the hill, hesitating just before stepping down onto the stone bottom, as of still hoping this was nothing more than a nightmare. She stepped down, then walked around a little ways, taking in the heartbreaking sight, while being careful to avoid the flames. The emptiness went on for a while, far enough that she could barely see the edges in each direction.

She turned in a wide circle, too shocked to do much. Petra glimpsed the devastating remains of a treehouse, still in flames. She turned away, feeling sick as she remembered that Jesse and her friends had lived in a treehouse. There were more sights like this, houses only half there, still burning, and even some that were nothing more then a wall or two.

If the Wither Storm wasn't stopped soon, the whole world would look like this.

As she looked at all this, Petra felt wave after wave of crushing, heartbreaking grief. Without even realizing it, she sank down onto her knees.

This was too much.

So many bad things had happened in the last few days, and this was the worst.
Everything, just gone, as though it had been wiped from existence. Seeing all this felt as though someone had torn open every wound she had ever received and poured salt in her scars.

Gone.

Everything she had known, was gone. Every memory she had ever had of that place came rushing back to her, even the small, insignificant ones. It felt like someone had attached a huge boulder to her heart, and it was dragging her down into the ground.

Gone.

Now it felt like something had pulled out everything else, all her thoughts and emotions, and there was nothing left but a massive, even endless pit of sadness. She felt her soul falling, brought down by an arrow of grief. Down on the ground, bits of gravel sticking to her knees, Petra turned her face towards the sky and screamed, trying to let out all the grief piling up inside her. She shouted her pain to the unforgiving clouds, until her breath was gone, and she was left even emptier than before.

Gone.

Then Petra did something she couldn't remember ever doing before in her life, not even when she was little. She sat down heavily, pulling her knees up to her chest and burying her head in her arms, crying from the grief, horror and heartbreak that now overwhelmed her.

Gone.

So many things lost. So many lives destroyed.

Where else was this going to happen? How many more homes were going to be turned into this? Empty, silent rubble, abandoned by all but ghosts? How many cities would be leveled? How many people would be killed?

Gone.

In her community, Petra had been known as a tough, independent girl, always ready to fight. No one would have recognized her now, defeated and broken-souled, sobbing into her arms.

Gone.

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Hello my name is Rush the Frikkin Angst Queen, I hope you appreciated your daily dose of feels

God, I'm reading over this and cringing at my metaphors. I need to stop.

*dies*

Word count: ...839 words. That. Is. Pathetic.