in which a girl with a heavy burden tries to find her way through the trials and torments of the earth they've come home to.
OR
in which she must rebuild.
EMBERS
JOHN MURPHY
DEATHLIES 2016
DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN T...
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T W E L V E
For once, the horrifying scream was not the fault of the girl who saw death. It was chilling, to her. It was laced with an incredible amount of fear, relatable to her.
The fear coating the noise sent panic into her as she scrambled to her feet and ran to the source of the noise. The feeling of nausea crept upon her as she is met with the sight of Murphy holding a girl to the fire, all the while she struggled against him.
Althea's lips part in shock and her eyes water, brimming with salty tears that threatened to flow but never quite breeched her high walls. Never in her life had she wanted to help someone as badly as she wanted to help Murphy. But looking at him now, she didn't see how she could achieve such a thing. In this moment, he looked beyond repair.
He was destructive, on a warpath and Althea would have to put herself in that path to stop him. Whether or not she was prepared to do that, she didn't know. But there was one thing she did know, and that was that Murphy was going to get himself killed if he carried on like this. She didn't want to be the one who could have saved him, but failed. She didn't want it to be her fault, again.
In her glimpses of dilemma, Bellamy and Wells appear at the fireside upon hearing the same scream she had. Murphy looks up at Bellamy, smirking all the while, and announces, "Bellamy, you want the Ark to think we're dying, right? Figure it'll look better if we suffer a little first." His pride was what made Althea's chest tighten, threatening to split open and release the tormentors from their cage.
In the blink of an eye, Wells makes his move. He pushes Murphy backwards, sending him and the girl away from the fire and tumbling onto the ground.
Althea felt a sense of relief for a brief moment, until Murphy throws himself at Wells. A child with so much rage within was never going to win. Anger was blinding, the heart not smart in the ways of war. It drove even the most rational of beings to do the most irrational deeds, murder included.
As Murphy beat his fist into Wells' head, Althea felt her bottom lip quivering and her legs trembling. This was not how it should be. Never how it should have been. Coming to the ground was to start a new life, not end lives. Seeing this chaos, seeing this darkness she felt a sense of pity. Pity for all those who would succumb to death through the density of this soul-changing aura.
Her stomach lurched as she saw Wells' pull himself from beneath Murphy to hover over him, punching him over and over and over. The crack as knuckles connected with Murphy's jaw rung through her skull, bouncing off every wall. Seeing him like this caused an array of emotions to surface to the skin, simmering and hissing as they boiled.
When his head snaps to the side with one final punch, the urge to run to his side and wipe away the blood from his split lip overcame her. As she moves forward, Bellamy grabs her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks. Nothing was said between them. Althea only had to look at Murphy to see his hand curled around the knife to know.
