It was a wonderful summer's day. The children were out in the playground. Some were knee deep in the sand pit. Others were swinging from monkey bars showing off to their peers.
As soon as Mia saw me she came charging over. Her small frame of a body bashed into me and we tumbled to the floor, her smile spread from ear to ear. She looked exactly like mum. Big, brown eyes that always shone with love and happiness. Her hair a bed of curls, tamed by two clips.
The image of her was fading. She was being ripped away. I heard her pleas. Her begging me to help her, to save her. I was surrounded by fire, and Mia was nowhere to be seen. She was gone.
"Find me Ira, find me," was the last thing I heard before I woke up tangled in the bed sheets and sweat dripping from my forehead. It was just a nightmare. A stupid, little nightmare.
A bundle of clothes had been left on the side. They seemed to be newly bought, the tags still uncut. I tried a pair of jeans and t-shirt on, a perfect match to my size. This must be Miss Burtley's doings.
I walked down the creaky old stairs and caught a whiff of the old ladies scent. She was sunk deep into an armchair, lightly resting her feet upon a foot stool. Miss Burtley's reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, eyeing a novel held in her hands.
I didn't want to interrupt her while she was sitting peacefully, but I couldn't leave the clothes she gave me unacknowledged. My mother engraved manners into my brain as if it's something you can't live without.
"Ah my dear Ira, did you sleep well? I see the clothes I gave you fit perfectly, don't they?" Her voice was sweet and eloquent. Rich with courtesy.
A stutter formed at my lips, but I choked it down and spoke with a clear tongue. "Yes Miss. I can't thank you enough."
"There was no need dear. Anyone in their right mind wouldn't have let you walk around in those bloodied clothes you entered in." she replied almost instantly.
I thanked her once again and then left her to go out into the throng of the city. I didn't have much, and it won't be long until my father's credit card would be maxed out. I wasn't one to sit around and do nothing. So my only source of sanity is getting a job, and try to keep busy.
My family's death is still fresh to the wound. It's not every day you witness an entire household and everyone in it be wiped out. The only thing I can do to live on my family name is survive. The saddening thing is there was no time for a funeral. No time to weep. No time at all. There wasn't even any remains of their bodies. They had turned into ashes before I could even get to them. Time was a thief, and I wasn't going to let it catch up with me again. Which is why the only thing I can do is move on; and live for the lives that were taken from me.
The city was busy. So busy that I felt like I was being jostled around by people rushing off into different destinations. It didn't help that I was short and skinny. It was suffocating with the shouts of marketers trying to sell their products and food.
Screaming at the top of their lungs, "GET YOUR FRESH FISH. FRESH FISH FOR ONLY 20 QUID PER KILO."
It was chaotic; and much to my distaste it was the only place I could call home. Tummel Side was the place I once lived. It was beautiful. It was home. My home. Now however it was ruined, destroyed, all by the hands of a group called The Union. They were a nasty bunch of sadists, they only cared about hurting innocent people. What did my family, my village, do to deserve this? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
My thoughts had distracted me from my task. I was supposed to go searching through the city for work. Only every single shop I walked into the owner would look me up and down, and then swift their hands frantically shooing me away as if I carried a disease. When the time comes and I run out of money, my last resort would have to be begging on the streets. That would be the only way.
