It was midnight when Tallen awoke screaming her mothers name, it had been a brutal nightmare. Beautiful smile faltering to show fear as a shadowy figure strangled her, green eyes steeled against death. Shivering as her mind registered the layer of sweat on her skin she wrapped her arms around her legs, rocking herself back and forth soothingly.
“Babe, come on get some sleep, you’ll need it.” A voice groaned beside her as a thin muscular arm wound around her attempting to pull her back under the covers.
“What the fuck Tyler get the hell off me,” Tallen barked unwrapping herself to get out of her bed and start pace around the room.
“Sorry, I’m just trying to help.” Despite the sincerety in his voice Tallen couldn’t shake the feeling that he was there for alterior motives.
“And your not,” She retorted finally flicking on the light and locating her pack, the one that she had stolen from the stranger. Stomach lurching at the memory of his chocolate brown eyes Tallen checked her throwing knives before opening the door and walking down to her moms blood-covered body. Grabbing a thin blanket off a shelf nearby she shifted it under her mothers figure before tieing knots along its ends.
‘please forgive me moma, I’ll give you a proper farewell someday, promise.’ She thought as she picked up the makeshift coffin bridal style and carried her past countless ruined houses toward the cememtary.
Once at the gates she hefted her Molly over her shoulder careful not to let her slip out of either opposite end and started climbing up the strong tree with great agility. Grunting alittle as she hefted her moms limp form up onto the edge she sighed taking a short break to gain back her breath and proceeded to work on getting over the otherside.
Thankful to be on the ground Tallen solemly walked up her well trodden path toward the two headstones gently setting her mother on the ground and grabbing the rusted shovel several feet away. Tieing her hair back roughly she thrust the shovel angrily into the ground. Picking sticking thrusting her way through the hard packed stone-filled ground. For hours she focused solely on the task at hand, not stopping even when Tyler showed up begging her to drink some water in the smoldering heat.
Finally as dusk started to decend Tallen sat back curtly admiring her work, the hole before her was some five feet deep. She briefly dusted herself off before jumping down and carefully pulling her mothers corpse down to her. placing her softly on the ground she piled the stones she had dug up around her. whisking away a stray away tear Tallen hauled herself out and began throwing the dirt over the hole,forcing herself to breath as she watched the colorful bedsheet coffin disappear. When darkness settled she patted down the freshly dug hole, and with a pained smile placed a stone above it, engraved ‘Molly Brown- loving mother of Colin, Kyle, and Tallen”.
Allowing herself to cry she wrapped her arms around her legs and let her wordless sobs wrack her body. Ignoring Tyler as he begged her to get up and go home where it was safe she cried for what seemed forever. The world didn’t matter anymore, why would it? Everything had been stolen from her, why did life have to be so hard? Thoughts pierced her to the core making her cry harder.
‘Because if you hadn’t expirenced those things you wouldn’t be who you are now’ she thought bitterly realizing that she needed to get a grip, taking a deep breath she opened her eyes to find Tyler holding a gun to her stranger’s head.
“I don’t care if you know her, you have no business being here.” Tyler growled cocking the gun. Her stranger looked indifferent calm even, his eyes focused on her tear stained face.
YOU ARE READING
Freedom Fires
Adventure{ On Hold -until I finish another story} In a world where nothing is safe, where the government is hunting down its own people, few have learned to survive. The frozen tundra of the north is nothing compared to the deserted cities of the south where...
