ALL THE KING'S MEN | BARRY ALLEN

02. RUNNING ALL NIGHT

❛ chapter two! ❜

two | running all night—zayde wolf

       I find myself regaining consciousness in a dark place. I'm pretty sure I just opened my eyes, yet everything looks hazy and feels like a dream. Either way, I woke up to someone humming a song somewhere in the room; it takes me just a couple of seconds to recognize said song. I've heard it before, even have sung it before. The melody flutters into my ears tickling the memory of my mother singing the same song to me when I couldn't sleep at night way back when I was just a little girl.

       Тили-тили-бом
       Закрой глаза скорее,
       Кто-то ходит за окном,
       И стучится в двери.

       I pull myself onto my feet, holding onto a rail from the staircase behind me and make my way into the unknown place. Inevitably, my mind begins to race, questions flutter in my head as well as a bit of concern due to the lack of knowledge if this is real or not and how I got here. The last thing I remember is the rain and being in the woods almost naked, not quite a good experience, but better than the last time when I came out of the Speed Force with no clothes at all and in the middle of a busy road at broad daylight. I continue listening attentively at the mellifluous yet paralyzing voice that echoes through the halls, slightly mesmerized by it.

        Тили-тили-бом.
        Кричит ночная птица.
        Он уже пробрался в дом.
        К тем, кому не спится.

       The voice continues to sing eerily. It's not the best thing a mother can sing to her sleepless child, since it talks about a horrid creature that will come and get you if you don't fall asleep; it's a creepy lullaby I'll give you that, but that's how most creepy things were the normal on my earth. That was the same lullaby grandma sang to my mother when she was just a little girl living in a small cabin in a small town in Russia, the melody quite common in those parts. As I continue listening and can't help but have flashbacks of the recurring dream that has haunted my childhood nights and some nights of my adulthood as well. I have been having this dream ever since both my parents died.

       In this dream, I see myself walking up to my father's casket, seizing hold of my mother's gelid hand as the revolting smell of roses from the standing wreaths vehemently stab at my nose as my tearful eyes observe the lustrous surface of the now naked casket. My eight year old self observes the stars and stripes of the flag as the officers in service fold it neatly before they deposit it in my mother's hands. After she receives the flag, young me hears the thundering sound of fighter jets cutting through the sky; I look up immediately, astounded by them, remembering all those times I'd seen my father's jet deploying, all those times he'd take me to see the practices.