Black Dove (Watty Awards 2012)

Chapter One

I shiver, terrified, reaching into the night with claws for hands. I almost scream his name, but then clamp my hand over my mouth. He’s gone. All thought would be achieved from screaming is that my roommates would wake and I’d be in worse shape. If that were possible. I bite my pillow, hard, chewing the sour milk-tasting fabric in an attempt to calm myself.

I say it again. And again. And again. He’s gone. There’s nobody that’s going to hear you. He died. He died in that attack. There’s nothing left. And then tears spill over my eyes, and I try to hide my heaving sobs in the pillow. But I need to finish my mantra, my repetition. It is the only thing keeping me sane.

I haven’t spoken a word since that day.  I will not speak a word until I avenge him.

I nod vigorously. The doctors they called in afterwards said I would never speak again. That my mental condition would never right. But I knew better. I knew that if I could put a knife through those who killed him, I would speak again. I would sing again.

Suddenly I’m transported back to my other life, as I call it. When my parents and my brother were alive, and we were living in that small house in the suburbs. I cannot remember how that house looked, or how life was before the War, because I was only nine, but only remember my father. Even then I was a songbird. I sang everywhere. In the house, outside, with my friends at school. Everywhere. Then one day my father pulled me aside. He pulled out a small black necklace.

“What is it?” I had asked slowly, fingering the silver chain.

“It’s a dove. It’s yours now.” He had placed it around my neck and adjusted the chain until it fit my small frame.

“Doves aren’t black.” I said, showing him the dark bird while fingering my own dark tresses.

“This is a special dove. A dove has always been the symbol of peace and hope, no matter what the color. This is your dove now.” Then he left.

That was the night he never came back.

Now, I reach inside my nightgown and pull the chain out. In finger the dark bird again. It used to be superbly detailed, so you could almost see every feather, and the way its eye twinkled. But now, I have touched it so often its features had begun to run together, and the jewel in its eye was knocked out in the bomb.  A special dove. The only thing I have left of my father.

That night he had left, cheerily, expecting no problems. It was a routine visit to his office in the city. But that was the night that it all fell apart.

I had woken up in the middle of the night by flashes of light from my window. I stood on my bed, which was covered in toys as usual, and peered out through my small screened window. The city was lighting up! I clapped my hands, thinking it was fireworks. But then my mother, and my brother, Jace, arrived. They were clutching bags, our emergency packs and first aid kits. One look at my mother’s terrified face, and I knew these weren’t fireworks.

“Avalynne. We need to go, right now!”

But I was stubborn, even as a child. “No. I want to see the lights. Where is father? Is he coming with us?” Now I would have been able to tell from their faces that he was part of the fuel for the fire, but then I was clueless.

“He’s…not coming with us yet.” My mother broke, and Jace, already stocky and strong at thirteen years old, put his arm around her.

“Come right now Avalynne.” He grabbed my hand and dragged me from my room.

“Wait!” I screamed, “I need my necklace!” I broke out of Jace’s hold and snatched my black dove necklace off my dresser. Then, the world exploded. I was flung back, and smashed into the wall of my pretty pink room. My head buzzed.