Insanity

Chapter 29

Song: You Are a Memory by Message to Bears

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"I could tell your eyes
looked beneath the blue."

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People were screaming, crying, running away from him in terror, fearing what he might do next even if they didn't know he was the guilty man. But that didn't matter. Their president, the most protected man in the country, had just been killed and any of them could most certainly be next.

Women clung to their children like handbags, keeping them close to their sides and always in sight as they dragged them away from the scene, crying. Men helped women and elderly people frantically climb into their cars before climbing into cars themselves and speeding away in fear of being the next victims. Nobody was sure who the assassin was, and nobody could be sure that they wouldn't be next.

But the assassin wasn't going after anyone else. No, he too was just as equally horrified at what had happened and had immediately tried to flee the scene. As he ran frantically about with the crowd he was able to catch sight of the presidential motorcade, the pristine white seats now tainted red with a fresh coating of blood. The president had slumped forward and the first lady sat in shock, her face white as a sheet and eyes wide as saucers, looking like she might faint. Tears streamed from her eyes as she screamed for help, shaking her husband.

It pained the assassin to look at the sight, to see what he'd done. To know the utter gravity and despair he had just caused to an entire nation of people. The blood was on his hands, billions of people would suffer and mourn at his expense while their country turned to chaos without a solid leader to run it. He had hurt more than one person that day, that was for certain.

He didn't like the guilty feeling in his heart, the shaking of his hands, the confusion in his head; though he didn't push it away, either. He knew he deserved to feel that way. He had just killed a president, spilled innocent blood on the soil.

He knew that anyone who did that deserved to die.

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If it hadn't been for the complete exhaustion, Bucky may not have slept at all that night. He awoke to voices all around him, opening his eyes to see cheery families and couples wandering through the park. Smiling. Laughing. Living.

What had just happened? He knew he'd had a dream, though he couldn't seem to remember what about; it was as if the moment he opened his eyes it left him, leaving only a small pang of guilt in its wake.

He sat up, stretching his arms and legs out, yawning and rubbing the little sleep he'd gotten from his eyes. He noticed the aching in his body was almost completely gone now, and he felt much healthier than he had a few short hours ago.

Upon becoming aware of his left hand being exposed, Bucky shoved it into his pocket, feeling for the seven hundred dollars he had stuffed in there. The paper notes were thin and crisp, and the only promise of him not starving to death. Maybe he could buy himself a nice pair of gloves with that money too, something to cover his left hand.

A couple, a young woman and man, stopped several feet in front of him, the woman looking at what appeared to be a really small television that she pulled from her pocket. She had stunning, long blonde hair that she flipped over her shoulder and as she did, Bucky caught sight of something. Tucked under her arm was a small pamphlet, and Bucky's heart nearly stopped when he saw the person on the front of it; there, looking ever-so serious and proper was the man from the helicarrier, Steve, in the same patriotic outfit. Why did the woman have a pamphlet with his face on it, and where was it from?