Numb Pain

Chapter 33

Lyrics used:

Amnesia - 5 Seconds of Summer [featured right]

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I can only watch, expression stricken, as she wanders into the flames. I hear strangled cries, but upon twisting my head to look about the deserted road, I realise they are mine. George cries with me, creating a cacophony of suffering as spitting fires announce their rule over man.

As the feminine silhouette disappears into a rush of amber and crimson, I find myself involuntarily reaching, stepping, towards the burning house. I feel the heat breeze across my skin, a vacuum where oxygen is being sucked from the air, and a single hacking cough ruptures my throat - yet my fingers continue to reach.

Only when they are licked by flames, rid of the delicate skin upon their tips, do I pull back and allow the tears to begin falling. I collapse to my knees, just centimetres from the tragedy. Even while my eyes are closed, I cannot escape the picture of the jumping sparks, the glowing embers, the black figure as it stands in the doorway.

The laugh, at first maniacal and crazed before fading to a blood curdling melody of screams. Not one voice, but two.

One, so painfully familiar and sharp enough that it drives knives into my heart, repeatedly, unforgiving, unwielding, until I can take no more.

The other is deep, almost a growl in comparison, and however painful the girl's screams may seem, his are all the more brutal. A mere reminder that he owned her from the start. No, she was never mine. Always clawed under his grasp, eerily willing to do whatever he might ask of her, to ignore the doubts in her head and - despite all instinct - drive herself to the end merely by the promise of his arms.

A shrill scream emits itself from my shuddering lips, hands clenched tight into fists as I wail helplessly into the ground. I finally grow to love someone, so much that I couldn't possibly let her go, not for the world, and now - after just over a year - all I have left is her son.

And he's not even mine.

The sobs of grief turn to shouts of anger, fury, frustration, and I lift my head for a few seconds as a possibility reveals itself.

The fire service.

I pull out my phone with trembling fingers, tap the three numbers into the screen and hover over the call button. I falter. It has been at least five minutes since Ellie walked herself into that firetrap. If not for the fatal burns, the carbon monoxide poisoning will have rid her of any pain by now. She will be nothing but ashes in only hours from now...and there is nothing I can do about it.

I draw a hand back to hurl my phone into the smoke-spewing monster, before burying my head in my knees and vowing not to lift it until all is done and all is over. I cradle George against me, shielding him as an amber glow emits over his face.

My head swims with images of her face; laughing, smiling, crying, frowning. I cannot rid myself of her no matter how hard I try, and all the while one quote echoes through my ears.

"I wish that I could wake up with amnesia,

and forget about the stupid little things,

Like the way it felt to fall asleep next to you,

And the memories I never can escape.

'Cause I'm not fine at all."

I lift my head a final time, the house crumbling before my eyes and taking with it all that remains of Eleanor, Jai and their lives. All but the boy whom whimpers quietly, snuggled into my chest.

My eyes are red, bloodshot, still brimming with stinging, salty tears and barely able to remain open for my loss feels truly like a nightmare in the early hours of the night. I scream out, finding my voice in the dying crackle of the fire.

"IT'S ALL MY FAULT!" my hands run back through my hair, desperate to feel something, someone, while terrified that I will feel the contact and know it is real.

"THIS...THIS IS..." My voice cracks, beginning to fade, not only with fatigue but with helplessness. Uselessness. I am nobody. Not anymore. Without the girl that drove my soul, I am merely an empty shell.

"It's all my fault. I'm so sorry Ellie." I whisper into the bunched up cloth of my tear soaked, ash dusted t-shirt. She is gone, gone forever, and there is nothing I can do to bring her back.

As I stand to walk away, to find myself somewhere else and depart from the mess, I could've sworn I see her silhouette in the doorway. I reach out a hand, fingertips tentatively waiting for the warm, tingling contact of my flesh against her skin, but the figure remains stoic. The hopeful glitter in my eye fades just as quickly as it appeared, and I hold George close with shivering arms.

Somewhere in the distance, I hear the promise of sirens, but it is too late to even consider saving her. I stumble away from the disaster, my legs somehow propelling me from the misery.