Her Goodbye [✔]

Tick Tock

On the eve of Christmas Day, Maya Summers and Leon Sanders were getting ready for their wedding day. The ceremony was going fine, the Bride and Groom had arrived on time, with only a few heart-stopping moments. She was wearing the most beautiful white dress, trimmed with gold and the entire town was covered in white petals.

Her smile hadn't stopped since the moment she woke up, and his grin hadn't faded since weeks before when everything had been sorted on his part and he could just look forward to taking the most beautiful girl in his life in his arms and declaring her his wife.

The only problem with this day, and it was a large soul-crushing problem, was when the priest said "If there are any objections, speak now, or forever hold your peace." and that was when her father crashed through the church with a rusted red truck, armed with gasoline. While people stayed seated they stared back in horror, worried of his actions. He started to pour a trail of the gasoline up the aisle towards Maya and Leon. Two men stood at the door blocking the exit.

"You are a monster," Maya said through gritted teeth. His smile dropped, and any doubts he had at that point soon faded. He took one look at his daughter's choice and scoffed.

In the first minute, her father lights a match and poured the rest of the gasoline on her mother. People rushed to stop him, but it was too late, she was already dead and gone as soon as the match dropped on her. A bunch of women who had been sitting in the second row were splashed with this gasoline at the same time and were soon burning along with her, he was infectiously cruel and merciless. They had been touched by him and now that touch was burning them alive.

On the second minute he was next, the gasoline that had dropped all over his shirt had started to catch fire; but he didn't seem to mind, he was positively deranged and accepted it happily. His clothes were tearing due to the heat and his skin was visibly distorting.

Everyone was shuffling away from the fire that had started, failing to realise it was running wild around the room and up the aisle. Henry however, not having been able to understand what was going on was on the floor playing with his toys and on the third minute Maya quickly took him up in her arms, the only one she was positive she could save.

On the fourth minute the pew was burning up before anyone could do anything everything was happening in moment. Her beautiful sister was next on his list as he threw the can on her lap before he fell to the ground and failed to move anymore.

She couldn't help but scream. Everyone's eyes were looking for places to escape but the gasoline the two men at the back were pouring had created a barrier around the entire church. It was burning up completely. On the fifth minute, Connor had tried to move past them only to be soaked in gasoline himself and burned up completely charred for the rest of them to see. They'd become close friends and she was breaking down looking for a way to save the people she loved.

It continued that way, burning through the pews and creeping further and further in. On the sixth and seventh minute she watched her grandparents sitting praying, and being gobbled up by the flames, her grandfathers arms wrapped around her waist and tears staining his cheeks, and Annie's parents, who'd been ever so close to the Summer's, who'd come on behalf of their daughter following them. That was when her heart really broke; they hadn't even tried to get away. They'd been so broken by my father and by Annie in turn, they'd accepted the action gladly.

On the eighth and ninth minute Harry and Jack were staring at each other when they were taken by the flames, following each other in a brief amount of time, and if her thoughts were audible the entire building would have been torn down from her inside screaming. Their eyes were hollow together and they seemed so dark in comparison to everyone else, as though they expected this to happen.

On the tenth minute Michael pushed through the crowds and pushed Katie up over the flames and out of a window over the church wall, earning some mere burns on her legs, before the flames surrounding the walls gobbled him up too from below him, and as she got over the window ledge he'd collapsed inside the fire due to the intense pain.

Her Fiance, Leon was looking at her the whole time, his eyes panicking, his heart breaking as he watches not only her family, but his own burn inside the church. He grabs his Fiance and pushes her and Henry over the fire around them, walking through it himself. He bursts open the fire exit door, and pushes them both through it.

They were rushed to a hospital, with mild to severe burns, crying, screaming and breaking down mentally. Maya and Katie had gotten off 'very lightly' as the doctor had put it, only inhaling small amounts of smoke, and gaining a few burn marks. Henry had gained nothing of the sort, being cradled close to her chest and unable to breathe in the smoke - they put all of their energy into protecting this boy. He'd be the only one left untouched from the massacre. 

Leon had been lying in a hospital bed for eleven hours before he was pronounced dead, with severe burns and smoke inhalation.

Maya and Katie were crushed. As they watched him die their last ability to live died along with him. They grew older, and the hope and innocence they'd long had since childhood faded quickly. Maya kept her brown tinted wedding dress locked up in her attic - hoping time would forget the event that ruined her. They continued to dream of the people they'd lost and been unable to save, wondering what they'd say to them if they had a chance before they died.

Henry grew up stronger but always remembering the stories that his sister and aunt Katie told him, before becoming the man his sister always knew he'd become before she went positively mad. 

The papers ran stories but they always differed - Maya and Katie refused to give statements so the facts were skewed; they all ran along the lines of a crazed father who loved his daughter too much, or a violent act on a brides perfect day. It was all gossip sounding - so unprofessionally written it left a bitter taste in the mouth. It was safe to say the world was captivated at the idea something so idolized was destroyed in a moment and the story was talked about for months on end, steadily fading to mumbling and whispered tales. 

The long stares as the girls walked never faded however - and that's what really did it. If the event did not kill those girls, not being able to forget it surely did.