PROLOGUE, PART TWO

3.9K 248 73
                                    

***

word count, 4634
PROLOGUE, PART TWO
after the war

"there is a swelling storm,
and I'm caught up in the middle of it all
and it takes control,
of the person that I thought I was
the boy I used to know"
- DEAN LEWIS, waves

"there is a swelling storm,and I'm caught up in the middle of it alland it takes control,of the person that I thought I wasthe boy I used to know"- DEAN LEWIS, waves

Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.

***

AMELIA'S PATIENCE WANED thin after the first month of her father's departure, restless in her mindless nature towards the word, the forbidden word that the adults banished from the very walls of their house, the word Finn and Amelia spoke of in hushed voices concealed by the sheets of her narrow bed.

The two children were similar in every way with only their age separating them by a few trivial months. Similar in their interests towards the world around them, the games they would play- and now, in their shared confusion towards the word prohibited from the house.

With endless raindrops punching ruthlessly against the fogged-up window and a guttering candle beside them contending against grim darkness consuming Small Heath in its misery, the two children hid themselves under the fine sheets.

Because their confusion was not shared by everyone, because the others knew what the word meant. Everyone knew the grief that would follow, the countless emotions that would infest their lives upon the return of a letter or the person.

The pinch of pain that would shrivel their face, the lump caught in their throat, restricting the simple art of speech, the refusal to accept that the bane was real. The promises made by men who swore to return would certainly be broken, in one way or another.

The merciless pain of it all that would be silenced in their fragile throats, words muted by trauma, tangled in their feeble tongues. Unspoken truths, forlorn words from people devastated by the unspoken word, would be taken to the grave- buried deep within them in both life and death.

Everybody knew what it meant to them. Everybody knew the change that the word threatened, and the years of absence of the shattered men soon to be haunted by devastations of the past.

The entire world knew, Birmingham included. Everyone but the children, the greatest tragedy of the war torn world.

It was as if everyone knew of a secret but failed to tell it to the two children, heads resting on a shared pillow, noses brushing in response to their close proximity. The need to be close to another was a ritual engrained deep into their skin, as well as the need to be quiet in the already soundless house.

"He didn't tell you where they were goin'?" Finn's eyes narrowed in suspicion, sharing the same emotions and impatience towards where half his family had disappeared to.

Amelia shook her head, whispering back. "Nope, he wouldn't tell me. He..." She pressed a hand firmly against her face as if it would force the words to come to her.

BABY BLUE → SHELBYWhere stories live. Discover now