Accessory Wars

Chapter 34-Ki

            The Lestho Tragedy. Taking place on December 3rd, a man by the name of Weston Pyre entered the Lestho Primary Education building at 9:43 A.M. under the guise of a student's uncle. He proceeded to the Kindergarten class where he Gravitated the teacher and killed her by breaking her in her Accessory form. He then proceeded to do the same to eight students. Weston Pyre used one of the remaining students to cause catastrophic damage to the school, burying staff and students inside.

Using the power of his Accessory, he caused a localized earthquake of a 7.2 magnitude and caused several landslides around Mount Heidi. Snow dislodged from the mountain and buried two cities, leaving them without power or a way out of their homes for six days before rescue workers could free them. Eighty percent of the town of Lestho was damaged. Casualties numbered in at 963 people with 89 of those from the school. An estimated report of 5000-6000 people were injured.

It took the ERT two hours before they were able to subdue Weston Pyre. The fights between Weston Pyre and the ERT caused heavy damage to the nearby towns of Artkin and Hammoni. Total damage costs were estimated around 24 billion dollars. It took two weeks for rescue crews to account for all the missing and dead. Weston Pyre was sentenced to execution and was put to death on June 8th.

Anyone could go online and read those facts. I never did. I couldn't. I couldn't see those names again. The faces of all those that died that day. No amount of curiosity could get me to go near those old news pages. I couldn't even listen to the news on the radio or the TV for a year after the event or else I'd slip into a state of panic or vomiting.

It took three years to fully repair the damage. I grew up watching the mountain heal. The people? Not so much. Anyone from the Mount Heidi area will cringe or go quiet at the mention of the tragedy. Everyone lost someone they knew that day. No winter festivities were held. Only vigils filled with prayers and candles. They held a vigil on the anniversary every year. I never went. I couldn't face all those people. No amount of screaming apologies would make their pain go away.

The air seemed to feel a lot colder as we neared our destination. The last time I visited the memorial was the day I first left for Bailey. Every time I'd come home since then, I avoided the place like a disease. It held the lowest point in my life. The one I couldn't remember. It's not that I didn't know what happened. My memories of that day were blocked from my mind.

The road ended and we started down the old the pathway. I started my breathing exercises in attempts to keep calm. We climbed the old stairs, the stones starting to chip along the edges, and old memories flooded back to me. Ones of racing up the stairs with my classmates. Competitions of who could get up the stairs in the least amount of jumps. I pushed back my coat sleeve and looked at my dead watch, the green sticker still stuck on the face. Things were so simple back then. I let my coat fall back into place and took a deep breath as we crested the stairs.

The land where the school building once stood contained a cracked concrete slab buried under the snow. They tore down what remained of the structure so no one else got hurt if it decided to collapse. In front of the slab sat a large granite memorial. A pillar jutting from the frozen wastes. Hundreds of names were carved into the onyx surface, a few filled with snowflakes. I stepped forward and brushed off the face of the memorial, my eyes scanning over the familiar names. Our old neighbors, the Johnsons. My school friends Sadie, Ricky, and David. My fingers stopped as they reached one in particular. Lauren. My heart pounded in my chest and my throat sealed off. When I closed my eyes, I could still see her smiling face and her folders covered in a rainbow of 3D stickers.

"Ki?" Kami called out.

"It's okay," I muttered, fully aware of the tears on my cheeks. "You can tell him." I rested my head against the cold stone. I heard Kami and Jay shift behind me.