Healing Hale | Scott McCall

✰ 2 ✰

✎ 𝓟𝓪𝓲𝓷𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓡𝓮𝓭 ✎

Brooklyn had been stood deadly still, staring, for five minutes straight. She hadn't moved, afraid that she would break down because of what was right in front of her face.

Looming up in front of her was what was left of the Hale House. The burnt structure brought a whirl of emotions both good and bad; but mainly it scared Brooke. This was all that was left of her childhood home. 

The last time she had been here was when the house was on fire, when the young Hale just managed to escape the flames with the sound of her family's screams filling her ears.

She would always vividly remember that day; especially because of the nightmares she'd had about it for years after, seeing the hands of the ones she loved trying to claw there way out. It had caused her so much pain every time.

However, she also remembered the morning of that very day. The black haired girl had woken up to freshly made pancakes from her grandmother, Talia, with chocolate sprinkles; the way she had liked them back when she was younger.

Also Cora, her Aunt, had come down the stairs and given her a hug, Brooklyn being the only one to be able to get one from her.

Hell, she even recalled how she flung ice cream at her Great Uncle Peter's face.

But the one thing she'd never forget was the lasting kiss her father had placed on her forehead.

These memories brought tears to Brooke's brown eyes as she still remained staring at what was once her home. There really wasn't much left, there was no roof, all previous colour the house had was washed away - the walls only a mixture of grey, brown and black now.

The windows were so charred you couldn't see through them, the burnt support beams only just able to hold anything up.

Although now the door was coated in chipped, red paint, showing there had been life here since that disastrous day. The Hale girl carefully approached it, moving for the first time since she had arrived.

Brooklyn knew it had been painted only recently as the red was still vibrant and hadn't been dulled by the weather. But other than this, the once loving family home now only showed death and destruction. 

Opening the creaky door Brooke peered inside, surprisingly the grand staircase was still standing yet it didn't look very stable. The walls were all blackened and the little furniture that has survived was mostly falling apart.

The only light came filtering in from small gaps in the darkened windows, a shiver ran down the Hale girl's spine as the memory of what it used to be like ingrained itself in her mind.

She could never forget the beauty this place once had, how every piece of furniture and decoration fitted perfectly together showing just how much love had been put into the house.

She would always remember the fluffy rug they had in the living room which she would sit on and play with her toys for hours; always begging someone to come play too.

What remained now was a complete contrast to the home Brooklyn had been raised in. However she knew when she escaped the burning building that she had to run and not look back or she would have died along with the others.

Despite only being ten years old back then, Brooke had recognised that the fire was started by hunters intending to kill them all, and at that age there was no way she would even win a fight against one.

Brooklyn had thought that she had lost them all, that she had been the only survivor, but she had been wrong. Knowing that at least someone else had made it out too made the brown eyed girl's heart swell with joy.

But knowing that he was the one to survive showed Brooklyn that there was some good in the world and her life wasn't a totally tragedy.

Though this place would always bring a horrible, gut wrenching sadness. Knowing that the hunters murdered most of her family for being something that they couldn't change would make the young Hale hate hunters forever.

They were the ones that had destroyed her life and took away the rest of her childhood, replacing it with heartache and grief.

This would always be an open wound for Brooke, something she would never fully heal from. But that was what grief was, it never fully went away just got better with time.

Even six years later she could feel that a part of her life was missing and whether that could be filled by finding her father or not, she knew she would never truly be the same.

For now, she was just trying to get through each day. Trying to be happy and forget her grief for a while. But she would always have that wound, and the young Hale would never fully recover.

She would always be healing.