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Author Topic: Overmorrow [Solo]  (Read 254 times)

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Offline nephero

Overmorrow [Solo]
« on: November 19, 2017, 02:17:00 am »
“She's right through here,” came a soft voice from somewhere distantly to Donatienne’s right hand side. She turned her head, but it sounded a bit like the words were coming through the door and so she didn't really pay them any mind. There was always someone coming and going in here, visitors meeting up with family and vice versa.

She didn't really care, she wasn't here for them, she was here for her grandmother, the tiny little frame before her rocking in her seat as she considered the next piece to move on the gameboard between them. It wouldn't happen for some time, of course. Mamie always tended to lose her thoughts between decisions, eyeing her cards and then the board and then eyeing her cards as if she hadn't just looked at them ten seconds prior.

Donatienne didn't mind that this very game had thus far, taken three weeks to play. The soft, pleased look on Mamie’s face was enough. She didn't get many visitors beyond Donatienne these days, despite all of Dona’s nagging to her tiny pack of wild children that they should make the time. But, of course, boys would be boys, and children never quite understood how precious time was before it was all used up. Still, her eldest had promised, and it was getting late in the day, the light lengthening and shadows sharpening beneath sheer curtains.

He was in for it if she made it all the way home to find he’d blown the whole thing off. Grown man or not, decorated soldier or not, he would get a dressing down the likes of which would make even the hardest drill instructor in Haviah blush in shame.

“Non, Mamie,” Donatienne said softly, reaching over the board to return a card the elderly woman had just placed down, “that’s a green, you need t’ place a blue this round. Remember?”

“Bien sūr,” Mamie said, her voice crackling and low, a surprising baritone for one so small and dainty-looking. But oh, Donatienne remembered back when she was a girl, a tiny thing all her own, how much fire and brimstone could be contained in small bodies whenever they got well and truly angry. Why, there was a time that Papi had snuck Donatienne a small glass of his beer, and oh the verbal lashing that had ensued had been one to shake the dome itself.

Not that it had actually hurt her any. But she could see the concern. Children were a trial to handle all their own without them being inebriated on top of everything else. Donatienne had her hands full as it stood, and they only kept getting fuller.

“Isn’t that right?” she said aloud to the quiet bundle resting in the crook of her arm, adjusting the blanket’s corners to guarantee tiny feet wouldn’t catch cold. “You’re gonna make me run ‘round like a mad spranger, too, aren’t you? Mon petit semeur.”

“Mama,” came a sound again, to her right but closer this time, and Donatienne caught a whiff of summer air as a chair was pulled up to the table beside them.

“Eli! It’s damn near dinnertime, you were gonna make your great-granma wait th’ whole night?”

Eli’s face twisted, his jaw setting tight as if she’d physically slapped him. It faded after a moment, even as Mamie rose from her seat and pressed her hand of cards into his broader, calloused one. He took it without a word, nodding as Mamie whispered something in his ear. It was probably nonsense, of course. Mamie had been getting worse as the years carried on. She was over a hundred, after all. Donatienne couldn’t rightly remember the exact number, however.

When had she died?

Eli had been seven, hadn’t he?

“Sorry t’ make you wait, Mama,” Eli said. Donatienne frowned a bit, and looked at her son’s face, angled and dark and sprinkled with freckling stars. Not for the first time, she noted with pride just how handsome her boys were, had grown up to be. Handsome and, while forgetful of family obligations, good.

But Eli didn’t sound good today. His voice rumbled in a way that was strange, too low, like he were speaking through gravel in his throat.

“You gettin’ sick?”

“Naw, mama, I’m feelin’ just fine,” came the reply, but Donatienne knew a lie when she heard it. She clicked her tongue a bit, holding her bundle a bit closer. Summer colds were terrible contagious things, and Eli always was the one to bring the first of the season home.

“You been drinkin’ tea? Do you need me t’ pick you up some honey? You sound like you got a sore throat, you feelin’ feverish?”

“It’s just a tickle, mama,” Eli said, sounding more and more uncomfortable. Which was to be expected, she supposed. Eldest son, out on his own, and still getting fussed over like he were a joey. Prideful. Donatienne sighed, figuring she could afford to let him be an adult all his own this once, and settled back in her chair.

“Remember t’ cough into your shoulder, don’t be givin’ th’ baby none a’ your sniffles. He’s tiny as it is. I swear you an’ your brothers just et up everythin’ I had an’ left him with naught.”

“Th’ ba-? Yeah, mama, ‘course.” Eli said, clearing his throat and careful to not do so in Donatienne’s or the tiny sleeping bundle’s direction. Eli moved from his chair to the one Mamie had sat in, all those years ago, and studied the gameboard between them. Catching up to where they had left off. It felt like there was always catching up to do.

“When did you grow up?” Donatienne murmured, softly, rocking the tiny bundle in her arms as she waited for Eli to complete his turn. Eli frowned again, his brows knit tight over bright blue eyes-- her husband’s eyes.

“Pardon?”

“You all grow up so fast. It feels like I blink and you’re off into th’ world. I wish I’d had more time… but here it is, almost Soul’s Night again, and--”

“Mama…” Eli said, gently, placing his cards down and looking like he was being made to swallow a lemon wedge, “Soul’s Night was weeks ago. Remember?”

Weeks ago?

Donatienne snorted in amusement at the joke, and looked at the open window. Someone had closed it, of course, drawn the curtains, thick and wooly, shut. There was a frosty chill in the air, a kind of sharp coolness that had no scent but was utterly distinct from the heated coziness of the ventilation systems. Like… frost? Was that frost? Oh, Donatienne hoped it snowed, it was always so pretty against the deep glass, pretty and--

And ashen against the dome, burnt and ashen and leaving nothing behind, nothing for her at all but the grey and the dust and the memories and oh, gods, they were putting her babies in jars--

She looked down at the bundle in her arms, and choked on her alarm to find it was empty, simply blankets folded upon blankets. He was gone! Gone! Where had he gone?

“The baby!” She cried out, standing up despite how badly her knees ached in the winter cold. Mamie had been the same, joints locking up the second the sun set in the desert, leaving the whole of Solarta chillier than the catacombs below. “The baby, where’s the baby!”

“Th’... mama, th’ baby’s fine, he’s fine,” Eli was standing too, his hands outstretched towards her, trying to calm and soothe but they were wrong. This was all wrong. He sounded wrong, he moved wrong, even his face was wrong, hair too long and what--

“Who the hell are you an’ what’ve you done with my son?” Donatienne shouted, batting away those prying hands and shoving her own out, catching Eli-- no, catching this not-Eli in the chest and sending him right back down into his chair. Again, he looked like he’d been slapped, but this time Donatienne saw through the ruse.

“You tell me what you did with him, you son of a bitch!”

“Mama, mama it’s me, it’s me, it’s okay, it’s--”

“No! Non! Tu n'es pas mon enfant, oh gods they killed them, they killed them, my Eli--”

Not-Eli, the bastard imposter, sat stunned, and for a moment Donatienne thought he might actually have a soul of his own because those bright blue eyes were watery with tears. Good. Good! He deserved it, he deserved it for trying to pull one over on her, for trying to sneak in like a changeling in the night and make her think he was her own. Donatienne wanted to grab him and shake him, wring him by his neck and demand all the answers that had been denied her for so many years.

“What did you do with him?” she sobbed out, rushing forward only to be pulled back, faceless awful beings grabbing her by the arms and dragging her back and away from the table. She kicked out, screaming and crying, her foot catching the table edge and sending it onto its side. The boardgame crashed to the floor, all progress lost as the cards and pieces went scattering across the room, even to the walls where other soulless husks stood, watching in silent judgment of how hard she fought.

“Please,” Donatienne said, sobbing and begging, “please, just give him back. He's all I've got left me. Please, please just give him back.”

Something pinched against Donatienne’s arm, and faded again, leaving only a faint sensation of nothingness, of absence, a mutedness that spread from her skin to her muscles to her bones and right up to her eyes that still overflowed with wracking tears. She didn’t even have the strength to fight anymore-- she could only watch, hazy and unfeeling, as she was lifted and carried away, through white doors and white lights and down onto white sheets, leaving Eli, tiny little Eli, long behind.

Yavul barely made it out the front doors of the facility before he was tearing at the paper carton in his hands, pulling out a twisted roll and tucking one end firmly to his lips. The lighter sparked, sputtered, sparked again and sputtered again, sparked a third time and wavered wildly as he huddled under the building’s massive awning. He didn’t care about the cold, he didn’t care that he’d left his jacket inside, he didn’t care how badly the winter chill bit at his cheeks and nose and ears, singing along his metal arm until it bit right into where what little of his shoulder remained.

Amristah was always so much colder than home.

Yavul pulled hard on the joint, and pulled hard again, filling his lungs to maximum capacity and holding his breath until it felt like the organs were going to shrivel up into nothing for all the abuse.

“I’m sorry,” came a soft voice from somewhere distantly to Yavul’s right hand side. He turned after exhaling sharply, a plume of hot smoke and hot breath escaping into the air. The nursing home director waited, calmly and patiently for Yavul to focus, before she continued, “but her condition is… volatile. She’s lucid to a degree most days, but, as you saw…”

“Yeah,” he said, not wanting to be reminded of the hate in his own mother’s eyes, “yeah, I… ain’t there nothin’ I can’t do?”

“Whatever options there were, we’ve already exhausted. Even if there was something left, it’s advanced far too much to be of any help now. The most we can do now is… make her comfortable, make what time she has left a good one.”

What time there was left.

Yavul took another big hit, held his breath, and let it out again. Already it was kicking in, the blood vessels in his flesh lung permeated with foreign contaminants, those muddying his thoughts and easing his nerves and helping to keep him from fraying like a worn out quilt.

“Thank you,” he said, the words leaving him and fading like something spoken through water. The director seemingly understood well enough, though, and went back inside.

Yavul didn’t follow. He didn’t want to follow, not right now.

But if not now, when? Over and over, her words echoed in his head, ringing louder than any of the sobbing fury that had been unleashed on him that night. He shifted, shuffling one foot in front of the other, directionless and aimless but moving, each bootfall like the ticking of a clock amongst a hundred thousand others.

What time she has left.

What time there was left.

What time was there left?
« Last Edit: November 19, 2017, 02:18:01 am by nephero »

 

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