Post by Mina Crow on Jul 19, 2006 22:22:58 GMT 12
[Sandstorm + 30 days]
Mina looked into the mirror, hardly recognizing the haggard sixteen-year-old staring back at her. Natural pallor enhanced by grief and long sleepless nights, raven black hair greasy and unkept, dark shadows looming under red, swollen eyes. Her gray shirt and bleached jeans looked like they had been slept in – which was probably true.
The door clicked open, and Mina wrenched her eyes from her dismal image. The officer (Mr. Flintwood, as she had read upon entering) reentered the room, expression as dull as it had been on his way out, and slipped back into his chair, dark eyes blank as he met the girl’s pleading gray gaze across the desk.
"Did you...?" Her ragged voice faltered, incapable of going on, of making it real.
"I’m sorry, Miss... Yrjö." He still had to confirm her name on his records, and kept stammering and mispronouncing it. For some reason, that affected the mourning, nerve-wrecked girl more than she would have expected. "I’m very sorry, miss, but we have no record of Mr. Juha Yrjö on our database." His tone was bland, carefully devoid of any emotion.
"But... that can’t be! Mr. Flintwood, my brother was in New York when the Plague struck. I have evidence of it!" Her right hand clenched, white-knuckled, around a sheet of paper.
Sighing politely, Flintwood raised a hand and shook his head, face composed on a mask of studied sorrow. "Miss Yrjö, we do not doubt your relative was inside the city when the bombs struck. We are doing our best to retrieve the deceased to the families; however, as you may understand, it is not possible to recover every single victim. As yet, your relative is not on our database. We ask you to be patient, and we share your loss."
His tone told of a speech many times repeated, carrying a taint of impatience which clearly told Mina she was dismissed. Her vision blurred suddenly, but she still managed to glare at the officer like he was the cause of all her suffering. Rising to her feet, head held high, she walked out of the office, barely managing not to bang the door shut behind her as the secretary called for the next person in line. It was a red-eyed woman on her early twenties, a golden-haired toddler tugging at her skirt.
[Sandstorm + 58 days]
She had followed the address on the envelope; not an easy task to accomplish, since many street signs were burnt down or no longer existed. However, by trial and error, with the help of a map, Mina had managed to reach the building her brother had been living in – or so she hoped. The tower that had once stood next to it had crumbled down like a castle of playing cards, bringing two thirds of the smaller building down as well.
Tucking her black hair behind her ears, Mina started to climb the pile of rubble, wounding the red scarf around her face to keep out the putrid, sweet stench of ashes, death and decay.
She slipped once, cut her left palm on the sharp edge of a broken brick; cursing, she brought hand to mouth, sucking on the wound to cleanse it. Steadying herself against a block jutting up from the ruins, Mina teared a strip of cloth from the hem of her shirt and wrapped it around her left hand, tying the ends together with he awkward help of her teeth. This done, she resumed the climb, now with doubled care. There were bodies trapped under the debris, and more than once she almost tripped on decaying, charred limbs.
The search took over three hours, and the sun had started its journey down the heavens. Mina was almost falling over with exhaustion and unwept grief, yet she couldn’t give up, not now. If her search resulted on nothing, she knew she wouldn’t be able to return the next morning – so she just had to keep looking until she found him, whatever it took.
She had dug out a broken iron bar, using it as a rough lever to push the larger pieces of rubble out of her way. Her gestures had become automatic, and the rusty bar was growing redder from the blood seeping through the improvised bandage on her left hand. Thus, the exhausted look she shot the corpse under the next boulder was a dismissive one. Like the others, its features and clothing had been devoured by fire, rot and vermin, and the sickening stench rising from the decaying body made her nostrils burn and her stomach churn in agony. Mina doubled over, retching violently – not for the first time in that day.
Only when she was straightening herself, wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve, did she notice the blackened necklace around the corpse’s neck. Trembling, Mina reached down and touched the small pendant, trying to clean it. A flake of sod came off, revealing the jewel’s shape, and the girl backed away in horror, her scream turning into a dry-mouthed gasp.
She had refused to believe, had desperately hoped the officer’s words meant something different – that Juha had been away at the time of the Sandstorm.
The blackened metal in front of her did not lie, though; there was only one piece like that that she knew of, cast by a family friend on request. And Mina knew it like her own hands. There it was, resting on the breast of a corpse, on the very house he had lived in.
Mina fell to her knees, retching again; her stomach was all but empty now, but the realization was just overwhelming. Closing her eyes, blessing the numbing pain from the day’s work, she wept freely, ignoring the nails digging into her palms and the still-warm blood flowing down her left wrist.
She never knew how long she knelt here, mourning the loss of her brother, the person she loved most in the whole world. That last flame of hope flickered out and died, as if someone had cut off a candle wick, leaving everything in pitch-black darkness.
"You had no right..." she heard herself murmur from a long distance. However, the words seemed to call her back to reality, nudging her awake from a deep trance. Still sobbing, Mina wiped the tears from her face, only realizing she had used her left hand when she felt a sticky warmness on her cheeks and the tingling taste of blood on her lips. It seemed fitting, somehow – tears mingling with blood.
Mina was still shivering, fighting not to collapse, when she reached out to her brother’s corpse. There was little she could do; she would never be able to remove the debris crushing his legs, and his eyelids crumbled away like dust as she tried to close his staring white eyes. Repressing a desperate wail, the girl lifted the corpse’s head – trying to ignore the crackling hair – and pulled the necklace free, holding it to her heart. With a sob, she started to clean it with her fingernails, not noticing the call from the street below.
A dark eyed teen with Asian features stood looking at the ruins on his left, rubbing his neck in frustration and wondering what was going on. His hair had a peculiar blue color, fading to white on the tips, and its ruffling length fell over his eyes. He shifted the weight of his duffel bag from a shoulder to another, ignoring the rattling sound of the thick gold chain around his neck. Looking up and down the street, his gaze ended up shifting to the dark clad figure among the ruins again. It was probably a girl, from the long black hair falling down her back and her slim frame. He could imagine a thousand logical reasons she was there; the simplest being the most likely to be true, she was a newcomer, and she knelt on the ruins of her old house. Few kids wandered the streets on their own. Once, he might have felt a pang of sorrow, but now his feelings had been dulled, just like everything else.
Shrugging and blinking twice, Kazuko put his bag down with extreme care; the weight of the batteries inside would only hinder his movements. He called again, to no avail. With a final shrug, he set on climbing through the scattered debris toward the figure.
She heard the second call, and her hand flew instinctively to her longest dagger. She didn’t recognize the voice, but neither did she turn. Still on her knees, Mina pulled the blade out of its scabbard with careful, terribly slow movements. It felt like some other person had taken control of her body; she could feel her own gestures, but had no way to control them. The footsteps and sounds of clattering rubble inched closer, and a shadow fell from the sky.
"Hey, what are you doin–"
The sentence was never finished. Whirling around, Mina plunged the dagger into the other’s abdomen, putting all her strength into the movement. There was a sudden gasp for breath, before the newcomer tumbled back, rolling down the ruins until he came to a stop a few feet above the street.
The moment Mina released the blade, realization of what she had done thundered down on her. Scrambling to her feet, she ran down to the fallen boy, acrid bile rising to her throat again. She fell once, head hitting cement, but in an instnt was running again, skidding down the debris.
Too late. The boy – apparently a Cigarette, from the white cloth tied to his arm – had broken his neck on the fall, her knife still protuding from his ribs. A glance at the surprised expression on his face was enough to revolve Mina’s stomach once more, and tears started streming down her face again. She could not linger, though – more would come from where he had. She planted her left hand on his ribs, wincing at the gurgling sound as she pulled the dagger free.
On his gray shirt rested a mark. A bloody handprint.
Mina looked into the mirror, hardly recognizing the haggard sixteen-year-old staring back at her. Natural pallor enhanced by grief and long sleepless nights, raven black hair greasy and unkept, dark shadows looming under red, swollen eyes. Her gray shirt and bleached jeans looked like they had been slept in – which was probably true.
The door clicked open, and Mina wrenched her eyes from her dismal image. The officer (Mr. Flintwood, as she had read upon entering) reentered the room, expression as dull as it had been on his way out, and slipped back into his chair, dark eyes blank as he met the girl’s pleading gray gaze across the desk.
"Did you...?" Her ragged voice faltered, incapable of going on, of making it real.
"I’m sorry, Miss... Yrjö." He still had to confirm her name on his records, and kept stammering and mispronouncing it. For some reason, that affected the mourning, nerve-wrecked girl more than she would have expected. "I’m very sorry, miss, but we have no record of Mr. Juha Yrjö on our database." His tone was bland, carefully devoid of any emotion.
"But... that can’t be! Mr. Flintwood, my brother was in New York when the Plague struck. I have evidence of it!" Her right hand clenched, white-knuckled, around a sheet of paper.
Sighing politely, Flintwood raised a hand and shook his head, face composed on a mask of studied sorrow. "Miss Yrjö, we do not doubt your relative was inside the city when the bombs struck. We are doing our best to retrieve the deceased to the families; however, as you may understand, it is not possible to recover every single victim. As yet, your relative is not on our database. We ask you to be patient, and we share your loss."
His tone told of a speech many times repeated, carrying a taint of impatience which clearly told Mina she was dismissed. Her vision blurred suddenly, but she still managed to glare at the officer like he was the cause of all her suffering. Rising to her feet, head held high, she walked out of the office, barely managing not to bang the door shut behind her as the secretary called for the next person in line. It was a red-eyed woman on her early twenties, a golden-haired toddler tugging at her skirt.
[Sandstorm + 58 days]
She had followed the address on the envelope; not an easy task to accomplish, since many street signs were burnt down or no longer existed. However, by trial and error, with the help of a map, Mina had managed to reach the building her brother had been living in – or so she hoped. The tower that had once stood next to it had crumbled down like a castle of playing cards, bringing two thirds of the smaller building down as well.
Tucking her black hair behind her ears, Mina started to climb the pile of rubble, wounding the red scarf around her face to keep out the putrid, sweet stench of ashes, death and decay.
She slipped once, cut her left palm on the sharp edge of a broken brick; cursing, she brought hand to mouth, sucking on the wound to cleanse it. Steadying herself against a block jutting up from the ruins, Mina teared a strip of cloth from the hem of her shirt and wrapped it around her left hand, tying the ends together with he awkward help of her teeth. This done, she resumed the climb, now with doubled care. There were bodies trapped under the debris, and more than once she almost tripped on decaying, charred limbs.
The search took over three hours, and the sun had started its journey down the heavens. Mina was almost falling over with exhaustion and unwept grief, yet she couldn’t give up, not now. If her search resulted on nothing, she knew she wouldn’t be able to return the next morning – so she just had to keep looking until she found him, whatever it took.
She had dug out a broken iron bar, using it as a rough lever to push the larger pieces of rubble out of her way. Her gestures had become automatic, and the rusty bar was growing redder from the blood seeping through the improvised bandage on her left hand. Thus, the exhausted look she shot the corpse under the next boulder was a dismissive one. Like the others, its features and clothing had been devoured by fire, rot and vermin, and the sickening stench rising from the decaying body made her nostrils burn and her stomach churn in agony. Mina doubled over, retching violently – not for the first time in that day.
Only when she was straightening herself, wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve, did she notice the blackened necklace around the corpse’s neck. Trembling, Mina reached down and touched the small pendant, trying to clean it. A flake of sod came off, revealing the jewel’s shape, and the girl backed away in horror, her scream turning into a dry-mouthed gasp.
She had refused to believe, had desperately hoped the officer’s words meant something different – that Juha had been away at the time of the Sandstorm.
The blackened metal in front of her did not lie, though; there was only one piece like that that she knew of, cast by a family friend on request. And Mina knew it like her own hands. There it was, resting on the breast of a corpse, on the very house he had lived in.
Mina fell to her knees, retching again; her stomach was all but empty now, but the realization was just overwhelming. Closing her eyes, blessing the numbing pain from the day’s work, she wept freely, ignoring the nails digging into her palms and the still-warm blood flowing down her left wrist.
She never knew how long she knelt here, mourning the loss of her brother, the person she loved most in the whole world. That last flame of hope flickered out and died, as if someone had cut off a candle wick, leaving everything in pitch-black darkness.
"You had no right..." she heard herself murmur from a long distance. However, the words seemed to call her back to reality, nudging her awake from a deep trance. Still sobbing, Mina wiped the tears from her face, only realizing she had used her left hand when she felt a sticky warmness on her cheeks and the tingling taste of blood on her lips. It seemed fitting, somehow – tears mingling with blood.
Mina was still shivering, fighting not to collapse, when she reached out to her brother’s corpse. There was little she could do; she would never be able to remove the debris crushing his legs, and his eyelids crumbled away like dust as she tried to close his staring white eyes. Repressing a desperate wail, the girl lifted the corpse’s head – trying to ignore the crackling hair – and pulled the necklace free, holding it to her heart. With a sob, she started to clean it with her fingernails, not noticing the call from the street below.
A dark eyed teen with Asian features stood looking at the ruins on his left, rubbing his neck in frustration and wondering what was going on. His hair had a peculiar blue color, fading to white on the tips, and its ruffling length fell over his eyes. He shifted the weight of his duffel bag from a shoulder to another, ignoring the rattling sound of the thick gold chain around his neck. Looking up and down the street, his gaze ended up shifting to the dark clad figure among the ruins again. It was probably a girl, from the long black hair falling down her back and her slim frame. He could imagine a thousand logical reasons she was there; the simplest being the most likely to be true, she was a newcomer, and she knelt on the ruins of her old house. Few kids wandered the streets on their own. Once, he might have felt a pang of sorrow, but now his feelings had been dulled, just like everything else.
Shrugging and blinking twice, Kazuko put his bag down with extreme care; the weight of the batteries inside would only hinder his movements. He called again, to no avail. With a final shrug, he set on climbing through the scattered debris toward the figure.
She heard the second call, and her hand flew instinctively to her longest dagger. She didn’t recognize the voice, but neither did she turn. Still on her knees, Mina pulled the blade out of its scabbard with careful, terribly slow movements. It felt like some other person had taken control of her body; she could feel her own gestures, but had no way to control them. The footsteps and sounds of clattering rubble inched closer, and a shadow fell from the sky.
"Hey, what are you doin–"
The sentence was never finished. Whirling around, Mina plunged the dagger into the other’s abdomen, putting all her strength into the movement. There was a sudden gasp for breath, before the newcomer tumbled back, rolling down the ruins until he came to a stop a few feet above the street.
The moment Mina released the blade, realization of what she had done thundered down on her. Scrambling to her feet, she ran down to the fallen boy, acrid bile rising to her throat again. She fell once, head hitting cement, but in an instnt was running again, skidding down the debris.
Too late. The boy – apparently a Cigarette, from the white cloth tied to his arm – had broken his neck on the fall, her knife still protuding from his ribs. A glance at the surprised expression on his face was enough to revolve Mina’s stomach once more, and tears started streming down her face again. She could not linger, though – more would come from where he had. She planted her left hand on his ribs, wincing at the gurgling sound as she pulled the dagger free.
On his gray shirt rested a mark. A bloody handprint.
