Reality?
She is dying. No, she lives. Everything is a blur as the world explodes in emotion, color...
Donna remembers screaming out to her husband to hold on as the maelstrom struck following Trigon's final death. If she was meeting Persephone, she would be doing so on her feet, not her knees. An Amazon meets death with a sword in her hand - and a Titan never meets death alone.
The first thing she is aware of is the damp grass leaching warmth from her skin. The second thing she's aware of is that she is in far too much pain to be dead. Slowly, she plants her hands under her and gets up. If she is alive, then there are others out there who need her. She needs to get to the Watchtower. Her children, Lian and Aiden, are there. Her husband would not be far behind. Roy Harper was nothing if not a survivor. It was inconceivable to her that somehow they were not just waiting for her to wake up and come -
"You there!" someone calls out. "Yes, you! The cemetery grounds are closed!"
Home?
When she opens her eyes, she realizes she's not in Clearwater anymore. A dark hollow place forms where her stomach was when she sees she's in a section of graves sometimes refered to as "babyland." It's where they place plant the bodies of dead children; seeds which now will never grow, much less bloom. She knows a place just like this in New Jersey with a dark kind of intimacy. The guard calls out once more and in her spin to get a better look she sees the name on the rain-washed memorial stone.
Harper
"No!" The guard forgotten. She spins back, grasping desperately at the monument in both hands, like she were grasping a child's shoulders. "No! NONONONO!"
Lian Harper
"You there!"the guard shouts. "Get away from there!"
She doesn't hear him. She screams the incoherent, soul-rendering cries of a mother who has lost her baby as her knees sink into the recently turned ground and she can't stop. Persephone help her! She cannot stop and she shakes the very stone from the ground.
The guard has a gun and fires. It grazes her shoulder, but she is past pain. She may be past wishing to live.
But Aiden, her second son and now last child, might still be alive.
With a glare back to the guard through her filth-caked hair as if he was of little more consequence than a requisition signature for her daughter's casket, she flew off into the starless night to find answers, hope, or possibly justice.
Donna remembers screaming out to her husband to hold on as the maelstrom struck following Trigon's final death. If she was meeting Persephone, she would be doing so on her feet, not her knees. An Amazon meets death with a sword in her hand - and a Titan never meets death alone.
The first thing she is aware of is the damp grass leaching warmth from her skin. The second thing she's aware of is that she is in far too much pain to be dead. Slowly, she plants her hands under her and gets up. If she is alive, then there are others out there who need her. She needs to get to the Watchtower. Her children, Lian and Aiden, are there. Her husband would not be far behind. Roy Harper was nothing if not a survivor. It was inconceivable to her that somehow they were not just waiting for her to wake up and come -
"You there!" someone calls out. "Yes, you! The cemetery grounds are closed!"
Home?
When she opens her eyes, she realizes she's not in Clearwater anymore. A dark hollow place forms where her stomach was when she sees she's in a section of graves sometimes refered to as "babyland." It's where they place plant the bodies of dead children; seeds which now will never grow, much less bloom. She knows a place just like this in New Jersey with a dark kind of intimacy. The guard calls out once more and in her spin to get a better look she sees the name on the rain-washed memorial stone.
Harper
"No!" The guard forgotten. She spins back, grasping desperately at the monument in both hands, like she were grasping a child's shoulders. "No! NONONONO!"
Lian Harper
"You there!"the guard shouts. "Get away from there!"
She doesn't hear him. She screams the incoherent, soul-rendering cries of a mother who has lost her baby as her knees sink into the recently turned ground and she can't stop. Persephone help her! She cannot stop and she shakes the very stone from the ground.
The guard has a gun and fires. It grazes her shoulder, but she is past pain. She may be past wishing to live.
But Aiden, her second son and now last child, might still be alive.
With a glare back to the guard through her filth-caked hair as if he was of little more consequence than a requisition signature for her daughter's casket, she flew off into the starless night to find answers, hope, or possibly justice.