Rainbow Sherbet 1: Whimper
Title: Whimper
Main Story: In The Heart
Flavors, Toppings, Extras: Rainbow sherbet 1 (red), malt (PFAH: Lars, Aaron, Jake: The Stand), chopped nuts, pocky chain.
Word Count: 800
Rating: PG.
Summary: This is the way the world ends.
Notes: This is along the lines of DFC's and Miyabi's super-spiffy deathfics, only with nightmares instead of death. I mean, there's quite a lot of death, but it's really about nightmares.
Ivy
They're all dead.
Her father, cut down at the door. Her mother and sister, lying across the bed. Her brother, hunched over the bodies of his children. Her sister-in-law, a crushed heap by the table.
There's more, others. Jake and Olivia, still holding hands. Danny, surrounded by bodies, went down fighting. Lars... missing, but probably dead too.
And Gina. And Gina.
All that red, on Gina's golden hair and her white skin and her blue eyes, still open, still staring. So much red. So much blood.
Ivy sits in the blood and wonders why they didn't come for her.
--
Gina
The worst part is that Gina thought they were lucky. When Felicity Foster started coughing, when Billy Kendall's cheeks turned a hectic red, when the first deaths were reported, Andy and Leah remained stubbornly healthy. Olivia called, sobbing; Ivy came home looking years older; and still she was selfishly, secretly glad, because her children were fine.
Then Leah coughed, just once, and two days later they were both... they both...
It's her fault. She failed them. She knows that she could have saved them, if she hadn't been glad.
When she starts coughing, it almost feels like a blessing.
--
Aaron
He doesn't understand what's happening. He didn't understand when he got his draft notice and he doesn't understand now. Words like thunder dropping on his ears, or the shells bursting all around him. He doesn't know what he's doing here.
A boy got shot yesterday, right next to him. A boy, not a man, no matter what his draft notice or the peach-fuzz beard said. He was only a child, and his blood spattered hot and warm over Aaron's face.
He'll never forget that feeling.
He'll never forget any of this.
He doesn't even know what he's doing here.
--
Summer
Summer's had nightmares about this since she was a little girl, since they learned about the European witch-hunts in class. Old women, most of them, who couldn't fit in, screaming in the flames.
She couldn't fit in.
It's nothing like she dreamt.
There's the smoke, first, suffocating, and the heat flickering at her feet. They've used green wood, a small objective part of her says, so she'll smother first. Or she would, if there wasn't a high wind, if spiraling sparks weren't already catching at her hair and her clothes.
It's nothing like she dreamt.
It's so much worse.
--
Lars
There's so much more blood than he could ever have expected.
People bled so much more than anyone ever said. Lars knows, objectively, that the average adult contains four to six quarts of blood, but it seems like more.
He got some of it on his hands when he...
...actually he's not sure what he did. He's pretty sure the other man said something about... Summer, maybe, or Danny, or even Lars's mother. And they'd both had too much to drink, and there was a knife, and...
He's the only one standing, now.
He hopes someone called the police.
--
Danny
She can't move.
It's ridiculous. Walking into a holdup is something doomed cops do in movies, it isn't something that happens in real life. But here they are, she and Michael, with a gun pointed at them.
She just wanted a Coke.
Danny screams at herself, inside. She's trained for this. She did this in combat just fine. Why can't she move?
The gunman is yelling, something about money. Michael's yelling too, and suddenly the gunman's turning and pointing his gun at Michael and there's a scream and a shot and blood spattering everywhere and she still. Can't. Move.
--
Jake
They don't know what happened yet. A stove left on, a faulty wire, a space heater too close to the curtains. It could have been anything.
(the first time it was a smoldering cigarette tossed in the trash.)
They don't know how they died yet. Smoke inhalation, a fall, flames creeping up the covers.
(Jake knows. he knows how they all died.)
He came home this time. He saw the flames this time. He heard them screaming, this time.
He will hear them screaming for the rest of his life.
If God has any mercy, it will be short.
--
Olivia
She looked it up, once, before, and learned that "apocalypse" actually means a disclosure of secrets. Technically, to all mankind, but since all mankind now consists of her...
This, then, is Olivia's apocalypse: the end of the world was all her fault.
She didn't arm the bombs, or drop them, but she began it. Said the wrong thing to the wrong person, like always; only this time instead of ruining her life, she's ruined everyone else's.
The city is ashes and smoke, but the clouds red with fire are still seared onto her memory.
It was all her fault.
Main Story: In The Heart
Flavors, Toppings, Extras: Rainbow sherbet 1 (red), malt (PFAH: Lars, Aaron, Jake: The Stand), chopped nuts, pocky chain.
Word Count: 800
Rating: PG.
Summary: This is the way the world ends.
Notes: This is along the lines of DFC's and Miyabi's super-spiffy deathfics, only with nightmares instead of death. I mean, there's quite a lot of death, but it's really about nightmares.
Ivy
They're all dead.
Her father, cut down at the door. Her mother and sister, lying across the bed. Her brother, hunched over the bodies of his children. Her sister-in-law, a crushed heap by the table.
There's more, others. Jake and Olivia, still holding hands. Danny, surrounded by bodies, went down fighting. Lars... missing, but probably dead too.
And Gina. And Gina.
All that red, on Gina's golden hair and her white skin and her blue eyes, still open, still staring. So much red. So much blood.
Ivy sits in the blood and wonders why they didn't come for her.
--
Gina
The worst part is that Gina thought they were lucky. When Felicity Foster started coughing, when Billy Kendall's cheeks turned a hectic red, when the first deaths were reported, Andy and Leah remained stubbornly healthy. Olivia called, sobbing; Ivy came home looking years older; and still she was selfishly, secretly glad, because her children were fine.
Then Leah coughed, just once, and two days later they were both... they both...
It's her fault. She failed them. She knows that she could have saved them, if she hadn't been glad.
When she starts coughing, it almost feels like a blessing.
--
Aaron
He doesn't understand what's happening. He didn't understand when he got his draft notice and he doesn't understand now. Words like thunder dropping on his ears, or the shells bursting all around him. He doesn't know what he's doing here.
A boy got shot yesterday, right next to him. A boy, not a man, no matter what his draft notice or the peach-fuzz beard said. He was only a child, and his blood spattered hot and warm over Aaron's face.
He'll never forget that feeling.
He'll never forget any of this.
He doesn't even know what he's doing here.
--
Summer
Summer's had nightmares about this since she was a little girl, since they learned about the European witch-hunts in class. Old women, most of them, who couldn't fit in, screaming in the flames.
She couldn't fit in.
It's nothing like she dreamt.
There's the smoke, first, suffocating, and the heat flickering at her feet. They've used green wood, a small objective part of her says, so she'll smother first. Or she would, if there wasn't a high wind, if spiraling sparks weren't already catching at her hair and her clothes.
It's nothing like she dreamt.
It's so much worse.
--
Lars
There's so much more blood than he could ever have expected.
People bled so much more than anyone ever said. Lars knows, objectively, that the average adult contains four to six quarts of blood, but it seems like more.
He got some of it on his hands when he...
...actually he's not sure what he did. He's pretty sure the other man said something about... Summer, maybe, or Danny, or even Lars's mother. And they'd both had too much to drink, and there was a knife, and...
He's the only one standing, now.
He hopes someone called the police.
--
Danny
She can't move.
It's ridiculous. Walking into a holdup is something doomed cops do in movies, it isn't something that happens in real life. But here they are, she and Michael, with a gun pointed at them.
She just wanted a Coke.
Danny screams at herself, inside. She's trained for this. She did this in combat just fine. Why can't she move?
The gunman is yelling, something about money. Michael's yelling too, and suddenly the gunman's turning and pointing his gun at Michael and there's a scream and a shot and blood spattering everywhere and she still. Can't. Move.
--
Jake
They don't know what happened yet. A stove left on, a faulty wire, a space heater too close to the curtains. It could have been anything.
(the first time it was a smoldering cigarette tossed in the trash.)
They don't know how they died yet. Smoke inhalation, a fall, flames creeping up the covers.
(Jake knows. he knows how they all died.)
He came home this time. He saw the flames this time. He heard them screaming, this time.
He will hear them screaming for the rest of his life.
If God has any mercy, it will be short.
--
Olivia
She looked it up, once, before, and learned that "apocalypse" actually means a disclosure of secrets. Technically, to all mankind, but since all mankind now consists of her...
This, then, is Olivia's apocalypse: the end of the world was all her fault.
She didn't arm the bombs, or drop them, but she began it. Said the wrong thing to the wrong person, like always; only this time instead of ruining her life, she's ruined everyone else's.
The city is ashes and smoke, but the clouds red with fire are still seared onto her memory.
It was all her fault.