close your eyes, count to ten }} blue
Mar 17, 2014 21:20:42 GMT -5
Post by semper on Mar 17, 2014 21:20:42 GMT -5
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Jean Kirschtein
peacekeeper. twenty-five.
hey brother, there's an endless road to rediscover
hey sister, know the water's sweet but blood is thicker
oh if the sky comes falling down for you
there's nothing in the world i wouldn't do
peacekeeper. twenty-five.
hey brother, there's an endless road to rediscover
hey sister, know the water's sweet but blood is thicker
oh if the sky comes falling down for you
there's nothing in the world i wouldn't do
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I’m mentally exhausted and every muscle in my body is spent. More than anything I want to curl up in bed to just sleep away the pain, but after this last mission, Heichou gave us permission to wander around for the evening and to not come back until tomorrow night.
A perfect opportunity to go home for a bit.
I take nothing extra with me other than a jacket. Unfortunately the nights still break the heat and put a chill on anyone not clothed properly; it makes me long for the days of early summer and early fall, when it’s warm but not intensely so, and you can leave the windows open all night to listen to the crickets and frogs play their eternal nocturnal song. I used to do that for Meeka and Eclipse since they told me once that my singing was really bad – I’d open the window and let the nightly symphonies from the woods behind the house lull them to sleep. (Although, they did enjoy asking me to sing if only to mimic and mock me, which I didn’t mind because I laughed right along with them, as did Nala.) Soon we will be able to start that back up again and already I find myself longing for those songs and the sweet scent of honeysuckle wafting through the window.
The street in front of my house is empty, just as it usually is. We live on the outskirts of the residential area so the road doesn’t get much traffic, which is good because having neighbors too close is just dumb anyway. No need for there to be a house so close that they can look in from their property and see you stepping buck-naked out of the shower. My pace quickens when I spot the wooden framing and a smile crosses my face; the lamp in the den window is warmly lit and I can already start to feel the warm, secure sensation of curling up in fleece blankets with the twins and watching some nature documentary while they sip juice or whatever they fancy.
Sometimes I want to tell them about everything I’ve seen in the wilderness and what rogue mutts roam about, but there are far more serious matters in Panem that I hope to someday educate them about.
Up the stairs, to the door. I pull out the key from my pocket and unlock it, then push it open. But when I step over the threshold, something feels off. Really off.
The air is bone-chilling cold and there’s a coppery scent lingering so thick that I can taste it. I know that smell all too well from tending to injuries my squad mates acquired on missions and it makes my stomach twist into a tight knot immediately. Gone is the collectedness I usually have and in comes this terrified feeling unlike anything I have ever felt before. I close the door and my breath catches in my throat.
The house is silent. No bickering, no clanging metal, no thudding footsteps.
I’m on my toes, creeping along silently through the halls that feel too foreign now. (Where’s Nala? Bell? The twins?) There are no other lights on and the putrid smell grows stronger. Fear for the unknown in my childhood home causes me to run my fingers along the wall, using it as an anchor and to keep myself upright. (Don’t panic, not yet. Find out what’s happening first.)
“Nala? Bell?”
No answer.
A small whimper escapes me and I begin to fret while I round the corner to the kitchen. There, on the white tiled floor, are dark smears of crimson blood. It leads off through the doorway and behind the wall but my feet are planted firmly underneath knocking knees.
Raw fear grips me in icy fingers, and like a fearful, wide-eyed child I stand in place, quaking, throat closing and tightening. My mind madly tries to justify why the blood would be there but it’s just too much – so much blood. There’s no way it could’ve just been a paper cut or nosebleed and it terrifies me.
But what if they’re okay? Maybe it was a cooking accident.
I look quickly at the stove and there is nothing, nor anything on the counters. The blue and grey granite counter is cleared of everything but the tins with sugar and flour and herbs, none of which look as if they’ve been touched in a while. The sink is dry, too.
It takes everything I can muster up to take the few steps toward the doorway—
One body. No, no, there’s two – two bodies sprawled on the rug next to the dining table. Even though it’s dark I have no trouble identifying them and I choke up.
“Nala!”
I stumble forward and drop down to my knees beside her. Nala’s red hair is splayed out around her head and her eyes – those hazel eyes – are open and dark, void of any indicator of life. Tears blur my vision and my chest heaves; the air in this room is all at once too thick and sickly that I fear I may vomit. I start to hyperventilate, tremoring hands reaching out to her neck crusted with dried blood. There is no pulse when I press my finger under her jaw, just above the large slit that crosses her throat.
No, no no no— “Nala? Nala, c’mon, this isn’t funny.” I lean down and press my ear to her chest but my own heart is beating so fast that I can’t tell if the thudding in my ears is from her heart or mine. Panicked, I straighten back up, voice starting to crack. “Don’t do this to me, just—just cut it out, alright?” A pause. “Okay?”
Silence.
Frantically I look up at the other body, my uncle, and he has the same fatal stroke across the neck. Blood has pooled underneath his head and he stares at me with empty, glossy eyes that send a shock of fear into me.
There’s no time to mourn just yet, however, when I hear a few footsteps coming from upstairs. I wipe the tears from my eyes and force myself to stand, once again tip-toeing, this time to the second level of the house. The hallway is darker up here and the carpet muffles my steps; slowly I open the first door and find nothing in the spare bedroom. The next room is empty, too, so that left only one more. Cautiously I open it.
I’m fully prepared to fight with my bare hands when a blurred figure rushes at me in a swirl of cloth and flyaway grey hair. A guttural growl sounds and I’m forced back, claw-like nails raking at my jawbone; I grab the wrists of the attacker and find them frail and small, and it takes a few moments before I realize I’m holding onto a snarling Bell.
“Bell—Bell, it’s me, Jean!”
She stops those gravelly, animalistic sounds just long enough to look at me with those archaic eyes of hers and whimpers. I let go of her wrists and put my hands on her shoulders. “What happened? Where are the twins?”
Bell sniffs and tugs me toward the last room, over to the closet. She opens the door and in the dim evening light filtering through the window I see the outlined figures of the twins asleep amidst a nest of blankets. It’s an amazing relief that they’re alright but my mind wanders back to Nala, squashing the temporary alleviation.
I turn back to Bell. “Keep them here for a little longer. I’m going to, um… get help, and clean up downstairs. I’ll come back up to get you all when it’s done.”
She nods sagely and I leave, each step slowing more and more as I near the room. I can’t walk by it, not again. The marks on their necks are far too precise, much to clean for this to have been an accident of any kind. (Were they murdered? But who would do that?) Anger starts to mix around with the sadness that was suddenly weakening my legs, threatening to force me into toppling over. I avoid the room like a plague and exit through the back of the house, going around to the street.
(What do I do?)
Standing idly in the dim ember light of street lamps, I feel hollow. Gutted. And I don’t know what to do. What should I do? Nala and my uncle are dead but I seriously doubt that anyone’ll help me, particularly considering one’s an Avox. Even if I didn’t tell them that they’d question me, and then what? I can’t lie to save my life, especially over something like this. I run my hand through my hair and exhale shakily, tears once again stinging my eyes. I can’t just stay here, I need to do something, but what?
Levi won’t give a rat’s ass about this, nor will Eren. Erwin, no; Hanji, no; Armin, maybe. He’s smart, he’d know what to do but I don’t know where he is right now. The only downfall is that I’ve never spoken a single word about my family to any of them so they’re all in the dark about it; they’ll be coming in blind and I’m not ready to answer any of the questions that might come with it. However, there’s only really one person that I know won’t put pressure on me like that: Marco. He’s an idiot, a naïve idiot, but right now there’s no one I need more than him.
I keep my head down and hurry along, hands shoved deep into the pockets of my jacket, chin tucked down into the collar. Thankfully the streets are clear on this chilly evening but I still keep my pace fast, stumbling a few times over rubble in the dark shadows of buildings.
All I want to do is sit and cry. There’s a nagging ache in my chest that won’t dull and my throat clenches despite the fresh air. Nala’s dead, my uncle’s dead, and I don’t know what to do. Judging by the looks of things, the twins didn’t know that their mother had been killed, and that’s an act I want to uphold. But for how long? They’ll notice she’s gone, and when they do, what will I say?
How do you explain to two five year olds that their mother isn’t coming back?
Idealistically you shouldn’t have to be saying it. In a perfect world she would still be alive and not a victim of some random violent act. (That’s what bothers me the most: the whole situation looks spontaneous. No note, no threat, nothing.) But I know this world isn’t perfect by a long shot; I’ve seen the shitty, miserable districts and their inhabitants that narrow their eyes at me and swear under their breath, I’ve seen the untamed discord reigning the wilderness, and I’ve even heard whispers here and there of some kind of Uprising starting to form like a coup d’état. It’s a perfectly imperfect world already without adding a senseless slaughter on top like a rotten cherry.
My feet continue to drag and it takes nearly everything I have to keep trudging onward to Marco’s. A few people pass by suddenly and I turn my head down and away, unwilling to let them see my bloodshot eyes or how red my nose is. It’s just through an alley, up stairs, through a door, then up more stairs before I stand outside of his apartment, suddenly reluctant in my decision.
I need his help, that much I’m absolutely certain of, but the fear of what lays ahead subjects me to hesitation. I raise my hand anyway, feebly knocking on the door.
There’s shuffling behind the it and I steel myself just before the knob turns and it’s pulled open. I refuse to look up, choosing instead to focus on the toe of my worn leather boot.
“Marco, I, um…” I stammer and shift uncomfortably, shrinking under his presence. (How strange it must be to see Jean Kirschtein – the conceited, cocky bastard, as dubbed by Eren – all of a sudden so vulnerable and insecure. Quite uncharacteristic.) I sniff and clear my throat, however still unable to keep the waver out of my quiet voice. “I’m sorry to bother you, and I understand completely if you say no, but, erm… I.. I need help burying two bodies.”
I’m mentally exhausted and every muscle in my body is spent. More than anything I want to curl up in bed to just sleep away the pain, but after this last mission, Heichou gave us permission to wander around for the evening and to not come back until tomorrow night.
A perfect opportunity to go home for a bit.
I take nothing extra with me other than a jacket. Unfortunately the nights still break the heat and put a chill on anyone not clothed properly; it makes me long for the days of early summer and early fall, when it’s warm but not intensely so, and you can leave the windows open all night to listen to the crickets and frogs play their eternal nocturnal song. I used to do that for Meeka and Eclipse since they told me once that my singing was really bad – I’d open the window and let the nightly symphonies from the woods behind the house lull them to sleep. (Although, they did enjoy asking me to sing if only to mimic and mock me, which I didn’t mind because I laughed right along with them, as did Nala.) Soon we will be able to start that back up again and already I find myself longing for those songs and the sweet scent of honeysuckle wafting through the window.
The street in front of my house is empty, just as it usually is. We live on the outskirts of the residential area so the road doesn’t get much traffic, which is good because having neighbors too close is just dumb anyway. No need for there to be a house so close that they can look in from their property and see you stepping buck-naked out of the shower. My pace quickens when I spot the wooden framing and a smile crosses my face; the lamp in the den window is warmly lit and I can already start to feel the warm, secure sensation of curling up in fleece blankets with the twins and watching some nature documentary while they sip juice or whatever they fancy.
Sometimes I want to tell them about everything I’ve seen in the wilderness and what rogue mutts roam about, but there are far more serious matters in Panem that I hope to someday educate them about.
Up the stairs, to the door. I pull out the key from my pocket and unlock it, then push it open. But when I step over the threshold, something feels off. Really off.
The air is bone-chilling cold and there’s a coppery scent lingering so thick that I can taste it. I know that smell all too well from tending to injuries my squad mates acquired on missions and it makes my stomach twist into a tight knot immediately. Gone is the collectedness I usually have and in comes this terrified feeling unlike anything I have ever felt before. I close the door and my breath catches in my throat.
The house is silent. No bickering, no clanging metal, no thudding footsteps.
I’m on my toes, creeping along silently through the halls that feel too foreign now. (Where’s Nala? Bell? The twins?) There are no other lights on and the putrid smell grows stronger. Fear for the unknown in my childhood home causes me to run my fingers along the wall, using it as an anchor and to keep myself upright. (Don’t panic, not yet. Find out what’s happening first.)
“Nala? Bell?”
No answer.
A small whimper escapes me and I begin to fret while I round the corner to the kitchen. There, on the white tiled floor, are dark smears of crimson blood. It leads off through the doorway and behind the wall but my feet are planted firmly underneath knocking knees.
Raw fear grips me in icy fingers, and like a fearful, wide-eyed child I stand in place, quaking, throat closing and tightening. My mind madly tries to justify why the blood would be there but it’s just too much – so much blood. There’s no way it could’ve just been a paper cut or nosebleed and it terrifies me.
But what if they’re okay? Maybe it was a cooking accident.
I look quickly at the stove and there is nothing, nor anything on the counters. The blue and grey granite counter is cleared of everything but the tins with sugar and flour and herbs, none of which look as if they’ve been touched in a while. The sink is dry, too.
It takes everything I can muster up to take the few steps toward the doorway—
One body. No, no, there’s two – two bodies sprawled on the rug next to the dining table. Even though it’s dark I have no trouble identifying them and I choke up.
“Nala!”
I stumble forward and drop down to my knees beside her. Nala’s red hair is splayed out around her head and her eyes – those hazel eyes – are open and dark, void of any indicator of life. Tears blur my vision and my chest heaves; the air in this room is all at once too thick and sickly that I fear I may vomit. I start to hyperventilate, tremoring hands reaching out to her neck crusted with dried blood. There is no pulse when I press my finger under her jaw, just above the large slit that crosses her throat.
No, no no no— “Nala? Nala, c’mon, this isn’t funny.” I lean down and press my ear to her chest but my own heart is beating so fast that I can’t tell if the thudding in my ears is from her heart or mine. Panicked, I straighten back up, voice starting to crack. “Don’t do this to me, just—just cut it out, alright?” A pause. “Okay?”
Silence.
Frantically I look up at the other body, my uncle, and he has the same fatal stroke across the neck. Blood has pooled underneath his head and he stares at me with empty, glossy eyes that send a shock of fear into me.
There’s no time to mourn just yet, however, when I hear a few footsteps coming from upstairs. I wipe the tears from my eyes and force myself to stand, once again tip-toeing, this time to the second level of the house. The hallway is darker up here and the carpet muffles my steps; slowly I open the first door and find nothing in the spare bedroom. The next room is empty, too, so that left only one more. Cautiously I open it.
I’m fully prepared to fight with my bare hands when a blurred figure rushes at me in a swirl of cloth and flyaway grey hair. A guttural growl sounds and I’m forced back, claw-like nails raking at my jawbone; I grab the wrists of the attacker and find them frail and small, and it takes a few moments before I realize I’m holding onto a snarling Bell.
“Bell—Bell, it’s me, Jean!”
She stops those gravelly, animalistic sounds just long enough to look at me with those archaic eyes of hers and whimpers. I let go of her wrists and put my hands on her shoulders. “What happened? Where are the twins?”
Bell sniffs and tugs me toward the last room, over to the closet. She opens the door and in the dim evening light filtering through the window I see the outlined figures of the twins asleep amidst a nest of blankets. It’s an amazing relief that they’re alright but my mind wanders back to Nala, squashing the temporary alleviation.
I turn back to Bell. “Keep them here for a little longer. I’m going to, um… get help, and clean up downstairs. I’ll come back up to get you all when it’s done.”
She nods sagely and I leave, each step slowing more and more as I near the room. I can’t walk by it, not again. The marks on their necks are far too precise, much to clean for this to have been an accident of any kind. (Were they murdered? But who would do that?) Anger starts to mix around with the sadness that was suddenly weakening my legs, threatening to force me into toppling over. I avoid the room like a plague and exit through the back of the house, going around to the street.
(What do I do?)
Standing idly in the dim ember light of street lamps, I feel hollow. Gutted. And I don’t know what to do. What should I do? Nala and my uncle are dead but I seriously doubt that anyone’ll help me, particularly considering one’s an Avox. Even if I didn’t tell them that they’d question me, and then what? I can’t lie to save my life, especially over something like this. I run my hand through my hair and exhale shakily, tears once again stinging my eyes. I can’t just stay here, I need to do something, but what?
Levi won’t give a rat’s ass about this, nor will Eren. Erwin, no; Hanji, no; Armin, maybe. He’s smart, he’d know what to do but I don’t know where he is right now. The only downfall is that I’ve never spoken a single word about my family to any of them so they’re all in the dark about it; they’ll be coming in blind and I’m not ready to answer any of the questions that might come with it. However, there’s only really one person that I know won’t put pressure on me like that: Marco. He’s an idiot, a naïve idiot, but right now there’s no one I need more than him.
I keep my head down and hurry along, hands shoved deep into the pockets of my jacket, chin tucked down into the collar. Thankfully the streets are clear on this chilly evening but I still keep my pace fast, stumbling a few times over rubble in the dark shadows of buildings.
All I want to do is sit and cry. There’s a nagging ache in my chest that won’t dull and my throat clenches despite the fresh air. Nala’s dead, my uncle’s dead, and I don’t know what to do. Judging by the looks of things, the twins didn’t know that their mother had been killed, and that’s an act I want to uphold. But for how long? They’ll notice she’s gone, and when they do, what will I say?
How do you explain to two five year olds that their mother isn’t coming back?
Idealistically you shouldn’t have to be saying it. In a perfect world she would still be alive and not a victim of some random violent act. (That’s what bothers me the most: the whole situation looks spontaneous. No note, no threat, nothing.) But I know this world isn’t perfect by a long shot; I’ve seen the shitty, miserable districts and their inhabitants that narrow their eyes at me and swear under their breath, I’ve seen the untamed discord reigning the wilderness, and I’ve even heard whispers here and there of some kind of Uprising starting to form like a coup d’état. It’s a perfectly imperfect world already without adding a senseless slaughter on top like a rotten cherry.
My feet continue to drag and it takes nearly everything I have to keep trudging onward to Marco’s. A few people pass by suddenly and I turn my head down and away, unwilling to let them see my bloodshot eyes or how red my nose is. It’s just through an alley, up stairs, through a door, then up more stairs before I stand outside of his apartment, suddenly reluctant in my decision.
I need his help, that much I’m absolutely certain of, but the fear of what lays ahead subjects me to hesitation. I raise my hand anyway, feebly knocking on the door.
There’s shuffling behind the it and I steel myself just before the knob turns and it’s pulled open. I refuse to look up, choosing instead to focus on the toe of my worn leather boot.
“Marco, I, um…” I stammer and shift uncomfortably, shrinking under his presence. (How strange it must be to see Jean Kirschtein – the conceited, cocky bastard, as dubbed by Eren – all of a sudden so vulnerable and insecure. Quite uncharacteristic.) I sniff and clear my throat, however still unable to keep the waver out of my quiet voice. “I’m sorry to bother you, and I understand completely if you say no, but, erm… I.. I need help burying two bodies.”
table by anzie <3
