Marc tosses a foam shrimp in Kate’s direction and she catches it between her teeth without breaking stride, grinning once she swallows and flourishing her hands in a mock bow.
“Try harder!” The afternoon is warm despite the time of year and Kate hurries down the first third of the hill with all the energy of a child who has the promises of the world at their feet. Freedom, the countdown to the weekend and Marc’s birthday too slow for her liking, the promise of barbeques and trips out buzzing under her skin and in the air. She turns her back to her brother, tugs a leaf from a hanging branch and lets it flutter to the pavement, a spot of vibrant, living green among old, dried gum and unwashed cement.
“Kat, catch!” Marc almost catches her off guard, but try harder already, brother, she knows that trick already. She spins, with all the grace of someone who is all but meant to be an athlete, and snaps up the next thrown sweet with her hand instead of her mouth, dropping the cola bottle onto her stuck out tongue.
“Loser.” But her voice rings playfully when he catches up and their paces match again, down the winding hill to a stretch of street lined with countless houses, all standing tall against the pavement, low-lying sun bleaching everything to white as they turn the corner. Kate ducks into stretched out shadows and blinks until her vision comes back.
And then the world stops. A magpie stops pecking at scraps of food in the road and a weight presses onto her chest, crushing lungs and heart as white blobs stomp their way out of a door half-off its hinges. Kate’s legs move before she can really register it, blurring under bright yellow tape and past houses where eyes peer out through living room windows, around policemen who react too late to the streak of twelve year old darting through their work at speeds that leave her dizzy, not enough air in her lungs, limbs and chest burning and the word no on repeat.
One more house—
But the door open is the same shade of cornflower blue as the powers she sees and there’s a stain on the carpet where her mother tried to repaint part of the passage without laying down paper. Somewhere behind her, a woman yells Kid, stop! Someone stop her! and aching, burning legs kick into gear once more.
No. She has to— She has to—
The stench of blood fills the air, thick with copper and embedded in the carpet as it squelches underfoot (It’s just one kid!), stuck in the back of her throat as bile winds its way up.
No. She has to— She has to—
Legs shake and she pushes at the door to the office without really thinking about it (For fuck’s sake, Johnson), silencing the world behind her and heaving in a breath which tastes of copper and death. The desk sits in front of her, gleaming and freshly polished, and if it wasn’t for the papers scattered into a pool of red (red going brown, dark, crusty brown all too much like the plaits that fall down her back), it would look so normal.
… She can’t see her mother’s favourite pen, her mind latches onto, scanning bookshelves with her eyes and looking everywhere but where brown curls poke out from behind a desk leg. Knees buckle and fingers twitch, darkness creeping at the corners of her vision when no amount of breathing gets air to her lungs, nothing, nothing, nothing—
But unseeing brown eyes and organs trailing out of cracked, cavernous ribs as she stumbles away from the opening door and collapses against the desk.
closed / cw: death / murder, gore
“Try harder!” The afternoon is warm despite the time of year and Kate hurries down the first third of the hill with all the energy of a child who has the promises of the world at their feet. Freedom, the countdown to the weekend and Marc’s birthday too slow for her liking, the promise of barbeques and trips out buzzing under her skin and in the air. She turns her back to her brother, tugs a leaf from a hanging branch and lets it flutter to the pavement, a spot of vibrant, living green among old, dried gum and unwashed cement.
“Kat, catch!” Marc almost catches her off guard, but try harder already, brother, she knows that trick already. She spins, with all the grace of someone who is all but meant to be an athlete, and snaps up the next thrown sweet with her hand instead of her mouth, dropping the cola bottle onto her stuck out tongue.
“Loser.” But her voice rings playfully when he catches up and their paces match again, down the winding hill to a stretch of street lined with countless houses, all standing tall against the pavement, low-lying sun bleaching everything to white as they turn the corner. Kate ducks into stretched out shadows and blinks until her vision comes back.
And then the world stops. A magpie stops pecking at scraps of food in the road and a weight presses onto her chest, crushing lungs and heart as white blobs stomp their way out of a door half-off its hinges. Kate’s legs move before she can really register it, blurring under bright yellow tape and past houses where eyes peer out through living room windows, around policemen who react too late to the streak of twelve year old darting through their work at speeds that leave her dizzy, not enough air in her lungs, limbs and chest burning and the word no on repeat.
One more house—
But the door open is the same shade of cornflower blue as the powers she sees and there’s a stain on the carpet where her mother tried to repaint part of the passage without laying down paper. Somewhere behind her, a woman yells Kid, stop! Someone stop her! and aching, burning legs kick into gear once more.
No. She has to— She has to—
The stench of blood fills the air, thick with copper and embedded in the carpet as it squelches underfoot (It’s just one kid!), stuck in the back of her throat as bile winds its way up.
No. She has to— She has to—
Legs shake and she pushes at the door to the office without really thinking about it (For fuck’s sake, Johnson), silencing the world behind her and heaving in a breath which tastes of copper and death. The desk sits in front of her, gleaming and freshly polished, and if it wasn’t for the papers scattered into a pool of red (red going brown, dark, crusty brown all too much like the plaits that fall down her back), it would look so normal.
… She can’t see her mother’s favourite pen, her mind latches onto, scanning bookshelves with her eyes and looking everywhere but where brown curls poke out from behind a desk leg. Knees buckle and fingers twitch, darkness creeping at the corners of her vision when no amount of breathing gets air to her lungs, nothing, nothing, nothing—
But unseeing brown eyes and organs trailing out of cracked, cavernous ribs as she stumbles away from the opening door and collapses against the desk.