Aᴘʀɪʟ 2, 2024
There's an explosion.
Her hair goes wayward and the brutal exert of hot air has her body rolling in the wet grass without a chance to take a breath, without a chance to worry. Thus, the high-pitched ringing her ears. Her world twists excruciatingly inside out.
---
The ground continues to rumble. There's a burst of red, orange, yellow and a bit of blue, reflecting on the small puddles of water when she cracks her eyes open. Everything is blurry and spinning. There's fire, smoke and the building is collapsing, caving into the earth. There is lightning and thunder, flames and water, then there was him and her.
Something is in her throat, she wheezes-cough, cough-but, it doesn't come out. She swallows, it hurts, resulting in more coughing.
"Alan...?" She croaks, "Phillip...?" No answer. She feels her ear and realizes the earpiece is lost. "Shit." For how long has she been lying here? Why did she have to pass out? "Shit." Wheezing and coughing, coughing and wheezing, she spits out a bile of black that clogged her airway, then proceeds to get up.
The Bluetooth is laying, drowned in a puddle of water and she stares at it as droplets continue to pelt down from the dark sky. Her gaze lifts to where the old church should be and it's laying in crumbles. She feels her heart pounding with anxiety. Alexa approaches. Step after step, she gets closer. Lightning flashes, thunder claps.
The wind whistles and trees sway. The moon is full and bright. The clouds are dark and the sky is grey. The stars are invisible tonight.
She hears Phillip say, "Let's run away on the mission, together."
The church has sunken into the ground, proving that the underground compartment has given way. No one could've survived down there. Alexa closes her eyes and breathes; inhale, exhale. The roof, the walls, everything is flat and there is nobody in sight.
Phillipeño's team went around to the back to get gasoline-she rushes around the fallen concrete and wood, driven by emotions she let loose just thinking about him.
But, her breath hitches and she stops, eyes wide and pooling, trained on the last person she wanted to ever leave her; blank eyes half open and glistening, head hanging to the side, lips blue and slightly parted, golden blonde hair array. She finds herself dropping to her knees in a bloody muddy mixture, beside his torso. The rest of his body is hidden, probably crushed beneath concrete slabs and rusty steel. She brushes his hair aside and takes his stiff, cold fingers in her hands. Her eyes assess the pure boy and if she's crying, who can tell? When there's rain falling, water splashing and lightning flashing.
Her heart's thrashing.
'Is this why Katya said I shouldn't fall in love? I wouldn't even know if I did anyway.'