Petal [h.s.]

FIFTY-SIX - WATER IN YOUR HANDS

The sky wasn't pink.

It was blue. Everything was blue. The iciest, coldest shade of blue that I'd ever seen in my life. The entire world had been tinted with it, it had been soaked in it.

My body was cold. I couldn't feel my legs even as they carried me down the boardwalk. I was in the Wasteland, but it wasn't the Wasteland I knew. It was upside down. It was inside out.

Everything was abandoned. Trash littered the streets, blowing in the freezing cold wind, down the empty boardwalk. I looked around frantically, searching for signs of life. There were none. Every shop I passed was a ghost town with broken glass spread all around the windows and doors. All of the carnival rides had been left to rust and rot. Every single person that I grew up knowing was suddenly gone. My home was destroyed.

A panic built inside of me, making my feet pick up their pace until I was running. My feet were bare, I realized. I wondered where my shoes went. I stepped on shards of broken glass as I ran down the boardwalk, but it didn't slow me at all. I barely felt the cuts on my feet or the blood spilling because the hole in my chest was all I could focus on.

I ran until I saw my shop. It was all lit up, looking as pristine as the day I first opened. The lights were all on, the sign glaring brightly against the dark blue of the world. My eyebrows tugged together as I studied it, reaching for the door so I could step inside.

Something yanked at the center of me, causing me to turn toward the shop next door. Harry's flower shop. It was...

It was desolate.

It was empty and abandoned and broken down, so similar to the other shops in the Wasteland... except worse. Much worse. It wasn't just empty. It wasn't just torn apart. It was covered in blood. The red was stark against the melancholy world surrounding me-it was bright and smelled metallic as it hit my nose. I had to force back a gag at the overwhelming scent of it.

I stumbled forward, my eyes frantically searching through the rubble for any sign of life. Blood meant a body. Blood meant someone was here in these ruins. I reached out my hands to start clawing my way through broken pieces of glass and plaster, desperate to find Harry. But my hands were covered with blood as well. It was thick and sticky and foul-smelling. I couldn't believe I was just noticing the amount of it smeared all over my palms.

I tried to wipe them clean on my clothes, but they were stained with it. I started to pant heavily, my eyes flickering across the boardwalk to where the ocean lapped against the shore.

That was it. The ocean. She would wash me clean, I was certain of it.

I forced myself to move away from Harry's flower shop and across the sand. It was freezing cold, everything here was so cold. I could feel it seeping into my bones, a chill that would surely never leave my body. I walked right into the ocean, gasping as the icy waters hit me.