"Timeless" - Narnian Autumn Writing Challenge - Oneshot Collection

"Angel"

Word count: 503

Prompt: Change

Notes:

• I altered the timeline after the Voyage of the Dawn Treader and instead of the Pevensie children dying, I made it so the parents go instead.

• This story is inspired by the song "Supermarket Flowers"

°

Hundreds of gravestones marked the ground in morbid lines, each holding a story Edmund didn't care to know. Each gravestone remembered someone lost. Many lost too early.

And in those that we're lost too early, he was here for two gravestones- two people.

Christopher and Helen Pevensie.

Mother and Father.

Sinking to his knees, not caring if the grass would stain his pants, he reached out.

"You were an angel in the shape of my mum..." Smoothing his hand against the cold surface of the tombstone, he felt his hand catch on the fine, gritty texture, felt the stone scratch little cuts into his palms.

Watched as the blood dried almost instantly on his skin from the wafts of frosty air.

Finally, he honestly accepted the truth- that his parents were gone.

One day they were safe, happy, and there for him; and then one day they boarded a train, it crashed, and they never came back off alive.

The air around him was fierce, intense, and bitter, sweeping the tears off his face, onto the brittle grass, mixing with the dew drops of the cold.

His tears never ceased, they couldn't even if he tried. Besides, no one was around to see him being so weak. And he couldn't care even if they were.

Sobbing, he imagined his mum's strong face, her warm smile, and her loving arms, "You got to see the person that I've become."

And she did.

He had changed so much, no longer the rude, selfish boy he used to be, and she got to see that. Sure he might've still teased his family, lashed out, but not as much as before.

Staring hard at the name engraved, Ed sniffled. It wasn't fair.

Helen Pevensie. Adoring wife. Loving mother of four children.

His mum.

Edmund moved on his knees to a tombstone a foot away. He held his breath and then let it shudder its way out, feeling his chest shake.

Christopher Pevensie. Husband and father to four wonderful children.

His dad.

"When I fell down you'd be there holding me up." He touched his dad's stone, remembering everything. Remembering the times he'd fought with him, the times he taught him something, the times he'd run to his father- because no one else would understand.

Why couldn't they have stayed around? He'd only just been getting used to seeing them every day again- both of them.

Dad was no longer off fighting in the war, Mum hadn't sent them off. They were all together.

Until one day they weren't.

Life happened, and sadly, change could not be changed. He was stuck in a new reality that he had never wanted- never asked for. In all of his life, he truly had never felt alone until today.

As he stood to leave, the heart inside of him felt broken. It hurt so bad, it was unbearable, he almost crumpled back down. Almost couldn't move.

But he knew, a heart that was broken was a heart that had been loved.