Dreaming of Fireflies *rewrites*

prologue | All the King's Men

[Author's Note: Trigger warning, this is dark with violence of all kinds. You can skip ahead after this chapter to the end of End of Issue 0 to avoid major triggers. The book is broken up by scene not chapter. Visual elements are not required for enjoyment of the book. Above is a digital illustration for the chapter. Please, feel free to only listen to the song or listen to nothing while reading. Enjoy the digital illustration.]

   Three years earlier...

    I open the car door and both my feet step onto the dry earth of the convenience store parking lot. The packed dirt is starved for the next rain that almost never comes in Sacramento. An ozone smell fills the air. The overcast sky tempts another storm that will probably pass us by. Rain will never fall to break our drought in California.

    I close the car door with a slam and follow my brother's path. His big feet and long legs make a cadence I can't match.

   My brother waits for me at the crossing. He holds his big hand out for me. Even my big brother couldn't miss my side eye to him. The wordless rebellion is clear on my face, I'm too old, and I can cross the street by myself. A car buzzes by and flaps my basketball shorts in the wind. 

   His hand hangs in the air stubborn, as always waits for mine. I give a very tiny sigh and my smaller hand slips into his big one. His gambler hat shades his brown gaze. My eyes look up quickly into the mirror of my own eyes. He has such amusement in them. Then he tells me wordlessly, I'm not that old. I can't help the stupid little smile that slides to the corner of my lips. He takes off his hat and plops it on top of my head. It shades my side eye from him. The warmth of his calloused hand envelopes mine in his large grip. 

    Cars pass dust swirls in the air. The last car goes by and we walk past the bright yellow liner divide together.

    The Quik n Grab door bursts open and a man barrels out. My brother pulls me away from the running man, he passes us by. The man races past my brother and knocks his shoulder. He stumbles back.

    His head snaps back to the door. The store owner rushes out of the door. He lifts a thing in his hand at my brother. My brother's work-calloused hand tightens over mine.

[Crack]

   A sloppy wet thud sound slams into his broad chest with a hard jerk. His shoulders dance with the impact of the bullet. My heart wrenches with a jagged rip just as the bullet slashes through my brother's body.

[Crack]

    My breath is forced from my lungs with each impact of the bullets.

[Crack]

    The scream grows inside me is crushed with the last bullet.

    He slumps to the cold road. My brother takes my hand with him. Blood runs down his arm to his hand, outlining our fingers still tightly held together. His grip relaxes around mine. My hand slips free from his hold. The store owner's gun hits the ground with a clunk.

    I press my hand over his wound as the blood sticks to every inch of him. It pools in the wound hot and wet. Then rushes out like a river and burst from the dam. The red cuts a wasted path on the paved road. His blood stains. It spreads out quickly running between the roads bright yellow divider lines.

Endless red...

[ba-dump]

[ba-dump]

    I push my hand down harder to stem the sloppy flow of blood. I match my breath to him, in a childish attempt to will his next breath like magic. His heartbeat slows beneath my hand. My hand shakes against his red sloppy chest. Shivers wracked through my body as I rock back and forth over my big brother.

[ba-d....]

   "Please, no," I beg him helplessly asking him for something that can't be fixed. "Please.."

   The sky opens up raining down with a harsh thunder. His open eyes stare at me helplessly. The warm brown eyes dim to a dirty blue-grey as the last of his life slides from his body.

   That wretched pitiful scream locked deep inside of me never stops.