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BODY-SHAKING SOBS consume Eleanor whole after she screams with an intensity brought forth by every atom of her being.
Tears stream down her cheeks as she wails, gasps for air that simply isn't there, and wails again. Everything burns — her throat, her eyes, her chest, her gunshot wounds.
Is crying supposed to feel like this?
Eleanor always thought it would be relieving, but the raw pain inside of her is simply too much to handle.
In the moment, Eleanor feels as though she could cry for the rest of her days. She can't imagine a life after, anyway — a life without the pain clawing at her heart. She can't imagine ever being able to bear the deaths of Ray and Zuko.
No — Thomas. His name was Thomas.
A pair of arms wrap around her torso and tries to lift her to her feet. However, she is much too weak, and despite being relatively light her company quickly gives up and instead just hugs her, resting their cheek against her good shoulder.
Eleanor is too distressed to find out who it is, but she doesn't need to; a familiar voice says through their own tears, "It's okay, Elle. It's okay."
Robbie.
He had been frantically searching through the dead bodies for his sister when he heard her scream. He had already found Ray; Mary Ann was reduced to a mess as soon as she saw him, leaving Tim to comfort her. They had all made it out, and Robbie was deadset on finding Eleanor, no matter how much Mary Ann begged him to stop — it was driving him insane.
And so the two siblings cry on the ground, Robbie hugging her torso and Eleanor clutching his arm. Tim helps Mary Ann over, who drops down next to them and wraps her arms around her children.
☁
The constant murmur in the camp was one of the first things Eleanor noticed when she came to stay. Even at night, when everyone was asleep, and outside where the world was supposed to be desolate, there seemed to be some sort of presence surrounding the camp. The survivors never heard complete silence, but after a while, they all got used to it.
But the day troubled Ray, who was trying so hard to be good to his family; handsome Thomas, who just wanted to love someone with his whole heart again; and the others who had been killed in the midst of chaos were buried in the ground was much different.
The murmurs were gone when Robbie and Tim buried Ray. Mary Ann stood nearby with a hand covering her trembling lips and Eleanor sat on the ground, a cross resting in her lap as she busied herself by carving her father's name into the wood it had been fashioned from. She got her chance to apologize to him; though they had grown closer than they had ever been over the past few months, she still felt the need to.
