Haunted Conscience

The Body

Three days passed until they found the body. Three days before the thick cloud of dust receded. Until then it was impossible to see, let alone assess, the magnitude of destruction. Three days of chaos, panic, uncertainty...

For Harry, it didn't matter. He already knew he had lost everything he ever cared for. He was a man of logic and reason. He held no hope of ever seeing his family again and his career... well... it had sunk in a matter of mere seconds.

He took a deep breath and tried to remember the last time he saw Rebekah and his little Sonata. Deep in concentration, he rubbed his temples and squeezed his eyes shut, but his mind was blank. It was more than fifteen days ago, that was for sure. For the past two weeks he had spent more than three quarters of the day at the observatory; gathering data from all around the world, studying the celestial body. Two weeks he could have spent with her instead, an obsession that had cost him dearly. He was so busy with work, always busy, he had neglected his daughter to an unforgivable extent; he had missed her first laugh, her first words, her first steps...

And what kind of shitty father does that?

His work always came first. No wonder Rebekah had left him. Was he angry? Yes. Did he blame her? No. Did he blame himself? Yes, very much so. He chose work over and over again. Even three days ago... he chose work.

He chose work over the one important thing he had to do.

One simple goddamn thing...

"Pick up your daughter from kindergarten. Stay with her until her mom gets off from work." That simple...

If he'd done that... If he'd taken the fucking train like they agreed, he might have been able to hold his daughter in his arms again.

Three days of terror for the country, three days of paralysis for Harry...

He watched, but there was nothing he could do. When it happened he froze, an overpowering sense of dread chaining him. It only took seven seconds. Mouth agape, everything started buzzing around him. The scenery became a mobile canvas of tangible fear; panicked orders, phones ringing, alarms, stampede. As for Harry, he didn't even blink. His glassy eyes reflected the monitor in front of him until the screen went black. Everyone around him faded away; he felt like darkness embraced him. And in a sense it did.

He didn't remember much of what happened next. Everything went by in a blur.

Three days of mourning for the people, three days of numbness for Harry...

***

He thought he was prepared for what he was about to face, but as he drove closer to the site, his stomach was in knots. The picturesque town he used to live in was in ruins, a macabre scenery of horror. No trace of life. A disturbing silence had conquered the place. No ambulance sirens could be heard, there were no survivors, and the dogs sniffing around only found stillness.

He navigated with difficulty; God only knew what was underneath all the rubble. He didn't want to know. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to imagine that somewhere beneath lay the bodies of his ex-wife and his baby girl.

"Stop, you can't go there! It's unsteady!" a distant voice shouted, but he was too preoccupied to notice. And even if he had, he wouldn't have stopped. What did he have to live for? It was all gone. Nothing mattered.

As he started descending the large 0.5 mile crater, he couldn't help but be baffled at how a small meteor like Arima didn't burn up in the planet's atmosphere. Astronomically and mathematically impossible and yet there he was, his mind racing, doing a gazillion calculations per second, but the results just didn't add up.