Chapter 39: Mother Of A Hero

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Those who have waited at the brink of the explosion: the army, the news reporters, and a mother of one who would die a hero.

Lucille Hearth Tanner, the mother of Tristan Tanner, waited hopelessly for her son to come back alive. She waited for him to make it out of the rubble. She waited for the gods to give her back her son and her only family.

What she received was an earthquake. An earthquake that signaled the bomb that would kill those who had sacrificed their lives for the world.

She didn't ask for this.

She didn't ask them to take her husband and her son. She didn't ask them to take her family.

A tantalizing black light wrapped around the ten-mile radius within the building, and Lucille reached out towards the light, her hand hovering over it as the feeling of its lukewarm temperature embraced her. It struck up into the heavens, clearing any clouds in the sky around it. Shadows bent towards the light source. A lone tear streaked down her fair skin, only to captured by the hurricane of light. Before she could get caught up in the explosion, a soldier held her back, pulling her away from the light that killed her son.

This isn't what I asked for, she thought. Tears were streaming down her face but she didn't notice them as her eyes looked at the taunting light. I asked for safety. I asked for a beautiful and healthy family. I asked for a cabin near the lake. Delusions warped her mind as she caught onto what was happening.

Falling to her knees as the soldier let go of her, she felt her world shattering before her.

Her husband died.

Her son died.

Her family had left her.

With her hands on her face, she cried all her tears. She screamed all her words. She reminisced all her dreams.

Soldiers watched the broken woman shattering into a million pieces before them, knowing what it was to lose someone dear to you. They, too, lost comrades in wars and battles, but to see someone you had made and nurtured over years of life— no, that was worse than anything. They didn't know what to say or do to console her. The victims of the Atlas Bomb— governors and politicians— watched helplessly. News reporters put down their microphones and cameras.

And in that time, there was a moment of silence for the Gatekeeper Of Hell and the Fallen Snow Angel as a mother's tears watered the cracked dirt of the Arizona outskirts.

This should have been the end of Cheryl Faun.

But, we were far from it.

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