Where The Wind Blows

24

{LAWRENCE}

I am inches away from the concrete floor but the Phoenix protects me then softly lays me onto the floor.
Then I scramble up onto my feet, scanning around and all I see is destroyed buildings which were detonated by Anne and her army, metal poles dented and broken from the explosion... Must have come from the Shard... Glass shattered unevenly as it had been scattered across the floor; blood droplets dot around as if some amateur painter was trying to get some red paint of their brush, bodies on the floor, crumpled and damaged. People dressed in black and crimson either help their allies or mourn over them all.
Then others travel to them which do not like the soldiers...

Some are from Ranch, Haven, Stythe... New Elizabeth.

They admire the ruins of what used to be London and some depart from the crowd to assist the remaining soldiers.

My body shakes as I spot a blue crystal attached to a thin chain lying across a blonde girl's neck. Her pale face seeming relieved and in peace.
Her hazel eyes not moving, she is not breathing. Blood runs down her nose, ears and mouth; making a pool of red around her, staining her hair.
Her clothing torn from the explosion, burnt away, broken arms and legs... Everything...

Jeanine Jocelyn Elizabeth is dead.

I crumple to the floor, grabbing her necklace and I howl over her corpse, screaming in grief as I realise that I have lost the last person in my family. My body quivers as I try to breathe but I just keep crying out.

I feel Toboni's hand place on my shoulder and so I turn around and she has that look of loss in her eyes: but not the loss I am going through.

"I'm so sorry..." she says to me, trying not to shed a tear whereas I am making waterfalls of them. "Like... The amount of people gone... I didn't expect this much... I thought there would be only a couple..." then she reads my annoyed expression. "Okay, I'll shut up."

Silence filled the city, no talking, no walking, no monuments crumbling to the ground.

Just pure silence.

Everyone faces to where dawn is climbing up to the surface, baring the sun with its soft gleams.

The sunrise is a sign of a new day... A new life...

Hope.

But what is there to hope for... All is lost...

I look down at my own version of Jeanine's necklace and then I lift her bloody head to unclip it from behind. As I bring the chain closer towards me, I gently let down her head, back into its bloodbath.

The aquamarine crystal glistens brightly as the sun rises slowly, giving off a blue light onto my battle worn face.

"But the good thing is that we won the war..." Toboni smiles back awkwardly, hoping everything will brighten up a bit.

"I know we did. But... Jeanine... She did all she could do." I stare at Toboni. "We were so close! If only I had a better grip then she would have survived!"

"With a war, no one can survive. Even the ones who make it out alive, inside they are equally damaged as to the ones who died." she tells me.

"But-"

Toboni cups my face in her hands, looking at me with her grey and blue eyes with a stern look on her face.
"You dingleberry... There's one thing I like about you..."

"What?" I ask, body stiffening.

"You just won't shut up." and she leans in to...

To kiss me.

I pull away from her and I can't say anything apart from: "Adam?"

She gives me the same look as to when I saw Jeanine's dead body but all I do is kiss back and let's face it: I may have kissed her a bit too hard because she falls onto the floor, me on top, staring at her face.

"The war is won... We won..." I quickly stand up, brushing myself off and I roar for everyone to hear... But not to see my pink face.

A cheer from multiple people fills the streets with church bells ringing (the ones which remain) and all I can do is smile confidently, holding Jeanine's necklace.

When it ends, I realise that they are helping put away the remains. I walk over to help but they tell me that I have done enough for the community... For the country... For the world.

*

I sit in a black car with peach seats, driving me to New Elizabeth, my old home.
I see the trees, grass, sky and all that zoom past me as the driver keeps on following the road.
The music which plays is a song which I have never heard before... It was called "Wake Me Up When September Ends" by Green Day... According to Davy Redwood and Liang Hsin who sits in the passenger row with me.
I sit by the window so I can see the graceful scenery go by, Liang sits in the centre and Davy sits on the right. Toboni is in the front, sitting with the driver who is Nicholas Lynch.

I hear Davy singing to it with Nick, head nodding back and forth lightly in case he ends up crashing and we do not want to be by Death's doorstep after a war.
If so, please give us a rest.

Toboni turns to me and smiles, eyepatch fixed onto her grey eye and then looks back out the the front.

So I place my head against the window and I slowly drift off to the most relaxing sleep I have even had in my life.