The Blue Danube [OLD]

- 𝔢𝔩𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔫. ﾐ

╲⠀╲⠀╲ ╲

⠀⠀╲⠀╲⠀☆⠀ ╲⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

⠀☆⠀╲⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ★

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀★

october 1858

"Hey, wait!" Paul yelled into the wind, but his voice was carried away. A wild, relentless storm was raging around him, torrential rain bucketing down, harsh wind that blew dust and leaves into his face. The boy tried to look down at himself, but he didn't seem to have a body. His focus was ripped from that, though, as he heard a familiar voice call his name.

"Paul! Help!" His father's voice sounded from far off, but simultaneously echoed strangely in his head. It was strained, desperate, as if he was clinging onto his last hope. There he was, with Mike and his mother, only a few metres away. They clung to each other, staring at Paul, horror flashing in their eyes as if they had just witnessed him committing a treacherous crime.

"Guys! I'm sorry!" He started forward, but as soon as he did so, the three turned and bolted away from him, speeding away hurriedly. The boy desperately tried to keep up, but soon they were inching further and further from him, Paul helplessly trying to catch up to them to no avail. Suddenly his mother tripped and fell to the ground, the distraught boy dropping to his knees at her side. Her face was stark white and sunken, glassy eyes devoid of its usual spark, the way she looked in her final days. Before he could even move, she slowly began to sink into the earth, the lifeless body disappearing into the grass.

"Mum!" A scream ripped from Paul's throat. Those horrible feelings that he had felt, for a long time after she died, started to bubble up into his chest, rising up and closing off his throat. The boy tried to yell for her again, clutching and clawing at the ground, ripping out grass as if he could pull her back up from the earth that had just swallowed her whole right in front of his eyes. Hot tears welled in his eyes, cascading down his cheeks like a waterfall as grief reared its ugly head in his body, dissolving into choking sobs and desperate screams.
But suddenly, he looked up and he had appeared in a busy, high-class street. Many accomplished men and women were bustling past him back and forth, paying no mind to the boy who kneeled on the ground in tears. A groan sounded from below him, snapping his gaze away to see a horrifying sight;

Mike lay in his arms, face pallid and sunken just like his mother, but instead fresh blood trickled from his mouth onto Paul's arm. He could almost feel the warm blood dropping onto his skin and staining it. His brother's body was pencil thin, ragged clothes hanging off it in tatters.

"M-Mike-" Paul choked out. "Stay-stay with me. Mike!"

"I'm going.... to die, aren't I?" Mike reached and clutched at his brother's arm, teary eyes reflecting pain and fear. "I..... don't wanna die..." His grip slowly began to relax, breath growing more and more shallow, until there was silence, last breath billowing into the air.