Jeremiah (TV) - written for Livejournal

[prisca]

Title: Everyone's fate
Characters: Mr. Smith, a young man
Words: 737
finished: 28.08.2016

:::

He couldn't be much older than fifteen. Every day he came into the cafeteria, was sitting there for hours, always alone. He didn't talk to anyone, was only staring at the tabletop in front of him. Erin had tried to convince him to eat at least a bit, but usually his plate stayed untouched.

Smith dropped down on a chair beside him, but he didn't even lift his head. "Hello. Erin asked me to look after you.“

"Why does she care?"

„She is worried.“

He shrugged. „No need to. I'm fine.“

"Maybe. Maybe not. It was the first time, wasn't it?"

Finally the young guy lifted his head, his eyes sparkled annoyed. "It was okay what I did! I just regret it that it was so easy for him. I should have let him suffering much more for what he has done.“

His voice sounded defiant, but Smith noticed the horror about the own doing deep in his eyes. Slowly he nodded. "I know. But this didn't make it easier. You killed him; you looked into his eyes before you shot him into his chest and head four times. No matter how hard you try, you'll never get rid of this memory. The best you can do is moving on."

The young man narrowed his eyes. "Moving on," he whispered. "As if this is possible! I can't sleep anymore without nightmares. I have his dying eyes in my mind all day long. Tell me, how can I live with this?“

Smith put his hand onto the arm of the young man; he winced slightly but didn't pull away. "I know what you are talking about," Smith said in a low voice. "I guess most of us know."

+++

It was only a few weeks after the breakout of the Big Death. The world had turned into chaos. No one thought about the future; it was only of interest to surviving the next day.

He was a young boy like so many others, barely fourteen years old. Alone. His parents dead, like all the adults. His brother, he didn't know. When he had made his way home, no one had been around. Unable to stay in the silent house, he had taken refuge in his old treehouse for the first weeks, hoping for a wonder. Which never happened, of course. This was not a nightmare you could wake up from; this was reality.

Maybe he would have given up. But then, one day, this boy was standing in the garden, maybe five years old. More dead than alive. He didn't know him, but for whatever reason, there had been a bond between them. Together they were strong; together there was a little chance that they could survive all this.

The hope lasted for some weeks. Until they met the group of skinheads one day. The little boy was afraid of their loud voices, the guns they carried; started to cry silently. They laughed about him; one of them, a big guy with a lot of tattoos on his skull, pressed his gun into his much too small hand and pointed at one of the women of the gang.

„Kill her!“

She didn't even dare to protest, was just standing there with wide eyes, staring at the little boy. He was shaking with panic, not knowing what to do.

„Kill her, or you are the next,“ the skinhead told him.

At that moment, the boy knew what he had to do. Protecting his little friend, who, in the meantime, was like the brother for him he had lost. He stepped forward, tore the gun out of his small hands, aimed at the woman… and pulled the trigger. Hard to say if it was luck or calculation that he did miss her.

She looked at him, her eyes full of hate before she turned around. But the skinhead patted his shoulder, laughing aloud. „You are my guy,“ he told him and pulled him to the truck.

+++

Smith kept quiet for a long while. "A lot of people can tell a story like this," finally he murmured. "Most are fighting with memories they can't shrug off.“

The young guy eyed him sadly. "It's your story, right? What has become of him? The little boy."

"I dream about him almost every night. Sometimes there is a happy end, and someone else took care of him, offers him the chance to grow up.

Sometimes..." Smith paused and shrugged.

Jeremiah (TV) - written for Livejournal

[prisca]

Title: Halloween
Characters: Markus, Rose Smith
Words: 678
finished: 31.10.2015

:::

Lost in thoughts Marcus hurried through the long, cold halls of the Mountain. He had just had a meeting with Lee and Jeremiah; there were problems again with some gangs who troubled the people in Brownsdale. Nothing serious so far, but he knew he should better step in before it got out of control.

Suddenly he noticed her, a little girl, cowering under one of the steel stairs, knees pulled up, her arms tightly around them. He stopped, watching her slightly uneasy about what to do. Even he could head the Mountain, he had never learned to be close to the children. He wished Erin would be here, she knew to reach out to them, and they loved her like they had respect for Marcus. Suddenly, the girl lifted her head; wide, brown-green eyes stared at him. And he recognized her.

"You are Rose," he said. The daughter of Smith. Usually, she did live at a children's home near the Mountain; only now and then she came to visit him.

"Do you know when my Dad will come back?"

Her voice was low and slightly shaking. He shook the head. If he had known that she would come here today, he would have sent someone else on this dangerous mission. "I'm sorry, no. He went to a town some miles away for some transactions." This was all he could tell her; she wouldn't be able to understand the truth anyway.

"Do you think... the ghosts will hurt him?"

Marcus frowned. "Ghosts," he repeated.

"Sister Mary says, today is the night where the ghosts come back. She wants us to stay in the house."

"Oh." Marcus needed a moment to remember what she was talking about. October 31st. Halloween. No one here had thought about this, it was just cold, rainy day like others. Not for Rose, though. The little girl looked so worried and Marcus could feel anger rising up. Why did someone scare children with horror stories when the world around them was already cruel and unpredictable enough?

He bent down and reached out to her. "I get it, you are talking about Halloween. But don't worry, this is just a fairytale from the old times. I'm sure, your dad is safe out there."

She blinked. "There are no ghosts?"

"Well." He was not sure why he was doing this, but suddenly he bent down to her, smiling. "When I was as old as you are now, oh yes, there were a lot at Halloween. Children liked to dress up, as clowns, cowboys, fairies... and ghosts. And we did trick and treating, that was always great fun."

The look in her eyes changed, still a bit mistrusting but curious too. "Trick and treating? What's that," she wanted to know.

"An old tradition. At Halloween, all the houses were decorated with lights and pumpkins, and we knocked at every door, calling: Knock, knock, trick or treat, give me something good to eat. We received many candies." Marcus chuckled at the memory. "And next day, we all had stomach pains.

Almost better than the candies were the pranks. Sometimes we did a little joke although people were giving us treats, just because it was so much fun."

He noticed the shy smile on Rose's face and suddenly thought, how sad it was that the old times and all the wonderful traditions were gone forever. Rose and all the other children would never get to know them. Suddenly an idea crossed his mind. He grabbed Rose's hand.

"Come on," he said. "Come on out there. Let's go to my room; I'm sure we will find some old bedclothes so that we can dress up as ghosts. Then we will go into the cafeteria, spooking Erin. Let's find out if she has some good treats for us. Or if we need to play her a little trick at first."

Rose's eyes widened. "But... my dad says I must not disturb you. Because you are busy with saving the world," she protested.

"Your dad is smart." Marcus smiled. "But the world can wait until tomorrow. Because today it's Halloween."