Life After Earth: Double-Edged
Sword
Chapter One: Shattered Life
I’m so tired of being here…
Suppressed by all my childish fears…
*GASP*
His breaths
drowned out every other noise as he fought the exhaustion and desperation that
swept through his being. The Aerowing’s alarm blared loudly, though it only
dimly touched his ears. The wind pounded his rigid body—only a soft whistle.
*GASP*
His eyes
frantically darted about the disintegrating cabin as he struggled to find a way
of out of the death trap. A fiery hole blown through the right port, the flames
engulfing that region, the wind threatening to wrench them to their deaths, the
miscellaneous metal equipment thrown about the confinement as the plane
plummeted toward the awaiting ice…
He was the leader!
It was his responsibility to save his team! He wouldn’t let them die! Not after
all they have been through together…not after Earth…
*GASP*
He clinched his
teeth as he fought against his captor—his pilot’s chair. The heavy weight
crushing him against the left console, the jagged metal digging into the flesh
about his waist, he heaved the constriction, strained to free himself…
It wasn’t good
enough.
Another blast
ripped through the right side of the Aerowing, tearing through the remaining
console and toward his teammates…his friends…his family. The heated wind burned
his feathers; metal projectiles smashed into the area about him. He flinched
and shunned away …
*GASP*
A bloodcurdling
scream!
Wildwing’s eyes
shot open. He reeled his masked face toward the missing copilot seat.
“NOSEDIVE!”—
—“Wildwing?”
…
“Wildwing? Hel-lo! You alive in there?”
*Snap* *Snap*
…
“You know, you
can’t be dead because if you’re dead, well …that just isn’t right!” The voice
ranted.
That voice…he
knew that voice…
He tried to open
his beak, but no words would form. He struggled to open his eyes…
—Flames were all
around him!—
He hissed,
causing the presence over him to jump away. An overdramatic sigh sounded,
“Sure, be in pain! Like that’ll help the situation!”
A cool breeze
blew about his body, soothing the burning, urging him to open eyes. He knew
that feeling, its comfort, its ironic warmth—its love. He flexed his fingers,
rubbing them cautiously against the ice cold ground. He once more felt the
comforting presence next to him, then a cooling sensation lightly brushed his
hand. His body relaxed, and the word murmured naturally from his beak.
“Nosedive?”
No words were
needed.
The sensation
engulfed his body.—
And if you had to leave…
—*BEEP*
He cracked open
his eyes. The blinding light seared pain behind his eyes, gaining a grunt
through his tense beak. Groaning, he let his eyes droop shut again and reveled
in the sound of a faint beeping…a heart monitor. He was at least alive. Now the
question was: where was he?
The light slowly
faded until it was comfortable against his retina. The pain ceased behind his
eyes, though a nagging throbbing had set in his chest. Filled with dread was
his stomach. What was that? A chilling breeze swept over him for a moment,
sending shivers down his spine, but somehow…it was familiar all the same.
Deprecating words echoed in his head…
“I’m sure. So, where are we, little
brother?”
Nothing louder than a whisper returned,
“Home.”
Was it true? Were
they finally on Puckworld? Was that the air he felt? No more
Shadows across
his eyes, they were nothing more than a reflection against glass…
The fiery
cockpit, the life-sucking wind, the mangled and convulsing body of his baby
brother pinned to the
scorched
starboard side by a metal rod through the left side of his abdomen, blood
dripping down upon his legs, a weeping arm lesion blurring its life force with
that of the stomach wound, golden bangs matted with blood, a macabre shrill for
dear life…
“No…” A muted
scream rasped from his throat. He closed his eyes, denying himself the
inevitable. It wasn’t true. That wasn’t what he saw. That couldn’t be what he
saw. “Nosedive…”
*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BE-EP*
His heart monitor
raced as his lungs failed to breathe correctly. Sucking in ragged breaths,
losing precious oxygen, his body trembled involuntarily. His brother, the
bloodcurdling scream, the body, the pain, the helplessness…
NO! His mind screamed. In, out,
in, out, he breathed rapidly, unable to stop. He was physically incapable of
calming himself. The scream…oh, God…it just resonated over and over and over…
A hand grasped
the side of his head sternly as a gas mask clamped over his beak.
“BREATH! JUST
BREATH!” A harsh voice commanded of him.
His eyes
softened, he only barely registered the familiar voice, though its presence
didn’t have the calming effect it once had. His lungs’ burning soothed, as
tears brimmed his eyelids. The heart monitor’s beeping slowed.
“Are you okay?
Can you hear me?” The voice questioned, its edge gone, replaced by concern.
Wildwing
swallowed and took a deep breath.
Cracking open his blood-shot eyes, he stared into the light blue eyes
that he never thought he’d see again. They reflected his own, though the slight
glimmer of a disconsolation bubbled through the graying mallard.
As agonizing wheeze slowed to agonizing
breath, his heart throbbed with a new feeling.
“Dad…” He hissed
as pain inflamed in his ribs and throat.
A strong hand
clasped his own. “I’m here, son. You’re going to be fine. Just hang in there
with me, okay?”
Wildwing breathed
deeply, then broke into a hacking fit. His ribs ached as his body jerked; his
throat burned when he finally regained control. He gulped hard and stammered
through the oxygen mask that still covered his face. “D…D-Dive?”
His father’s eyes
softened even more. “Wildwing…your brother…he’s…” The general couldn’t finish
his sentence as he tore from his son’s gaze, and the tears trickled down his
cheeks.
He stared at his
father, terrified, his eyes darting from side to side, taking in the whole
circumstance. He was unable to move, unable to breathe. Everything seemed too surreal. His brother
couldn’t be…yet, a burning set in his chest, blazing white hot!
—A blurted,
desperate scream echoed throughout the silent room, yet provoked no response,
“WILDWING!”—
—Wildwing laid
demoralized as his father leaned his head against his bed, his body expelling
the pent-up emotions. The former older brother blinked a few times as
everything, everyone suddenly became distant. He could only hear his father
like an echo, the heart monitor beeping fading. Tremors slowly shivered through
his frame. The air about him thickened; each breath was suddenly harder and
harder to take.
—*GASP*—
He closed his
eyes, the heat overtaking him, the pressure in his chest too much, and he sank
into a welcoming darkness…
The last thing he
felt was something, deep within his soul…SHATTER!—
I wish that you
would just leave…
— *BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP*
“Thirteen,
fourteen, fifteen,” the nurse shouted firmly.
“We’re losing
him! Hold towels to that!”
“BLOOD, STAT!”
The doctor
breathed two rescue breaths into his patient’s beak before feeling the neck for
a pulse. “No good,” he reported with urgency. “Again!”
The female nurse
locked her elbows and pressed the heel of her palm into the chest cavity once
more, twice more, three times, four…fifteen…
*GASP* *GASP*
The doctor’s
shaking hand felt the neck of the young teenager. Too young, the doctor
scowled, to die. The boy couldn’t be any older than seventeen…
He reached for
the defibrillator, the nurse not even a second behind him. Squeezing the gel
from the tube onto the electrodes, the nurse immediately dove back to the bed.
With one rip, the boy’s bloodied jumpsuit was torn free at the chest area.
“CLEAR!” The
distressed doctor screamed madly at the personnel working on the boy’s other
life threatening wounds.
They recoiled
immediately, and he went down with the two electrodes, one on the left breast,
the other under the right. The patient’s lifeless body jerked from the bed as
the electricity shocked through it.
*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEEEEEEEEEEEP*
“Come on, kid!
Come on!”
The boy’s body
contorted violently in the air again before slamming back hard onto the table
with a morbid reverberation.
*BEEP* *BEEP*
*BEEP* *BEEP*—
‘Cause your presence still lingers here
And it won’t leave me alone…
—The white
duckling thrashed under his covers, pushing himself furiously into a sitting
position and cupping his clammy hands over his ears. Pulling his knees closer
to his chest, Wildwing heard the—his baby brother’s?—scream echoing in his
head, desperately crying for life. He squeezed his eyes shut as a soft whine
escaped his beak. He rocked his little form back and forth as the memory
replayed in his head…his failure…
As the scream
lessened into the night, he slowly uncoiled his legs and exhaled. He didn’t
understand what was happening or why he kept having the nightmare. The third
time since his new baby brother had been brought home over a week ago had he
been forced to listen, helplessly, to his brother’s dying cry and the familiar
screams he knew by heart, but had never heard before in his life, unable to do
anything to save them…
The duckling
clutched his knot-torn stomach as he buried his tear-stained face in his
pillow. So many questions remained unanswered. Who were those people? Why was
the plane crashing? Why couldn’t he safe them? What was Earth?
Urging itself
hesitantly into existence, the realization finally hit like a slap shot—
—his parents had
yet to name his little brother.
“Nosedive?” The
word chafed his throat. Was that to be his little brother’s name? But how did
he—?
A cool, soothing
breeze blew over the trembling mallard, easing his tense muscles, relieving his
sweated feathers. His choked sobs quieted as he lifted his head and timidly
peered toward the door.
No one was there.
Across the hall
his baby brother’s door squeaked opened eerily, calling him to it. Sniffling,
Wildwing wiped his face and nose holes with his sleeve and apprehensively
stood. Pitter patter, pitter patter, he walked across the hard, woodened floor
and halted at the door. He took a deep breath. A glance left, then right.
Twisting the door handle, Wildwing felt a twinge of uneasiness tug at him from
his gut. A feeling of dread swarmed over him. The dream resurfaced in front of
his eyes…
“NOSEDIVE!”
The cool breeze
once more dusted his feathers, soothing that feeling…urging him to enter. He
reveled in the comfort and security of the wind’s presence and stepped lightly
in the room.—
These wounds
won’t seem to heal.
This pain is
just too real.
There’s just too much that time cannot
erase.
—This was the
furthest he had ever been since returning to Puckworld two months ago. Try as
he did prior to this moment, his heart had always denied him the will to
access. He had made excuses—he didn’t need to torture himself. He didn’t want
to see it.
It burned at his
soul.
Deep down where
all it did was sear, the void burned.
That’s all it did
when he woke up in the morning. It flamed through his being when he snapped out
the light at night. It writhed at his heart when he stared at the door every
time he walked up the stairs into the hallway.
And it only got
worse…
Because damn it, his soul had been severed.
And it burned.
It hurt more than
anything. It hurt more than he could have ever believed, and now, standing at
the edge of the abyss, at the doorway to his life, staring directly into his
demise, Wildwing clenched his shirt over his chest and let the tears fall.
The room was no
different, really; he saw, sucking in dry heaves. The teal walls were still
covered with posters of heavy metal and rock bands that had remained tacked during
the entire invasion and their time on Earth. The maroon and teal carpeting was
still hidden underneath the mixture of clothes, comic books, hockey equipment,
*crunch* …and soda cans.
Oh, but was it
different. The feelings of warmth and comfort, what had radiated from his
little brother’s presence, was now lost, replaced by stale, misty air. The
always present booming of the R.S.A. (RM: radio signal apparatus = radio) was
gone; silence remained. The flavor of life drowned in the darkness that consumed
the room, never to be lit again.
The bloodcurdling
scream resonated!
“NO!”
Wildwing’s knees
buckled; the tears streamed from his squeezed shut eyes, unwilling to stop.
Sobs wracked his body as he involuntarily trembled. The searing pain inflamed
once more in his heart, burning ever so more…
It replayed and
replayed and replayed…
“Stop…” He
pleaded, his weakest command. “Just stop…”
—The
five-year-old boy hesitantly reached his hands through the bars and brushed his
little fingers against the sleeping form’s face. The scream in his head faded
from existence as the brightest blue eyes flashed opened, studying the older
brother. A soft giggle echoed through the room. Wildwing smiled fondly and ran
his hand through his baby brother’s short, fuzzy, blonde hair.
“Hi,” he greeted,
“…Nosedive.”
He jumped
backwards; his retracting fingers grazed the flames as they engulfed the crib!
Covering his hands over his ears, the alarm blared loudly. The fire consumed
the room, encircling the little duckling; the heat brushing against his
feathers.
He shrilled!—
—*GASP*
He blinked, the
only motion his body could make. It was the only thing he was physically
capable of doing, clenched by soul-wrenching fear, as he stared at his brother,
their eyes locked in desperate, silenced imploration. No words were exchanged.
Their eyes reflected everything was said and yet, everything that never was.
And by the glistening tears that trickled down their cheeks, they knew that
which they could not change…—
—Wildwing
shrieked, a primeval, deathly howl from the depths of his soul. His body sunk
on his haunches, the sobs just overtaking him.
It was more than
he could handle. The pain, his brother’s scream, the plane crash…it flashed in
front his eyes every time he shut them, every time he rested. It gnawed at him,
haunted him…
A gust of cool
air blasted about him; a flicker of light danced upon his eyes.
His vision
blurred from the onslaught of tears; his eyes widened.—
—The flames
flickered!—
Hypnotized, he
reached tentatively for the shimmering object on the ground…
—A flash of
blonde hair!—
A picture of his
brother and him right after they had landed on Earth…
He just stared at
it, captivated, his sobs silencing, his tears drying. The cool breeze blew his
hair, soothing his burning for mere moments.
—*GASP*—
The glass picture
frame crashed down upon the nearby bed post—shattering—
To Be Continued…