Haven't be around to update this in a while so here we go with a realism fiction that I did for a children's literature class last semester in school
The theme was child(ren) dealing with parental death
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He was warm. He could feel himself get warmer, warmer, warmer still, until he started to burn. He choked on grey air, clustered in an effort to drain him of consciousness. It was too dark, everything around him was falling apart.
Where was mom? Burning into nothing.
Where was dad? Melting into the floor.
Where was Selma?
Where was Selma?
Where was Selma?
He heard screaming, loud, shrill, clawing at his ears until it thrummed in his bones, his blood pumping. It was so cold, colder, colder, numbing, comforting. The screaming continued, he didn’t know it. He vaulted forward.
“Cree?” A soft voice called, prodding at his consciousness. Sweat poured down his face, crossed this way and that, looking over to see his twin crying, as she stopped shaking her brother from his fit, her small hands gripping his shoulders.
“Cree, please don’t scream, it hurts when you scream.” Selma said. Cree watched as she lifted a hand trying to console him of his nightmare, but he pulled away making Selma frown. Loud thumping sounds rumbled at the door until appeared a short silhouette of a troubled aunt. Selma turned to face their yawning family member, then crawled onto her brother’s bed to shield him from the aunt’s gaze from the doorway.
“Samuel, you really need to quiet down,” Their aunt said with a sigh to her voice. Cree bowed his head in apology. He was both disturbed by his fear, and shamed by his inability to outgrow that day. When his sister seemed to have done it so flawlessly. His aunt sighed again offering one last word before leaving, “I know it’s hard, but it’s been half a year.” Their aunt turned to leave the room and shut the door behind her with a click.
Cree didn’t bother responding, as his sister stuck her tongue out at the now closed door. Selma held her smaller brother’s form, petting his head with her hand. Cree scowled, shutting his eyes tightly as he pushed his sister away. Holding his head, he tried yet again to drown out the screeching tires, the melting faces, the screams, all on his own. If his sister could do it, so could he!
They were twins.
They were twins.
They were twins!
He curled into himself and put his back to Selma.
“Cree?” Selma tried to call but Cree growled in response.
“Don’t call me that!” Cree yelled, which made Selma pulled back and hold the tears in her eyes from falling. Soon he felt her forehead on his back and Selma curling her arms around his body in a tight hug. Cree juggled with his words, before he finally spoke, “How?”
“How what?” Selma asked, Cree gulping down his pride, peeling her out of her hug to turn to his sister with wet eyes, struggling to keep himself steady.
“How could you forget?” Cree asked his voice thick with grief. How could she forget and he could not? Why did the voices leave her? How come the faces didn’t haunt her any longer? Cree thoughts made him angry, made him shout:
“How could you forget them?!”
He held his face in his hands and sobbed. Even if he did manage to sleep again, he would only go back there, and if he went back there, he would only scream. Selma sniffed softly, rubbing her eyes with her hands before hugging her brother, crying on his hunched over back.
“Because I have you Samuel.” Selma said, making Cree sob louder, but it was muffled in his sister pajamas so as to not stir their aunt twice in one night. Selma pet her brother hair and continued, “Because if I have you then... then... then it doesn’t seem so horrible anymore. Because I have you, you’re here. I can’t be a twin without my twin.”
Cree laughed bitterly, at such a simple response.
How could it be that easy?
How could he actually begin to believe?
He didn’t know.
