Page 3 of Ruthless Chaos

I drain the last bit of orange juice from my glass and start helping her clean up. She doesn’t like it when I help her, but I do it anyway.

The last thing I remember is giving her a cheeky smile.

The world grows quiet for a moment, then everything gets too bright and too loud all at once. A huge blast tears through the room, flinging me so quickly and so fast it’s like I’m being torn from my limbs. Sharp and constricting pain stabs me all over my body. It’s all I can feel, and I can’t tell where it starts and stops.

It feels like I’m on fire.

There’s gravel in my eyes when I blink. My vision is cloudy, thick fog hangs all around. I try to take a deep breath. The air burns going down.

Little by little, I regain my bearings.

I’m lying on my back, I guess, since I’m staring at the ceiling. Or, what used to be the ceiling. There’s a huge hole in it, and the sad gray sky looks down at me. I blink quickly, but my vision doesn’t clear much. It’s like I’m peering through water.

My mind reels as I try to piece together what just happened.

This can’t be real, right? There is no way this is happening right now. There’s a thick ache in my throat. I’m struggling to breathe, like my lungs aren’t working. The pain worsens with each breath.

If this is what dying is like, then I was right to think I don’t have the guts to commit suicide. I’ve never felt this horrible,ever.

I turn on my side.

There’s a huge hole in the floor right beside me. Through it, I make out the mangled interior of the foyer. There are burnt pieces of wood, shattered glass, and crumbling concrete everywhere.

Thick particles of dust and ash swirl around in the air like dirty snowflakes, buoyed by tendrils of smoke. I struggle to push myself up. Adrenaline starts to take over, and my heart rattles in my chest.

“Dolores?” I shout. My voice sounds as horrible as I feel, like I’ve been chewing glass. Despite the biting pain, I force myself to stand.

The world spins when I do. For a split second, everything goes black.

I was flung to the far corner of the room. Dolores was standing right beside me before this happened. She should be close by.

I keep calling her name, hoping she hears and makes some sort of noise I can use to find her. My ears are ringing, but every few steps, I hold my breath and listen.

I must save her.

Anxiety meshes with the pain searing my limbs. My steps are slow and labored as I drag one of my feet since I can’t put pressure on it. I glimpse rivulets of blood rolling down my arms and legs.

Shit, that can’t be good.

I keep up my search for Dolores. If she’s unconscious, I’ll need to find her and take care of her until one of the guards comes to help us.

It’s like I’m watching myself from a distance. None of this feels like it’sactuallyhappening. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe this is all a dream, and I’ll wake up soon. For a while, that thought calms me.

But even if this is a dream, I need to find Dolores.

The fuchsia fabric of her dress flashes in the corner of my eye, and my heart leaps. She’s laying down, probably just as disoriented as I am from the explosion. I stumble towards her, scraping my arm as I squeeze through the tiny gap between a fallen piece of the roof and a collapsed stone column.

I scream when she comes into view.

Only the lower half of her body is intact. The rest of her is a mangled mess of blood and flesh. I choke back a sob, unable to look away. One side of her head is crushed by the marble bust of me that my father had commissioned last year. Thick, black blood seeps into the charred carpet beneath her.

If this is a dream, I want to wake up now.

I don’t want this to be true.

It can’t be.

The air disappears from my lungs, and my head starts to spin again. My body gets heavy, too heavy for me to hold up. I want to touch her, but I can’t even bring myself to do that. Maybe if I don’t touch her, then she’s not dead.