Silence of the Apocalypse- Journey Home

by K T Valentine

  Katya’s eyes widened at that, her voice breaking as she spoke: “Anya’s alive?”

  “She was when they brought us in…” her mother trailed off, obviously hoping the same as both Katya and Seth in those moments. That little girl better still be alive.

  Seth had moved over to the doorway to keep a lookout, he didn’t want to rush this, but he knew that the longer they lingered the higher their chance of coming across more of the aliens they were at risk of. Maybe it was the sight of him glancing up and down the corridor, or maybe it was the wish for Katya to go and find Anya and be safe… either way, her mother was now smiling supportively through her own gentle tears.

  “Kitten… it’s ok. Let me go” she whispered out to the crying redhead “I’ll be with your father again, and we’ll always be with you. We love you Kitten”

  “I love you too” Sobbed Katya as she hugged her mother again. She didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want that knife in her hand to be what ended her mother’s life.

  “It’s really ok my darling.”

  “I’m sorry…” She whispered as her shaky hand lifted her stiletto behind her mother’s neck and attempted to hold it in position. “I love you… I love you… I love you and Dad” she repeated like a mantra that would make this easier.

  “We love you too, always will. Do it sweetie” With one more kiss to the redhead’s temple, Katya put enough pressure behind the dagger to slide the blade through her mother’s spine, up into the base of the brain.

  Her mother went limp.

  The dagger clattered to the floor as Katya’s voice wailed in pain, still clinging to her mother’s body.

  The sight was heart-wrenching, witnessed only by Seth Pyper, who also had to be the one to interrupt it. The black-haired man walked over to her slowly, the dull sound of his boots masked by the echoing sound of her pain that surrounded and engulfed him. He knew grief, he knew the thoughts of ‘if only’ and the guilt of not being able to do anything… but he hadn’t been the one to physically end his brother’s life. He couldn’t imagine for a moment how much strength that had just taken and how much it was now hurting.

  “Kat…” He spoke quietly as he reached out to gently urge her to let go of the woman. To his surprise, Katya turned and flung her arms around him, sobbing into his shoulder and mumbling more about being sorry. It was clear that she couldn’t express her pain and her guilt for not being able to do anything. She was obviously sorry that it had come to such an ending and if she could go back and do it differently she probably would so that she could avoid failing someone she cared about to this extent. In her state though, there was no chance she would be able to put that into any other word than sorry.

  Holding her tight as her body trembled, Seth sighed very softly “You did the best you could – you’ve done nothing but try.” He murmured to her, his rough fingers slowly stroking her messy hair, smoothing it down absently while trying to calm her a little. Not that anything he said or did right now would ever make her feel better about her decision to try even though she had known the risk was increasing the longer she had left reaching her home town.

  Minutes ticked by and Katya showed no real sign that she was going to calm down. The hatred she felt for herself in those moments was so raw it felt like it was burning her from the inside out. Failing someone to this extent was not something she could forgive in herself.

  “Kat, we need to go” Seth commented, pulling back from her and taking her hand to guide her away. Of course, he expected her to protest, trying to pull his hand away from him so that she could stay with her mother. “Kat,” he said more sternly to get her attention, taking both her shoulders in his hands to force her to look at him through her tearfully desperate face. “You did the right thing… but you have to let her go. We need to find your sister.”

  Katya whimpered lightly as she glanced over her shoulder to her mother, but Seth had said the magic word which had driven Katya all the way down here. Sister. Katya had to find her… though, Seth didn’t want to think about what would happen to his friend if they couldn’t find little Anya.

  Placing his arm around Katya’s shoulder as he guided her from the room, he pushed that worry to the back of his mind and took to keeping an eye out around them. He had to get the redhead back to safety, so she could mourn her parents in peace and without worry for her own life.

  Chapter 21

  Colour and sound seemed to blur into nothing as Seth lead her cautiously from the factory. Her feet felt heavy with each step, and Katya could do nothing but allow that strong arm around her guide her in the direction of safety as her right hand held onto his shirt like a lost child.

  By the time they reached the sub-terrain entrance, her sobs had faded down into a quiet cry with the occasional shaky breath or hiccup interrupting the tears. Every part of her felt exhausted as she began to run out of energy to cry any more.

  “Kat!!” Through her tears, the redhead could tell who it was who cried her name and who ran up the stairs to the town. The mess of brown hair and the blue eyes that matched her own was unmistakable.

  It was her sister. Her little baby sister who was only around twelve years old and small for that age.

  Tearing herself away from Seth, Katya scooped her sister into her arms as the girl jumped to her. Both the sisters were in tears; both mourning for their parents, and both so happy and relieved to have each other back in their arms.

  Neither was moving for a while and now they were safe, Seth wasn’t going to make them move any more. Instead, he left Katya’s side to give her and Anya privacy to support each other and headed down to let the others know exactly what had happened.

  “I’ve never seen anything so destructive to my heart… in a way it was more emotional than my brother” He admitted to Axel as they walked through the crowds later that night.

  “Poor girl. After all that fight, it’s no wonder she’s taking it so hard” He agreed, glancing up the hill to where the sisters were still sat. Neither had been willing to let go of the other for the hours they had been there. “I can’t believe she had the strength to do that though… I couldn’t be the one who ended my parent’s life”

  Seth nodded lightly; he certainly could never have done it either. It occurred to him in those moments that he should have been less selfish about not wanting Katya to hold it against him and he should have been the one who took the burden. He had damned Katya to that guilt when he could have given her an easier way of handling those emotions if she was able to hate him for being the one who killed her mother.

  But he had been too cowardly to do so. He didn’t want the redhead to look at him with that kind of accusation; so, he had damned her to look at her own reflection that way.

  Feeling a hand on his shoulder, he glanced to his friend with a small smile of support found on those dark features. “She’d never have let you do it” Axel commented as though reading what Seth was worried about.

  “You read minds now?” Seth chortled.

  Their journey had really allowed them to all get to know each other a lot better. Sure, Axel had always been someone who could understand the stoic Seth, but everything that had happened had only accentuated that skill.

  “I know, she would have probably stabbed me first” Seth agreed; but it didn’t take the guilt from him as he watched Katya and her sister finally get up from where they had been seated and head down the hill into the town where they were safe.

  “She’s a hard-headed one” Axel encouraged his friend to continue with his movement, heading towards their group once more. “But, there’s no doubt she would be the only one strong enough to go through that.”

  “Yeah…” But at what cost; Seth couldn’t help but wonder.

  That cost came to light later that night when they were going through their usual plan of which town they were heading to next and which way they would go.

  “I’m going to head up, back to London. I’ll stop off and tell Clara what has happened and then go and
help Oliver and Kit back down this way.” Leonora was saying “Though I don’t think we should all do that, there are too many towns left untouched.”

  “I’ll come with you” Orion commented quickly “I can help Kit if he’s not fully healed while we travel”

  Leonora smiled gently at the female who offered her help so naturally. “That will be good for them. So, the rest of us would be able to move to the next towns? We can then catch up with you guys once we’ve got Oliver back here?”

  Colt grumbled something about travelling with them, but Axel threw his arm around the sandy-haired male’s shoulder with a cheeky smile.

  “Ah come on, you know you love us”

  “Shove it”

  “Make me”

  Colt glared at the older man who wiggled his eyebrows at the younger one making Leonora and Orion laugh at the sight. Even Seth chuckled as he nodded in confirmation “We can do that” his dark eyes glanced over to Katya who was holding her sister to her while leaning against a wall. She didn’t seem to be paying attention, her blue eyes focused on the sleeping girl in her arms.

  After a moment though, she spoke.

  “I’m not coming with you guys”

  Any laughter in any of their voices was gone in an instant as they all collectively turned to look at the redhead who had started this whole journey. When she looked up to them, she looked somewhat broken. Her eyes were strangely void of that fight which they had all come to know and her voice was empty of that encouraging strength to keep going.

  “I can’t. I’m not leaving Anya, and I’m not taking her out into that up there” She insisted, her eyes watering a little at the idea of her sister being put through anything more, of the idea of losing the little girl as well as her parents. Katya couldn’t do it; there was too much at stake that she no longer felt strong enough to face.

  The only way to protect herself, and her sister, was to stay here where the aliens couldn’t get to them.

  At that moment, she was choosing her sister over the rest of the world. No matter how she might worry about her friends, none of them right now was worth the risk of losing her baby sister.

  Looking back down at the girl who had cried herself to sleep, Katya’s fingers ran gently over the tangled hair. Her words were not something any of them could speak up against with good conscious, but it sat heavily in all of their hearts to watch the female reach a breaking point.

  Katya had lost her fight, but they all knew the war still needed to be fought.

  The following day, they said their goodbyes. Hugging Katya and Anya tight, making promises that they would be back and that they would deliver Clara and Oliver here for them.

  But as the entrance to the safe town closed behind them, the apocalypse they faced felt so much more suffocating.

  “Be careful” Orion had chimed to the boys as she hugged them before going in one direction with Leonora.

  “So… just us three then” Axel commented, trying to keep his voice jolly. “Think we could be as famous as the three musketeers?”

  “Idiot” Colt grumbled.

  “We’d have to have better moustaches to beat that legend” Seth drawled as he finally tore his eyes away from the entrance of the townhouse where Katya would hopefully remain safe from now on. “Let’s go kick some alien butt? Make them sorry they ever came to this world and destroyed so many good people”

  “Yeah!” Axel cheered, slapping Colt on the back to get him to start walking. “Onward!”

  Forward… that was the only way they could move… with the hope that one day, the war would come to an end.