shamera | Entries tagged with drabble

It was easy to notice the difference in town these days. While once it may have been empty and fog-covered, monsters roaming outside the houses and making it irritable for the residents of Bell Pointe to get around, much less actually get their daily supplies, this emptiness was different.

The previous empty had never truly been empty, filled with shoutings and calls abundant through the day. People asking for things, some fights, and other people running around patrolling the town. Even then, it had been... lively.

Now things were quiet in town, the streets still white with fog as a good portion of the town's remaining residents gathered in Elaine's little cafe, warming their hands around cups of hot chocolate or coffee or tea. You couldn't even see the ships at dock anymore despite their massive size. The sky was just... grim.

Or maybe it was just him, since it couldn't be any darker than it was the past several weeks.

Hope had his face and hands pressed against the glass of the cafe, staring out into the fog despite several knocks on the head from others about how that was dangerous and what if a monster suddenly appeared and knocked the window in? He wanted to catch the random glimpses of the town that he could see, streets and shops and houses and lawns. There would be markers that he and Elaine had drawn on the pavement so people knew where to go in the fog, and the random puddles left over from the flood. He remembered staying up to catch where the zombies went (which he had failed at), and filling entire shopping carts with supplies that no one would really need.

There were the bad things, of course. The cannibal. The sacrifice. The week where no one had anything to eat. The flood, and the zombie invasion. When Lightning and Jaime and the others had been kidnapped. Yet somehow... Hope pressed his face further against the glass, feeling the cold seep through his cheeks to his teeth. Somehow, it didn't seem so bad. There had also been snowball fights and potlucks and sitting on rooftops and... the town. The frequent calls, finding people washed up shore, and even the chatrooms. Gavril's so very confusing blog posts, and Samara's childish drawings.

He turned his face a bit to glance at Claire helping Elaine behind the counter, Ema and Quorra chatting next to them about the appliances that might need some tweaking. Cousland had disappeared into the kitchen earlier, and he really hoped that she and Deadpool weren't duking it out where the food was being prepared. Galatea was sitting in a corner with a smile as Miata asked her question after question, looking utterly content just to sit there and listen to the girl's curiosity.

There was a whisper of movement as Jaime sunk into the seat next to him, hands around a steaming mug of hot chocolate. "Hey," He greeted pleasantly. "See any signs of monsters out there?"

Hope turned back to the window. "...Nothing. I think they disappeared, too."

The older boy sighed. "Had to happen eventually, you know. Us going home."

It was a topic that Hope hadn't wanted to talk about, mostly due to the lump in his throat. How was it that it had never occurred to him before? That eventually the town would just start sending people back home? He thought he'd be stuck there forever, that maybe Bell Pointe had been some kind of afterlife and they were all to just... endure what the town could throw at them. That they'd band together and stop the cannibal and then maybe crowd the town onto the three ships in the harbour and go off to sail around the world.

...It was a childish dream. A foolish one, too, since he had practically everyone he cared about here as well. Light and Vanille and Fang and Sazh and even Snow, and Serah.

"Not going home yet." He muttered against the glass, watching his breath fog up the surface. "Clare's with Raki right now." And he had always felt awkward intruding on their bonding, especially since they hadn't seen each other in so long.

Jaime hesitated mid-breath, still poised to blow the steam from his hot chocolate. "...That's not the home I was talking about, Hope."

He knew. He just didn't want to talk about it. What did he have left at home?

"But why do we have to? Why can't we just stay here?" Where everyone was alive and well and unique. "Would you want to send Samara home?"

It might have been a low blow, but Jaime took it well enough, only sounding upset and a bit strangled. But then, he might have looked hurt as well, but Hope hadn't turned to see. "We don't get a choice in this."

Hope turned away from Jaime's direction with gritted teeth, pressing a cheek against the glass. It wasn't Jaime's fault, but he just didn't want to think about it. That people had already started disappearing en masse. That's what the gathering at Elaine's cafe had been for, after all. They had all just... settled into life in Bell Pointe. Claire was starting a pizza shop. Things were just starting to calm down. Why did they have to leave now? He heard a quiet exhale from the older boy, and then felt fingers in his hair for a brief moment before it disappeared.

It wasn't until he felt a poke at his side when he realized that Jaime had wandered to talk to more social-able people, and Miata's long blonde hair was pressed far too close to his face. Her curious look made him feel a bit guilty. She was probably wondering where everyone was, and here he was feeling bitter over everything.

"Dr. Wesker's still at the hospital," he explained, despite not having to. Maybe it was for his own benefit, keeping track of people. There were still so many people who wouldn't come out, though. Ethan and Alfred both sitting at home. All the navy people who had wandered back onto their ships. "And Chris is there, too, since-- well, he's 'keeping track' of him. Light and Snow are patrolling and--" And he should be out there with them, not sitting in the shop. As kind as their words had been, talking about needing him to 'keep an eye on everyone here', Hope wasn't dumb enough to not realize that it was actually the other way around: that everyone in the cafe was also keeping an eye on him as well.

She blinked, eyes barely seen through her fall of hair. "Papa, too."

So were Dante and Aizen and Renji and Nikolae and Gavril, although none of them seemed to be working together.

"Hey, Miata," He asked absent-mindedly. "...Do you want to go home?"

"No choice." Her answer was the same as Jaime's. "Do you?"

He didn't know. It wouldn't do to keep running away, but he had finally made a home in Bell Pointe. People listened to him here, and things were... what were they? Snow fortresses and danger and goldfish in the basement and monsters in the fog and dressing up the zombies. It was staying up late with a flashlight and finding a dreadnaught in the streets. It was... he didn't want to go. But Elaine had told him before, hadn't she? 'You'll do things worth doing.' And here in Bell Pointe, it was like time was standing still, holdings its breath on the apex of the abyss. In order to grow up, in order to do those things Elaine had been so confident he would do, he'd have to go home first.

But why couldn't he stay? He was learning things here. Studying. Under Dr. Wesker, under Hanatarou.

"...No." He finally breathed out. It was harsh and childish and selfish, but it was the truth. "I don't want to go home."

Miata backed off, and Hope had a pang thinking that maybe she was disappointed with his answer and his weakness before she stood up, facing him.

"Go out. Find others."

"...Miata?"

She pushed at him, lightly for her, but it was enough to detach him from the window.

"Will go with you. Say goodbye?" She tilted her head, looking like she was glancing over in askance at Galatea, despite the formidable woman being blind. "We'll find them. All of them. Get them here?"

One last gathering for the people who had yet to disappear.

Hope stood on wobbling legs that had lost feeling to them since he had sat in them hours ago.

"Okay. Let's go find everyone else."