Debris

 His heart stopped the moment he heard the news and in all honesty he didn't remember the ride back. 

What he did remember was how hard it was to breathe, to maintain his composure amongst people he could care less about. He remembered bodiless hands clapping him on the back, half-hearted assurances that it was all okay. 

But it wasn't. 

His throat had felt clogged and his body felt numb and he remembered that. He remembered the loss of knowing: knowing what to do, knowing how to handle the situation. He had been trained to deal with loss, after all. 

Just not his own. 

The next thing he remembered was the feeling of gravel. Destroyed buildings mixed with debris. They crunched under his feet. Had he ever thought any of these buildings would have crunched?  

He tried not to dwell on it. Willed his feet forward until the trip was a blur. He never remembered if someone was with him–all he knew was that they weren't there when he found it. 

There's a certain horror to coming home and finding nothing. Just rubble. Just the thickness of burnt bodies. It stung his throat when he went in and as he touched the shortened stump of his doorway he found his hands were shaking. He swallowed and pushed on with hesitant feet and a lump in his throat too stubborn to go away. 

The door was gone but the bottom of the doorway could still be seen. He knelt down to sweep the debris away. What was a home without a good door, right? He couldn't bring himself to laugh. 

He rose, slowly, and walked through. Into the foyer. Where Shaira would grab him by the wrist and spin him towards her with those beautifully strong arms. Then they would kiss–or something similar. The lack of lips on his part made it difficult. But he had tried. For her. He did everything for her. 

The foyer was gone now. A small indent in miles of debris. If he looked further he could see the floorplan of his house. See all the rooms laid out neatly, as if ready to be built. He could easily cross over to any room by going over the rubble. But this had been his home and there was a faithfulness to that in his steps. 

He stuck to the floorplan, walking down the hallway that Inthra had chased Maelin down when she was twelve. He passed the place where he hung his favorite gun–now a two foot high lump instead of a wall. Still, he smiled as he passed it. 

Maelin had adored that spot. She would spend hours looking up at it, waiting until he finally passed by to clutch his arm in her iron grip and begged him to take her shooting. "Someday, when you're older," he would say, patting her on the head with a smile. Then she would pout and complain and he would hoist her on his back in consolation. Give her a free ride wherever she wanted to go next in the house. 

The memory left a pang in his heart that only grew worse as he stepped into her bedroom. Once, it had been cluttered with everything. Toys, rocks, random keepsakes that only meant something to a child. Now all he could make out were the shattered legs of her bed. He went to them, knelt next to them, cradled them in his palm as if it were a lost artifact. 

He knew then that he should call out. Call their names. Run through the decimated streets shouting for them in the vain hope that they had found shelter. That they were still alive. That they could have avoided the same fate as their house. He stood abruptly and looked around again but the moment he opened his mouth his breath came up short. His fingers curled around the shattered bed remnant until he felt it dig into his palm. 

How he glided over the house then, peeking into every room in a frantic rush, reliving memories with a horrific urgency. Breathing came short and stopped multiple times–moments when he thought he saw something move from the corner of his eye. But they were merely ghosts. Spectral images of Shaira and their daughters. Never the real thing. 

Finally, he stopped. Found himself panting and his knees weak. They folded beneath him and he slumped to the ground. His hand uncurled and the bed leg spilled out and rolled onto the ground. He tipped his head back and moved his mouth, trying to form words through the sudden influx of breath. It took him a few moments to realize he was sobbing. Sobbing so hard it was almost impossible to hear the footsteps behind him. Feel the arms wrap around him. Long, spindly things with unnatural fingers, elongated like vines. 

His gut took hold and he jerked away, the soldier within him taking hold. He fumbled to stand, whipping around as soon as he could, his previously-forgotten gun held tightly in his hand. The creature behind him was tall. Stretched but short. With cracked skin hiding glowing blue lines, a bulging abdomen and devilish horns. 

Yet despite the terror of the form the figure was still familiar and with shocked horror he choked out it's name. 

"Maelin?"