Myshuno # 3
Title: Untitled
Prompt: "I tried my best."
Word Count: 703
Characters: Strangetown Premades. Mostly Buzz, Tank, and Ripp Grunt, PT, Johnny, and Jenny Smith, and Ophelia Nigmos. However, everyone other than Ajay Loner is also around in the background.
Notes: Okay a bit of a book here. This is background info for a story/neighborhood that I have with lots of premades, including most of the Strangetown premades. The Strangetown background includes a fierce battle with aliens (not PT Smith's species) as they come to take over Strangetown as their initial stage of world domination. This is part of a longer narrative by Buzz Grunt, and is written in his, first person, point of view. I might write it up one day and post it here (I might not), so I didn't want to reveal too much beyond what I have. However, for those of you who don't mind being spoiled, there is a spoiler link at the bottom as to the fates of our young heroes.
(Edited to put in a sentence that got left out, fix the word count, and fix Lyla's name.)
The low rumble in the distance got our attention long before the blinding light and earth trembling explosion. The celebration over the destruction of our enemies however, was on a longer fuse. Each of us scanned the horizon our breath held in suspension.
Almost synchronized Smith and I glanced at each other, then back to the horizon. It was our sons we were searching for. His Johnny, and my Tank and Ripp. They had volunteered for the mission to destroy the alien base. They knew as much as the rest of us, that the odds were high on it being a suicide mission. They'd succeeded, but had they survived?
Just then I saw a silhouette against the fire-lit darkness. It was bent over, moving slowly, and seemed to be dragging something. I broke into a run almost as soon as my eyes made out the shape. Smith was right beside me. I felt rather than saw Jenny and Ophelia a few steps behind us. In that strange irony of time and space, I have no memory of actually crossing the mile or more of open ground, and yet, it felt as if I'd never moved more slowly in my life.
When I finally got close enough to make out features, I saw Tank, covered in blood and favoring his left side. If he'd had his hand free, I knew he'd be clutching his side. His hands were full however, dragging two bodies. Oh God, two bodies. Ripp, Oh God.
I ran faster now, and it wasn't long before Tank saw me.
"Dad, I'm sorry, I tried my best. I really did." His words were strangled with pain and tears. He gulped for air like the trout we used to catch up in Three Lakes. I smiled to him and nodded, as I moved quickly to their side.
I heard a separate part of myself say, "I know you did, son. I'm very proud of you. Proud of you both." And that same part saw Jenny, a nurse practioner moving to Tank to check on him, while Smith and I bent beside the unmoving forms on the ground.
"I tried, Dad, I really tried."
Ripp. My Ripp. His sweat-soaked brown hair was plastered against ashen skin. I trembled as I picked up his hand. He was covered in blood -- almost as much as when he'd been born. My mind raced back to that night. He'd been three months early, and the doctor's weren't sure he was going to make it through the night. Lyla had to be sedated, she'd been hysterical. I'd paced the waiting room as they performed emergency surgery. I'd been the first one to the incubator once we were allowed. I was a little uncomfortable with the touching and rubbing they suggested, it seemed a bit namby pamby to me. Yet, they were the doctors, and if that's what it took to give my son a chance; Hell, I would have done it in a dress and heels, and beat up anyone that snickered, for my baby boy.
"Dad, I'm sorry. I did my best. Oh, Dad. Ripp."
As he grew, it was evident that he was his mother's child in face and temperment. So like her in fact that after she left, I'd begun taking it out on the boy. Nothing he'd ever do would be good enough. He'd never measure up to Tank, I'd told him time and again. We'd gotten past that in the last several months, but every word cut my heart now.
I hate to admit it, but I was almost afraid to check his wrist. Somehow if I didn't check, I could keep him alive longer. My heart's denial was paralyzing my muscles. Finally though I wrapped my fingers around his clammy wrist.
"I tried, I tried," Tank kept repeating.
A pulse. It was barely there, and thready, but it was beating. It was still touch and go, and I knew it.
"Tank, Tank, listen to me, he's alive! You didn't fail, son," not that I thought he had, but I thought he needed to hear it. "Ripp is alive!"
"He's alive?" and the words were no sooner out of his mouth than he collapsed.
[Spoiler! No really I mean it!]
All three boys survive.
Prompt: "I tried my best."
Word Count: 703
Characters: Strangetown Premades. Mostly Buzz, Tank, and Ripp Grunt, PT, Johnny, and Jenny Smith, and Ophelia Nigmos. However, everyone other than Ajay Loner is also around in the background.
Notes: Okay a bit of a book here. This is background info for a story/neighborhood that I have with lots of premades, including most of the Strangetown premades. The Strangetown background includes a fierce battle with aliens (not PT Smith's species) as they come to take over Strangetown as their initial stage of world domination. This is part of a longer narrative by Buzz Grunt, and is written in his, first person, point of view. I might write it up one day and post it here (I might not), so I didn't want to reveal too much beyond what I have. However, for those of you who don't mind being spoiled, there is a spoiler link at the bottom as to the fates of our young heroes.
(Edited to put in a sentence that got left out, fix the word count, and fix Lyla's name.)
The low rumble in the distance got our attention long before the blinding light and earth trembling explosion. The celebration over the destruction of our enemies however, was on a longer fuse. Each of us scanned the horizon our breath held in suspension.
Almost synchronized Smith and I glanced at each other, then back to the horizon. It was our sons we were searching for. His Johnny, and my Tank and Ripp. They had volunteered for the mission to destroy the alien base. They knew as much as the rest of us, that the odds were high on it being a suicide mission. They'd succeeded, but had they survived?
Just then I saw a silhouette against the fire-lit darkness. It was bent over, moving slowly, and seemed to be dragging something. I broke into a run almost as soon as my eyes made out the shape. Smith was right beside me. I felt rather than saw Jenny and Ophelia a few steps behind us. In that strange irony of time and space, I have no memory of actually crossing the mile or more of open ground, and yet, it felt as if I'd never moved more slowly in my life.
When I finally got close enough to make out features, I saw Tank, covered in blood and favoring his left side. If he'd had his hand free, I knew he'd be clutching his side. His hands were full however, dragging two bodies. Oh God, two bodies. Ripp, Oh God.
I ran faster now, and it wasn't long before Tank saw me.
"Dad, I'm sorry, I tried my best. I really did." His words were strangled with pain and tears. He gulped for air like the trout we used to catch up in Three Lakes. I smiled to him and nodded, as I moved quickly to their side.
I heard a separate part of myself say, "I know you did, son. I'm very proud of you. Proud of you both." And that same part saw Jenny, a nurse practioner moving to Tank to check on him, while Smith and I bent beside the unmoving forms on the ground.
"I tried, Dad, I really tried."
Ripp. My Ripp. His sweat-soaked brown hair was plastered against ashen skin. I trembled as I picked up his hand. He was covered in blood -- almost as much as when he'd been born. My mind raced back to that night. He'd been three months early, and the doctor's weren't sure he was going to make it through the night. Lyla had to be sedated, she'd been hysterical. I'd paced the waiting room as they performed emergency surgery. I'd been the first one to the incubator once we were allowed. I was a little uncomfortable with the touching and rubbing they suggested, it seemed a bit namby pamby to me. Yet, they were the doctors, and if that's what it took to give my son a chance; Hell, I would have done it in a dress and heels, and beat up anyone that snickered, for my baby boy.
"Dad, I'm sorry. I did my best. Oh, Dad. Ripp."
As he grew, it was evident that he was his mother's child in face and temperment. So like her in fact that after she left, I'd begun taking it out on the boy. Nothing he'd ever do would be good enough. He'd never measure up to Tank, I'd told him time and again. We'd gotten past that in the last several months, but every word cut my heart now.
I hate to admit it, but I was almost afraid to check his wrist. Somehow if I didn't check, I could keep him alive longer. My heart's denial was paralyzing my muscles. Finally though I wrapped my fingers around his clammy wrist.
"I tried, I tried," Tank kept repeating.
A pulse. It was barely there, and thready, but it was beating. It was still touch and go, and I knew it.
"Tank, Tank, listen to me, he's alive! You didn't fail, son," not that I thought he had, but I thought he needed to hear it. "Ripp is alive!"
"He's alive?" and the words were no sooner out of his mouth than he collapsed.
[Spoiler! No really I mean it!]
All three boys survive.