“I don’t know why, I just couldn’t help myself”

Despite the boy’s head being buried in my shoulder as I held him, the words sounded as though they came from across the room. His small hands dug into my back, confused and afraid. I would later find bruising and blood where his fingers clung for some sort of comfort, but in that moment I held my son as though he had just skinned his knee playing.

I squeezed him tighter against me.

“It’s going to be ok, I know you didn’t mean it.”

I did my best to not let my voice crack. My attempt at reassurance rang hollow and echoed in my head, like someone else was speaking the words for me. My senses were dull and foggy, numbed by the shock of what I had just witnessed. The only thing I could think of was protecting the boy, that all we had right now was each other.

I wanted to turn and run, but my parental instinct cautioned me against letting him see what stood in front of me, against letting him see what he had done. I slowly walked backwards, keeping his back towards the cliff. As we reached the drivers side, I popped open the back door and set him in the back seat. I laid him down and dropped to my knees, telling him to keep his head down and not look up until dad said it was ok.

The door slamming behind me snapped me out of the protective trance I had fallen under. Grabbing onto the car for stability, my insides heaved. My whole body shook and I let my stoic facade crumble. My knees were like a newly born fawn as I tried to calm myself with quick raspy breaths, telling myself to get it together.

As the shock wore off, I could feel the heat from the valley below. The full roar of a city burning replaced the ringing that had filled my ears before, interspersed by the occasional rumble of buildings collapsing.

I clenched my fists and steadied myself. I couldn’t let the boy see me like this. One last deep breath, and I got into the driver’s seat, shutting the door and silencing the terror outside.

“Am I in trouble?” He asked, voice quivering.

“We could be” I replied, after a short pause, “but the strong always figure it out.”

I started the car. Static came through the speakers for a moment before I turned the radio off. We wouldn’t hear anything but emergency broadcasts for a while.

I shifted into drive and pulled away from the overlook. I didn’t know where we were going, and I didn’t know what we would do next. All I knew was they would come looking for us eventually, and when they found us, we would have to be ready…