Warning: Parental grief, infection, mentions of burn injuries, blood, psychological horror, and heavy angst.
Jaune sat quietly in the theater, carefully wrapping fresh bandages around the scratches lining her forearms. They stung, but thankfully none of the wounds were deep. More importantly, there were no signs of infection. She was watching Pump sit on the floor, drawing something she couldn't make out clearly. She heard some yellings outside, and could only let out a heavy sighs
It must be John and that grumpy old man again. That man had always been an outcast if you asked her, always tried to distant himself from others.
Whatever they were arguing about, it wasn't worth her attention.
She returned to bandaging her arm, carefully pulling the cloth tight before tying it into place. The scratches burned beneath the fabric, a constant reminder of how close things had come. It could have been so much worse.
At least everyone was still alive, for now.
A soft scratching sound pulled her attention away from her thoughts.
Pump was still drawing, his tongue poking out slightly in concentration as he added another splash of color to the page.
Jaune couldn't help but smile. After everything that child had been through...
She was glad he could still draw.
The sight of Pump quietly drawing on the floor stirred an old memory in Jaune's mind.
Jaune always remembered that when Ross was little, he had a habit of disappearing into his room for hours on end. At first, Jaune would worry, wondering what he was doing all by himself. Then, just as quietly as he had vanished, he would come running back out, clutching a single sheet of paper in both hands. Ross would shyly gave it to her, waiting for her to say something
The drawings were simple—little more than shaky lines and colorful stick figures. Sometimes she couldn't even tell what they were supposed to be.
But, she always cherished those drawings, as they were dedicately made by her son, her Ross.
She could still see the way his face would light up whenever she praised him, the way his whole body seemed to swell with pride as if her approval were the most precious thing in the world.
That smile had once filled her with warmth.
Soon turned into the sight of him being burned, by her
Jaune would, and could never forget that sight, when she had no choice but to detornate the car, causing an explosion to her own son and his friends, who were infected
She knew that she had no choice.
She had told herself that over and over again, as if repeating it could make it hurt less.
It never did. It never stopped the explosion from ripping through the night.
It never stopped the screams.
They still lived inside her head, sharp and merciless, and no matter how much time passed she could still hear all three boys crying out in agony.
She could never forget the sight of her son, crying out loud while being burned alive.
Ross was always a sentimental kid, but also a sensitive one when he was small. However, when he was a bit older, he had built walls around his heart, trying to be strong, and mature. Jaune would always tell Ross that whenever he was scared or hurt, he could always come to her.
That he didn't need to bare the pain alone. Ross would brush it off lightly, claiming that he's old enough to do things on his own now, and Jaune just simply pinch his cheeks
She had always promised herself that she would be there whenever her son needed her—that if he was ever scared, ever in pain, she would be the first person to reach out and comfort him.
All she could do was stand there.
She watched as Ross cried out in agony, the flames swallowing him whole, and there was nothing she could do to ease his pain.
Jaune couldn't keep the promise she had made to him.
Jaune didn't notice that there were tears falling down her cheeks
Not until she felt a small hand gently rest against her knee that she blinked, pulled from her thoughts.
Pump looked up at her with concern, his drawing forgotten in his lap.
Jaune instinctively reached up to her face.
Her fingertips came away damp. She stared at them for a moment before letting out a shaky breath.
"...I guess I wasn't doing a very good job hiding it, huh?"
Pump slowly shook his head.
Without saying another word, he climbed to his feet and shuffled closer. Still clutching the drawing in one hand, he wrapped his free arm around her as best as he could.
It wasn't much, as his arms were too small to properly hug an adult.
But the warmth behind the gesture was enough. Jaune froze for a second before gently hug back.
"...Thank you, sweetheart."
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There was a flicker of memory inside its head
The image was blurred, fragmented beyond recognition, slipping away the harder it tried to grasp it.
It remembered small hands
Tiny fingers wrapped around a yellow crayon.
They clumsily dragged the wax across a sheet of paper, drawing shaky circles that weren't quite round. More yellow circles followed, surrounding a larger brown one in the middle. Then came a long green line stretching downward.
It didn't know what kind.
The little hands held the paper carefully before footsteps echoed around them. Loud ones. Excited ones.
It wasn't very big, but it was much taller than the little hands.
Warmth. That was all it remembered.
The drawing was gently taken away, and the little hands laughed.
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It then saw a another memory
Little hands had gotten bigger, though not much. Just enough to hold a pair of scissors without struggling.
It noticed the hands, it was slightly bruised, with cuts and faint burn marks scattered across the fingers.
The hands carefully cut around a flower-shaped out of yellow paper, trying not to cut the petals off. It wasn't perfect. One side was a little uneven.
The little hands reached for a hot glue gun. They squeezed too hard. A blob of glue spilled onto the folded piece of colored paper.
Tiny fingers flinched from the heat before hurriedly pressing the flower into place, onto the front of that paper.
The little hands picked up another crayon and slowly wrote something underneath.
The letter were messy and shaky, really hard to read. The only word it could make out was
It couldn't understand, the card was difficult to make, and in the end, it wasn't perfect. It was full of flaws
Why bother making it in the first place?
Why did it feel happiness from little hands?
The card was then held tightly against a small chest.
Tiny footsteps hurried down a hallway. It heard something, a voice, so childlike, giggling alot
The little hands stretched the card out with both arms, presenting it proudly to someone just beyond its sight. It was the same figure. It couldn't hear what they said in return. All it remembered was warmth. Gentle hands. A laugh. Then little hands was being pulled closer, bigger arms wrapped around a small body.
The little hands hugged back without hesitation.
It couldn't remember the face, nor the voice.
But it remembered the warmth. It remembered feeling... safe.
The card wasn't beautiful.
But... whoever stood in front of those little hands seemed to love it anyway.
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"Mama" It thought, something so familiar
It didn't know what Mama meant.
But the little hands had smiled when they said it. They had held something, had walked toward the taller figure.
It sat on the ground, scorched fingers twitched. Slowly, awkwardly, they lifted into the air. It tried to trace the flower like the little hands had made on the ground, a large circle surrounded by uneven petals and a long stem beneath.
It tried to, yet the movements felt wrong.
Its fingers were stiff, covered in burns that had long since split open. Blackened skin stretched over its hands, cracked and brittle, dried blood settled between the fractures while fresh crimson slowly seeped from the deeper ones every time it forced its fingers to move.
It tried to heal itself, just like the others, but it didn't know why it couldn't heal
When the flames died, the three of them had wandered together for a while.
The other two disappeared into different parts of the town, following whatever instinct the Darkness had planted within them.
It came here, alone, waiting for another victim in the dark
The flower never took shape. It looked nothing like the one the little hands had made.
It wasn't pretty, nor yellow.
There was no paper. No crayons, nor cards. Only charred fingers tracing harshly on the ground.
The cracked skin along its knuckles split wider, fresh blood slipping down its fingertips before dripping onto the ground below.
It didn't care about the blood, it couldn't feel the pain anyway
So why did it scream when being burned?
It only kept drawing, until it finished. The flower wasn't pretty, it was red, crimson red, due to the blood dripping from its finger tips. It didn't like this flower, it felt wrong
It wasn't pretty, like the yellow one
It wasn't pretty like little hands
Then another memory slipped through the cracks.
Little hands was holding a flower, a real one, so carefully, afraid it would crumple. A tiny voice, bright with excitement.
They cupped it so carefully, afraid the petals would crumple beneath tiny fingers. Bright yellow petals surrounded a warm brown center, glowing gently beneath the afternoon sun. It wasn't the biggest flower, nor the prettiest one in the garden, but to the little hands…
The words echoed inside its hollow mind.
It whispered them without understanding.
The word hurt, but also warm. It didn't know why. It looked back at the crimson flower beneath its hands.
Just like how the little hands had waited.
It waited for the taller figure to kneel down, for gentle hands to take the flower, for the warm laugh.
The alley remained silent. The only sound was the slow drips of blood falling from its fingertips onto the poorly drawn flower it had made.
Another petal turned red.
Then another one, then another one. Soon, the flower disappeared beneath the crimson.
It stared at it for a long time.
There was still no answer.
It lowered its hand, let the blood flow along its finger
Somewhere inside the shattered remains of its mind, it felt something break.
It didn't know what it had lost.
It only knew one thing, that little hands had wanted Mama to smile. But that was too late now.
Mama would never see the flower.
And mama wouldn't like it either
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My delulu mind about Spooky month: Night of darkness by @plasmagruntcalvin. Yes, I intended to post this on Mother's day, but was too busy due to school works. So here it is
I understand the infected Ross scene wouldn't happen, as in the end, all the infected victims are mindless puppets, with only fragments of their personality being taken advantage of by the Darkness. However, I would like to think like this
The Darkness functions almost like a hive mind, a single consciousness connected to every infected host. Through that connection, it can guide them, influence their actions, and use whatever remains of their old selves as bait
But what if Jaune's explosion was so violent that it damaged that connection?
Not enough to cure nor return the kids to normal.
Just enough to leave them... disconnected.
They're still infected. Their minds are still shattered. Their bodies still belong to the Darkness.
Instead of hearing the Darkness clearly, they only receive broken whispers, forcing them to wander on instinct rather than direct commands. That's why they split up instead of remaining together.
Therefore, Ross in this scene was in a disconnected state. The explosion didn't free him from the Darkness, but it damaged its hold over him. He's still infected. He's still dangerous. Yet, instead of following the Darkness's commands flawlessly, he's left wandering through fragmented memories and instincts that no longer make sense.
That's also why I refer to Infected Ross as "it". Because it isn't Ross anymore. Or at least... not entirely.
It's still him, but it couldn't remember, or feel like him anymore.
For Jaune's part, I would like to dig further into her grief and guilt. She had to burn her own son—not because she wanted to, but because she had no other choice.
Having to witness her son being burned right in front of her eyes, and couldn't do anything. Every instinct she had as a mother must have been screaming at her to save him, to protect him, to make the pain stop. I couldn't imagine what she felt at that moment, grief? guilt? rage? or all of them?
But I know that the guilt and grief would consume her long after that night ended. She would replay those final moments over and over, wondering if she could have done something differently, even though she already knew there wasn't another choice at that moment
She knew the boy she loved was not there anymore. She knew the infected creature standing before her was no longer truly Ross. Yet I don't think that knowledge would make the act any less painful. Because no matter what the Darkness had turned him into, Jaune was still looking at her son.
I wonder what would she think of herself now? She managed to save others, but not her own son.
I felt bad for her, for every survivor, and every infected victim out there.
I know that the Hatzgang would be alright, as Darkness could heal itself fully, ye, they are not dead, they will be saved, everyone will be saved, right?
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