#post collapse

The first time I remember my world shattering was when my mother died.

My grandfather was with me, we were in the living room and she had gone to lay down from a migraine. He went to check on her and the next thing I knew he was yelling, swearing, and crying. I had gone to see what was wrong. He saw me and shielded me and told me it was all going to be okay, but I had already seen her hanging from the ceiling. She had killed herself. I was five years old then.

Now I am almost 30, and my world had shattered so many times.

When my father would beat me and throw me in the dark closet, when my grandfather died, when I had to drop out of college. The day I met that godforsaken Seed family and the helicopter crashed…..When he died…. When the bombs hit…

Each time it happened I tried to pick up the pieces and put them back together, but it's like piecing together a broken mirror; there were still cracks and you reach a point you can't recognize your own reflection and so you try not to look anymore.

And so I stopped looking. I was stuck in this bunker with Joseph Seed and the decisions I had made, knowing all the people I cared for were probably dead and I my will to live went with them. Joseph kept me bound so I wouldn't hurt him or myself, I couldn't find peace even in sleep, I kept seeing faces, hearing shots and screams, I was so tired. Joseph was doing everything to keep me alive, even forcing food and water into me, pinching my nose to get me to swallow and then monitoring me to make sure I didn't try to throw it up. I didn't want it.

We had gotten into a fight, he had decided to give me a bit more freedom and had unbound my hands and caught me with two fingers down my throat. He had managed to restrain me as I fought like a wild animal and rebind my hands. Then I had just started screaming. Everything I was doing was against to what he wanted and at least I would get the satisfaction of my death being a final act of rebellion. But I wasn't that articulate at the time, so instead I just snarled, "Just let me fucking die! I will never be part of your fucking family!"

He wouldn't look at me for a long moment, I thought that was because he knew I was right. Then he just sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses.

"Persephone-" his voice was harsher than normal, less airy, more rooted and firm.

"-Are you aware that you're pregnant?"