Those were the thoughts that ran through Abby’s mind as she huddled behind that sofa, holding her ears long after the shots had ceased.
She had run.
In a world gone mad, a boy not even old enough to know love had been kind to her and she had run.
She hid behind the sofa in a townhouse with a clear view of a child.
A dead child.
Her memories flashed to her son, Landon.
The corner said the car impacted the driver’s side at such a high speed that her husband and son never knew what hit them. They were crushed.
Decimated beyond recognition, Abby didn’t even get to see them. She couldn’t bring herself to identify the bodies. A coworker did.
She never got to say good bye to her son, hold him or tell him she loved him.
She couldn’t bear the thought of seeing him hurt.
But Landon had felt no pain; he had died instantly.
Unlike that toddler on the dining room floor of the townhouse, he never knew his life was ending.
How much pain that young child must have endured the final moments of his life was incomprehensible to Abby. He suffered, probably crying and screaming for help, and died alone on a cold hardwood floor.
She kept focusing on his little hand and then Abby couldn’t take it anymore.
She scurried out from behind that couch and crawled to the child.
His eyes were open, his skin white and his mouth frozen open as if crying out for help.
Scooping her arms under his body, Abby lifted the child into her arms and cradled him. She held him close, burying her head against the boy and sobbing from the depths of her soul.
For all that she lost, for all that other mothers lost, for every child who died without a pair of arms to comfort them, she cried as she held that child.
“I’m so sorry,” she whimpered and cried as she held him. “I’m so sorry for the pain you went through. I am so sorry.”
She rocked back and forth holding him and crying for the longest time. Then she stood and carried the child to the sofa. She laid him there and covered him with the blanket that was tossed over the back of the couch.
She stared at him and then covered him completely. She swiped her hand under her nose and took a moment to think.
A few days earlier she had stood in her bathroom, a razor to her wrist and wanting to die.
But she couldn’t do it.
The train crashed. Seventy percent of the passengers onboard died. But she lived. Why?
Foreign soldiers had barreled into town, guns blazing, shooting everyone and everything that lived.
Except her.
She still lived.
Why?
It dawned on Abby right there in that living room that for all her losses, all her heartache, for all the seconds she just wanted to die… she didn’t.
She was meant to live.
Somehow, someway, through her pain there was a greater purpose.
Whether it was to just get out of the city or to find others alive, there was a reason she was still alive.
She broke down and cried again, thinking about Foster in that recreation center. She thought of the helpless blind that she so heartless disregarded because of her own pain.
An opportunity was given to her, a purpose for her life, and she had turned the other cheek.
With the body of the child on the sofa and Foster racing through her mind, Abby sobbed her last tear.
Her lips were swollen from all the crying and her face was wet with tears.
But she had turned an emotional tide. She vowed right there to turn over a new leaf. Running for her life, hiding, made her realize she truly didn’t want to die.
Abby vowed to make up for her lack of compassion and selfishness.
She would try.
First, she would head down to the recreation center even if it were only to find Foster’s body. Then she would apologize and promise the young man she would pick up where he left off.
If the bus load of people were alive, others were too.
It was quiet outside and Abby felt it safe to leave.
Sniffling and catching her breath, Abby peeked out the window.
She didn’t see anyone on the street.
Quietly she walked to the front door, opening it without a sound.
She pulled it closed behind her without latching it and stepped down the steps.
Shit.
She heard the sound of a weapon loading ammunition bullet in the chamber.
Abby stopped cold on the stairs. Turning slowly to her right, she saw a soldier.
He said something to her as he aimed his weapon.
Abby didn’t understand him. She lifted her hands in surrender, but she was not surrendering. As she reached the bottom step, the soldier neared her. Inwardly she almost felt invincible. She had escaped botched suicides, the train wreck and the paratroopers. She had a purpose.
And that purpose wasn’t to die.
She shifted her eyes. No other soldiers were around.
Arms raised high, she thought about running. The soldier was young; if he was twenty, he was lucky. He also looked scared, as if he didn’t know what to do.
“I’m not armed,” Abby said.
Again he said something.
“I don’t understand you,” Abby told him. “English?”
