//This drabble contains a semi-realistic depiction of  a war related PTSD episode. If this makes you uncomfortable in anyway, please seek something else to read!!

A soft record playing, a lone piano. Fingers stretched and touching dusty keys. Calloused fingers meant to bow the strings of a violin. The instrument was a ghost in the sunny sitting room. Shadows engulfed where it stood. And the figure sitting at it was just the same. A far off gaze, lost in her own mind. Gunshots, screaming. The burn of tears. A key compressed with one, lonely sound.

One sound followed another. But not to any particular song or rhythm. A white, a black, another few whites. One hand sat on her lap, clutching the red fabric of her skirt while the other sought to keep itself occupied all on its own. Disconnected. She couldn’t stop the mindless tic.

One.
Two.
Three
Blood.
Ash.
Fear.
“Dont leave me here! I don’t want to DIE!” “
Eliza. Finish this.”

Somewhere in the distance, the pop of a rifle taking down the owners next meal

. An explosion of noise rang out from the piano. The abuse slammed down from previously gentle touches. Screaming. Screaming. Until it no longer echoed and banged around her skull but burned her throat as it escaped. Hair hung around her face like a cage as she hunched over, breath quick and painful. Never seeming to get enough air. The dust, the dirt. They were filling the trench with water, drowning-

Sheet music scattered to the floor, tossed carelessly aside as she stood up. Her posture change was so abrupt, she sent the piano stool to a similar fate, tossed on its side and prone. Where was she? With face flush, tears began to prick in her eyes. But they wouldn’t fall. They couldn’t. Her arm fell to grab for a gun that wasn’t strapped to her side, only gathering thick fabric.

“Where…sh*t!”

Lost. It must have gotten lost somewhere. Stolen. How would she defend herself? The sunshine from the window shone with unprejudiced glee. An unseasonably warm winters day. And it taunted her.

Shades were whipped shut, with little regard for how one of them was pulled from its rod and hung askew. Any opening was a weakness. But she knew this would happen. This always happened. That’s why the weapons were hidden away, locked up. If she hurt anyone in her frenzy…

Her back hit the piano. Hazy green eyes on a swivel as she heard noises in every corner. Everything felt like it was covered in fog. Her head spun as she tried to search for something, anything else.

Where were they.
She didn’t want this 
She doesn’t want anymore blood on her hands
A thousand years worth of blood

Drawers were pulled open, contents scattered to the floor. Somewhere deep in the marsh of panic, a hand reached out and grabbed for her consciousness. Blindly reaching and waving, to get her attention, to come back down.

It’s your fault
You were their commander, what have you done?
You’re just a child, what do you know of war?

Another shot, very real and likely from the same hunter, echoed across through the crevices and cracks. Another scream ripped from her lungs before her upper half folded to collapse against the top of the drawers, shaking and heaving for air. She stayed like that for a long moment before she reached out to the one object remaining on the counter. An old phone. Rotary intact and well kempt. With a white knuckle grip, the receiver fit into her hand as she tried several times, and failed, then eventually succeeded, to dial. A number she’d dialed a million times, numbers imprinted firmly into her brain so she’d never forget.

“….Roderich, please…I need to hear your voice….”