Leya’s POV

I opened my eyes….only to find the quiet sobbing of my daughter Ella and the grim expression of my husband, Blake, to meet me in this colourless world. It’d been 3 months since the start of this “Calamity” everyone was talking about, and 7 whole months since my son’s disappearance…..

Blake and Ella had made it all the way here from London to help me look for my dear boy, yet in the end they had to look after me. Everything had lost its colour, nothing mattered to me anymore, not when my dear boy was missing in the midst of this chaos….

I wanted him back…I would do anything to even just hug him one last time. If he came back I wouldn’t even spare the energy to get mad at him….I would just hug him, and tell him “Welcome home…my dear son….” Otherwise, I would rather not be in a world without James in it. I had raised him ever since I’d found him on my doorstep one rainy day, as a mere baby. He was wailing with tears streaming down his cute face. My husband disapproved of taking in a random child off the street, but I had already fallen in love…”I was going to raise this boy with all the love I could muster,” was the only thought going through my head at the time. To this day I hadn’t told him about his origins and I made sure that Blake and Ella wouldn’t open their mouths either.

This was the true reason why both of them had moved away from home when he’d reached the age of 14. However, now they were back, yet we still weren’t whole….at least not in my eyes.

We had settled in the house’s basement and blocked the top floor off to stop any of these creatures from coming in. Yet, all the same, we heard rustling upstairs. There were many grunts and incomprehensible noises right outside of the barrier, followed by a loud banging noise until eventually-

BOOM

The barricade was smashed open and 5 goblins leaked into the basement. They eyed me and Ella with a lecherous look, as if Blake hadn’t existed at all. These creatures had one trait that was spread across all news channels….their cruelty. They enjoyed the suffering of all those weaker than them by slowly having their victims beg for their lives. They could’ve ran faster than we could perceive, but instead they chose to shuffle towards us. It almost felt like they were purposefully stepping on every creak just to make us feel more tense. They were only a couple of steps away before all of a sudden…the unbelievable happened-

“Stop where you are!”

Blake had moved out in front of Ella and me, only to be struck by one of the goblins’ clubs. Instead of giving him a quick death, they chose to crush both his legs while flinging him to the side, crashing into a wall. Ella and I stood there, frozen in fear, unable to do anything but wait for the inevitable. Ella closed her eyes shut, while I just stayed there, looking, not straight ahead, but….beyond.

Is this what people meant when they said that “your life flashes before your eyes?” I could remember all the memories with my family.

Both happy and sad

Both distant and close

Yet all the same, they were crumbling about as fast as that club came down. However, in the next instant, I felt my eyes tear up.

Not from fear

Not from Sadness

But from pure, undiluted joy

A hand had stopped the club, a hand that I’d missed holding in my embrace.

“I’m home mom…but it looks like I forgot to take out the trash”