All That Remains: Day 3

Word Count: 18,024

Summary of Events:

Chloë wasn't able to make herself cry and look like the mourning widow people thought she was, along with becoming annoyed by Tristan's mother and sister's loud and dramatic weeping. She also was upset by the vast amounts of flowers she was receiving, which were taking over her dining room, with some filling her kitchen sink until more vases could be bought, prompting her to look up how to kill the flowers in order to get rid of them. Will regained consciousness in Frankfurt with his girlfriend by his side, not recalling where he was or why. Once he'd had some water to remoisten his mouth and quench his thirst, he asked his girlfriend what had happened, and when she explained that his teammates had been at risk of harm, he demanded to know what had befallen them, prompting her to show him an excerpt of a news article on her phone…

Excerpt of the Day:

…were revealed by police to have died in the crash or soon after: were the first words, followed by a list of names he recognised, with a sickness churning in him as he read them, such as Maxence Verlinden, a young forward even he’d enjoyed watching, Senne Van den Broeck, one of the most defensive-minded midfielders on the team, and Stian Ødegård, another midfielder who’d been a lively, fun-loving guy off the pitch and had always brought the life to any party he attended, to the point that any party without him was considered a party not worth going to any more than parties were considered to be underway until he showed up at them.

Tears blurred the words before his eyes when he came to two of the later names on the list, which he was pretty sure was sorted by shirt numbers: Sefu Mwangi and Tristan Lévêque.

Beneath the list was a few short sentences: *indicates players initially found alive, but succumbed to their injuries. The remainder of the roster was indicated by police to be in hospital in varying conditions, with the majority being critical.

The asterisk was beside Sefu’s name, as well as the names of a few others, but the majority of the list — which numbered almost exactly half of Anderlecht’s active roster — had been found dead.

“I’m sorry Will,” Enka said, her voice quavering.

Feeling something more than her hand brush his arm, he turned his gaze from the screen and saw she was offering him a tissue. Upset, he swatted her hand away and released her mobile, which she managed to catch before it hit the floor.

“Oh Will,” Enka said. “I’m sorry.”

He batted her hand away as she tried to offer him the tissue a second time. He didn’t want a tissue. He wanted to be dead.

“Why didn’t I die?” he demanded, looking her in the eyes.

Enka looked away from him, discomfort evident in her posture. She clearly had no answer for his question.

“Everyone I love, or I’ve cared about really deeply, is dead,” he declared. “But never me. Why is it never me!? Why couldn’t I have died!? Why couldn’t I have escaped this wretched, suffering world!?”

“I don’t know, Will,” Enka replied quietly, with an undertone of distress. “But can you be quiet so that the other patients can rest please?”

Will looked away from Enka. He didn’t really know what else to say, not even in Dutch or French. He just felt pain to think that Sefu, who had, in a lot of ways, replaced Azim in his life, and Tristan, who, despite being just eleven years his senior, had been the closest approximation to a father in his life since Papa had died, even more than Arne, despite the fact that Arne was Papa’s replacement as far as the law was concerned, were dead.

Pronunciations:

Verlinden: verlihndehn

Senne: sehnneh

Broeck: brook

Stian: steeahn

Ødegård: oohdehgahd

Sefu: sehfoo

Lévêque: lehvehk

Azim: ahzeem

Arne: ahrnee