All That Remains: Day 7

Word Count: 42,023

Summary of Events:

Will's paternal grandparents and aunt came to visit him after Enka had left to check up on his house and the perishables within it, and Will became incredibly irritated by his aunt's exhortation for him to think positive without any instructions on how he was supposed to do that in the face of the tragedy he'd been involved in. Chloë, along with Tristan's sister and mother and all the other loved ones of the deceased gathered at Anderlecht's home pitch for a large public viewing of the bodies, for which some fans had been waiting hours in order to not miss out on a chance to pay their last respects…

Excerpt of the Day:

Now the doors were minutes away from opening, with police in position to ensure the group kept moving and no impassioned fans tried to take mementos from the bodies or the coffins. All they were allowed to do was take pictures or videos.

Chloë shifted restlessly on her heels. The cool wind was chilling her legs despite her choice to wear decently thick tights, and she really wanted to get this event over with so that she could go back to hiding her acute lack of grief.

Finally streams of purple, white, and black emerged from the access points and were guided by police toward the beginning of the line, which was located to Chloë’s left, where the team personnel were arrayed, their coffins adorned with special arrangements of purple and white flowers that were holding up cards that said their name and position.

The players each had the team shirts which had been secured to their coffins when they’d arrived from Frankfurt laying across the lower portion of the coffin with a smaller arrangement of purple and white flowers in order to not obscure their name and number on the shirt.

As for the bodies themselves, they were fully dressed in their own actual team kit, with the only difference from the norm being that flesh-coloured sleeves were slid over the arms of those who didn’t usually wear a long-sleeved undershirt while they played in order to look a bit more normal.

Chloë watched the stream of fans advance, with almost all of them snapping photos of each person as they walked past, some lingering for a moment, some even lowering themselves across the lower half of a coffin to weep.

Many of them spoke to the family and friends assembled at the head of each coffin, with some even exchanging hugs. Chloë didn’t want to be embraced, she was sure she’d feel stiff, and she didn’t want people to get suspicious of the truth.

Finally the first fans arrived, snapping photos with their phones and expressing earnest condolences that Chloë forced herself to nod in acknowledgement of while Elle and Amandine sobbed their thanks.

Following the arrival of the first fans, the stream was constant, leaving Chloë with hardly any time to observe much of anything, as she was too busy striving to look like she was grieving and sad, despite the fact that she was actually annoyed to be standing out in the cold and wishing the whole ordeal could be over.

Despite the fact that it felt like she stood there for about a month, she was eventually caught by surprise when she looked away from a fan who’d expressed condolences to her and found there wasn’t another fan waiting.

Looking down the line, she saw that mortuary personnel were closing the lids of the coffins, handing the floral arrangements and things to families, and moving the bodies out.

She slid back the coat sleeve and looked at her watch. The hour hand had advanced three twelfths of the way around the face, and the minute hand was a little bit past where it’d been when she’d last looked. Three hours had, in fact, elapsed.

All That Remains: Day 6

Word Count: 36,048

Summary of Events:

While sorting through the thousands of photos she had of Tristan on her laptop, the thought of ending her life returned to Chloë's head, and this time she let it linger instead of shaking it off as nonsense, as dying, she had to admit, was a legitimate way out of having to pretend to be a grieving widow. Will, as well as the small handful of his fellow teammates and team personnel who had minor injuries were transported by train from Frankfurt to Brussels, where they were welcomed into a ward that had been deliberately set aside for them and decorated in Anderlecht's colours. To Will's dismay, his least favourite teammate had been assigned as his roommate in the ward and, since he could walk, he came over to Will's side of the room to chat…

Excerpt of the Day:

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Angelo said. “I am Angelo Moschella.”

“Draženka Branković,” Enka replied.

“And what is your relationship to Will?” Angelo asked.

“I’m his girlfriend,” Enka replied.

“Ah, I didn’t realise he had one,” Angelo replied. “You do not live in Brussels then?”

“No,” Enka replied. “I’m in my fourth year of studying medicine in Zagreb.”

“Ah, so this is something of a practical experience for you,” Angelo said.

“It’s not officially a part of my education,” Enka replied. “But it is a bit of learning, yes.”
“Are you seeking to become a nurse, or a doctor, or a specialist of some sort?” Angelo asked.

“I’m looking to become a doctor,” Enka replied. “Just general practise for the moment, but that’s mostly because there’s so many specialties I find interesting. I am interested in pursuing specialist education in the future, though.”

“Ah,” Angelo said. “So what do you know about shoulder and collarbone injuries?”

“That’s what you have?” Enka asked.

“Yes,” Angelo replied. “I have a break of my collarbone, of my…”

“Humerus,” Enka replied.

Angelo patted his upper arm, which he’d touched while trying to think of its technical name. “Not very funny.”

“No,” Enka agreed.

“Also there are some minor fractures to my ribs, and I have a tear in a muscle of my shoulder,” Angelo added. “There were also concerns that I had broken my eye socket, but it is fine.”

“That’s good,” Enka said.

“How about Will?” Angelo asked.

“He got a moderate concussion, severe fractures of both tibiae and fibulae, and minor fractures of the patellae, femora, and metatarsi,” Enka replied.

“You already sound like a doctor,” Angelo said. “I would presume all of those fractures affect his legs because they’re what’s all wrapped up.”

“Yes,” Enka replied. “His spine and everything is fine.”

Angelo nodded. “It will be a far longer time before he returns to the pitch than it will be for me.”

“It will,” Enka replied, making pointed eye contact with Will.

He met her gaze with stubborn resolve. There was no use in trying. He wasn’t going to make it back onto the pitch. Ever.

“But what is the needle for?” Angelo asked. “In his hand.”

“Nothing,” Will replied. “They’re going to take it out.”

“But then why did they not take it out in Germany?” Angelo asked.

“It’s still needed,” Enka replied.

“No it isn’t,” Will replied.

“She is the almost-doctor Will,” Angelo said. “And your girlfriend. Why do you disagree with her?”

“You weren’t exactly invited to come over here,” Will snapped. “I just wanted you to stop talking up that nurse.”

“Then I will go,” Angelo said, standing up briskly and stalking away.

Will watched him leave. He wished Angelo wouldn’t stop at the adjacent bed, but would keep walking straight out of the room and into another one. He had no idea who’d been behind the determining of the pairings, but he wanted to give them an earful about making Angelo his roommate.

Pronunciations:

Draženka: drahzhehnkah

Branković: brahnkohvihch

Tibiae: tihbeeay

Fibulae: fihbyoulay

Patellae: pahtehllay

Femora: fehmohrah

Metatarsi: mehtahtahrsee

All That Remains: Day 5

Word Count: 30,069

Summary of Events:

Noticing that nurses were checking on him regularly, and suspecting they were doing so to prevent him from making an attempt on his life, Will tried to convince one of them that there was no reason for him to remain alive, but she didn't agree with him because of his youth. Chloë was taken to the airport, where a Belgian military cargo craft had arrived with the bodies of the deceased players, who were then loaded into hearses and taken to the mortuary for viewing…

Excerpt of the Day:

It didn’t take long to get to the mortuary, where the shirts and the ribbons securing them were removed from the coffins by the staff, allowing the coffins to be opened so that the family — as no fans or photographers were allowed in the mortuary, despite some efforts — could see the bodies within.

As a result, for only the second time in her life, Chloë found herself looking on a dead body, and for the first time on the dead body of someone who was too young to have simply died without an underlying cause, not that she personally felt like Papi had really been old enough to die without his underlying cause having existed.

The reposing expression on Tristan’s face didn’t look altogether unlike him, if Chloë was honest, as there seemed a stoic element to it, and it wasn’t like she’d not seen Tristan with an unsmiling face. It’d been more rare to see him with a smiling face, usually the best anyone got was a smirk.

His hair was well-styled, and Chloë recognised the suit he was wearing as one that he’d packed for his trip to Frankfurt, suggesting that the players’ luggage had been retrieved from the craft and the clothes which had dressed them had been chosen from there in order to have them be decent for their return trip home, where more formal arrangements on their attire could be made.

Finally his skin looked to be lighter than hers, but not naturally light, instead, it had a lightly greyish pallor to it that, along with his impossible stillness, made it clear that he was as dead as she’d been told he was.

Despite the fact that she was looking on his body, and didn’t dare touch it, as she didn’t want to know what it felt like, it still didn’t feel fully real that he was dead, and that he wouldn’t suddenly appear somewhere else.

As soon as Elle laid eyes on Tristan’s body she wailed as loudly as ever and cast herself across the still-closed bottom half of the coffin lid, with Amandine following suit momentarily.

Chloë turned away from the coffin, still without tears in her eyes, and almost startled violently at the suddenness of a thought that came to her mind, declaring that she ought to be the one in the coffin, not Tristan, as she was the one who’d wanted to leave the unhappy sham of a life they’d been living together.

She stared at the wall for a moment, trying to figure out where that kind of nonsense had come from before banishing it from her head with a firm shake. His remaining alive so she could divorce him was what she’d wanted, as that way the acting would’ve all been over, she still wanted to be alive, she just wanted to be done with all the faking.

All That Remains: Day 4

Word Count: 24,034

Summary of Events:

Owing to his upset at having survived the crash, Will refused to eat his supper no matter how earnestly Enka pleaded with him, as well as refusing to eat his breakfast for the nurse the following morning, which prompted the nurse to inform him that he wouldn't be getting the nutrient drip removed from his hand if he wasn't going to eat, but he tried to take it out anyways, although he stopped when Enka told him an infection from his taking it out on his own would be a long, slow, lingering death. To avoid what she felt was the over-dramatic weeping of Tristan's mother and sister, Chloë was sitting in her office, not doing a whole lot of anything, when Tristan's sister knocked on the door, prompting Chloë to let her in…

Excerpt of the Day:

She sat down as if she’d been instructed to sit in a particular way for a shot to be taken for promoting the clothing she was wearing, which, even though all black, was still highly fashionable. Indeed, everything about her seemed to indicate that Amandine wasn’t actually in mourning for her brother, but had simply chosen to wear an all-black outfit.

“Maman would like to know if she could have your permission to dress, Tristan for his… final… public appearance,” Amandine said, dabbing at her eyes with careful fingertips not only to undoubtedly keep her makeup from smudging — not that Chloë was sure why she bothered considering her more emotional response to the present circumstances — but also to keep from undoubtedly damaging her eyes with her long, manicured fingernails, which she’d gotten done in solid black before she and Elle had left France.

“I’ve always been better at taking photos than choosing outfits for people,” Chloë replied.

“So your answer is yes?” Amandine asked.

“Yes,” Chloë replied.

“Are you preparing photos to show at the funeral?” Amandine asked.

“I haven’t been, no,” Chloë replied. “Should I?”

“We’ll at least need a photo for the card,” Amandine replied. “Or maybe even two, and maybe a photo for display at the funeral too.”

Chloë nodded, her mind turning to her memories of Papi’s funeral.

“And since you are professional, you would have the best shots,” Amandine added.

Considering that she’d supplied the display photos of Papi, including the 55^th Anniversary photo up on the shelf to her left now that she was facing away from her desk, Chloë wasn’t surprised that she would be having to supply photos of Tristan. She probably had a good number of them.

“We will probably want to hire a different photographer to photograph the funeral, however,” Amandine said. “I doubt you would be inclined to take photos there.”

Chloë shook her head. She’d not taken any photos at Papi’s funeral, even if she had accepted some photos Rini had taken of the event, as she’d attended the funeral as a friend, but she didn’t have those photos on display.

“Do you think Rini would be willing?” Amandine asked.

“She’s going to be there anyways,” Chloë replied. “And she took photos at my grandfather’s funeral even though she wasn’t hired.”

Amandine nodded. “I will ask her. Merci Chloë.”

Chloë nodded and watched Amandine rise to her feet and stride out of the room like she was on a runway. That sort of confidence had always eluded Chloë. Even if being the wife of Tristan had given her more time in front of the camera lens, she’d not relished it, as she always felt like she looked awkward, no matter how hard she tried not to. Even photos of her taking photos didn’t come out looking nice, in her opinion.

Pronunciations:

Amandine: ahmahndeen

Maman: mahmoh

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

All That Remains: Day 2

Word Count: 12,018

Summary of Events:

Chloë did her best to enjoy the breakfast her mother made the next morning, as it was one of her favourite breakfasts. Later in the morning she was invited to join all the other family and friends of her husband's teammates, who were gathering at the home of one of the players and his wife to await any subsequent news together. In the late afternoon, a trio of police officers arrived and sorted the family and friends into three groups, one small group, and two larger groups. Chloë was a member of the second-largest group, who were instructed to seat themselves according to the players they were family to or friends of…

Excerpt of the Day:

All the other people settled themselves into groups, and once they were all seated — by which time the other two groups had left the room — the officer surveyed them.

As he did, Chloë noticed that his eyes seemed to be glassy, and his jaw seemed to be trembling. Not good signs.

“It is my duty,” he said after a long moment, his voice wavering with emotion. “But it is by no means my pleasure, to carry out the task… of informing you that… by every means of identification possible…” He read off the names again, in the same alphabetical order by surname that he’d read them the first time. “…have been determined to be deceased.”

Keening wails and sobs immediately erupted from a good deal of the group, with Elle seeming to be the loudest of them all, but Chloë wondered if that wasn’t partly because of the fact that Elle was the one sitting closest to her.

Chloë herself, on the other hand, didn’t really know what to feel. She mostly felt numb. The theatrics would have to continue.

She felt Mamie’s hand close around her own and squeeze it tightly. She made herself look at Mamie, whose eyes were misty as she looked sympathetically in Chloë’s direction.

Squeezing Mamie’s hand in return, Chloë hoped everyone’s eyes were too misty to notice that hers weren’t misty at all. She didn’t feel like a widow, despite the fact that she technically was. The life she’d been living with Tristan over the last three years hadn’t been the life of a married couple. It’d been far more like they were actors in a film playing the roles of man and wife for the unsuspecting audience around them.

None of the people around her — not even Mama and Mamie — had any clue what life had been like for her of late, and they, as much as anyone else, would be expecting her to play the part of the widow they all believed she was.

She startled slightly at a touch to the opposite side of her and saw Papa misty-eyed beside her. She shifted over so he could sit down and leaned against him as he embraced her gently.

Turmoil stirred within her as she listened to everyone else mourning the losses of those about whom they’d cared so much. She couldn’t pretend to weep. What she had been dreading had happened, and now she was left to keep up the act alone.

“Officer,” the emotion-strained voice of a man Chloë supposed was father or father-in-law to one of the other deceased players said. “What news is being given to the other two groups?”

“The larger of the two groups is being informed that their loved ones are in critical condition and there is the chance that they could die as well,” the officer replied. “And the smaller group is being informed that their loved ones are in stable condition and will likely be transferred to a local hospital in the next few days or weeks.”

Pronunciation:

Mamie: mahmee (French for Grandma)

All That Remains: Day 1

Word Count: 6,013

Summary of Events:

Will boarded the charter plane to fly back to Brussels from Frankfurt and deliberately sat off on his own to stew in self-castigation for his personal error that had allowed Eintracht to score the goal that had made the score 3–1 in Eintracht's favour, and had allowed them to take the victory 3–2 in total goals. As the plane was accelerating down the runway to take off, he heard teammates crying out in alarm that a plane was coming at them on the runway and got up from his seat to make for an emergency exit when he was knocked unconscious. Chloë returned home from a hair appointment to find a police officer at her front door, who informed her that Anderlecht had been in a crash at the Frankfurt Airport. Since she'd accidentally left her phone at home, she checked through all the messages and other notifications that had come to her as a result, including a video one of her friends on social media had found…

Excerpt of the Day:

She tapped on the video, scrolled it back to the beginning, and paused it to take in the scene. The person was filming an aircraft on the runway which was very clearly emblazoned with the livery of the Belgian-based airline which Anderlecht always chartered when they needed to fly somewhere — in part because the airline were an official sponsor of the team.

In the background, there was another, larger aircraft which was rather close to the runway, but because it was perpendicular to the Belgian craft, she couldn’t see any livery markings whatsoever.

Allowing the video to play caused her phone to spout a cacophony of noise, which was mostly the sound of alarmed and anxious human voices, none of which seemed to be speaking a language that she knew even a small bit of.

One voice, clear and calm, came over the rest, but it wasn’t a language she understood any more than the others. She presumed the voice to belong to the person filming the video, who almost sounded like a news reporter, albeit for a foreign country.

The footage showed the Belgian craft heading down the runway at an increasing speed as the larger craft headed straight for its forward end with equal speed. Suddenly the Belgian craft turned toward the assembled group — although they were too far away to be in any mortal danger for some time — and lifted sharply.

She thought she saw sparks come from the tail of the Belgian plane before it dropped back to the runway with the larger craft looking too close to not be touching it, at which point she noticed the Belgian craft seemed to be tilting, as its wing she could see was getting closer and closer to the ground.

Suddenly the wing buckled and the craft tipped over enough that she could see the nose of the larger craft was completely ravaged by damage, while the forward fuselage of the Belgian craft was comparably ravaged, which caused an increased outcry among those gathered with the videographer watching the scene unfold.

The video didn’t last long after that, for which Chloë was grateful, as she felt sickened by what she’d seen, even if she’d not understood a word of the commentary which had been offered by the person filming the video, nor had she been able to pick out any familiar words in the cacophonous cries that had served as the background audio.

She left the video and checked the rest of her notifications numbly. Even if the incident hadn’t been quite what she’d expected, seeing as the closest thing to a fire had been when it looked like the tail of the Belgian craft had struck the ground and sent up a few sparks, it was still bad, and there was definitely the possibility that Tristan hadn’t merely been injured, but that he could well be dead.