Putting the Pieces Together PV Ellie and Mikey

For a moment, he just looked at the table. The Great Hall was still full of the sounds of shifting plates and conversation and chairs scraping against the floor, but it was all muffled again, like it had been pushed back a little from where they were sitting. “Yeah,” he said at last, his voice a little softer than usual.

He didn’t look at Ellie right away. Instead, he looked at Avery for a moment, like he was checking in without saying it out loud. And then he took a slow breath and leaned forward a little, his forearms bracing against the table. “It wasn’t...just one thing,” he said, searching for the right words and not really finding them. “It just, it happened fast. One second everything was normal, and then it wasn’t.”

He paused, his thumb rubbing absently against the back of Avery’s hand. “Explosions,” he said quietly. “People running everywhere. The floor just...gave way.” His eyes seemed to go elsewhere for a second, like he was seeing it again whether he wanted to or not. “I remember trying to keep track of where everyone was,” he said quietly, his voice still steady but a little softer now. “And realizing that I couldn’t. It was just too loud, too crowded. You couldn’t tell what was going on or where it was coming from.”

And then, a slight shaking of his head, as if he were trying to pull himself back. “Avery’s right,” he said, his eyes flicking to Ellie. “A lot of people didn’t walk away from it. Mikey shrugged. “You don’t really forget something like that.” He didn’t explain anything further. instead, he shifted slightly, and tried to think of something else to say.

“But,” he continued, his voice a little stronger, “that’s sort of the point of my not wanting to jump to conclusions. Because when something’s really wrong, you don’t have to think about it. You know.” His grip on Avery’s hand relaxed slightly, but didn’t let go. “And right now,” he glanced between the two of them, “we don’t really know anything. We just… know that something’s weird, right.”