4 Falling Down: Innocence Lost

And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him?

And he said: aren't we all a little mad?

Neon John 10:20 (Unified Standard Edition)

- - -

Hitomi was in a daze.

She stumbled out of the cupcake cafe, clutching her slim leather laptop bag to her side, shuffling unsteadily towards the intersection's crosswalk.

A white four-door sedan rocketed through a red stoplight, veering for a second back and forth over the double yellow lines in road before slamming into corner of the building opposite of Hitomi.

CRASH.

Bricks and masonry went flying a broken-sounding blaring burst from the car's crushed hood.

She stared at the wreckage, slack jawed. The expensive looking sedan's front end was crumpled like a soda can. Debris and glass were scattered around the scene.

Hitomi wasn't the only witness, but the others around her still seemed even more out of it than her, no doubt still caught up in the terrifying words of the "angel." The streets and sidewalks were littered with people still on their knees or laying prostrate. Only a few were struggling to get back up.

A homeless man nearby was curled as far as he could possibly be into the refuge of a large half-torn-away cardboard box, his hands over his ears, swaying back and forth singing to himself.

The noise around her was growing.

There were distant sirens and more crashes. More glass breaking.

Shouts. Yells.

She saw smoke.

Oh no!

A coil of black smoke was starting to spill out from under the wrecked car's hood, fanning upwards with small licks of flame.

Hitomi was by no means a brave girl, but no one was doing anything. Why wasn't anyone DOING anything?

She checked both ways, worried about another runaway vehicle, and then ran across the street and circled the car, checking the driver's side window.

She blanched. The driver, a young woman with long blond hair, was lying in the white, powdery remains of a deflated airbag, her neck bent at an unnatural angle. It was lolling eerily, held up only by the angle of the seatbelt.

Hitomi moved to the back of the car and put her hands together to block out the sunlight and peer through the window, trying to see past the reflective surface.

But she didn't need to see to hear the cry of a baby - it had started wailing from a car seat she could barely make out in the backseat thanks to the haze of smoke.

She tried the door latch, but the car was locked and the side windows were intact.

Hitomi turned around.

"HELP ME! There's a baby! Inside!"

Thankfully her desperate yell shocked someone else into action, and a young man, older than her, in his mid-twenties by the looks of him, dashed over. The young lady he was with was hastily trying to call 911.

The smoke wasn't just a haze anymore. Thick, dark, noxious fumes began billowing from the front of the car and she was starting to feel a strong heat from the growing blaze.

Fortunately, the paving below them was made of loose bricks, and the young man cleverly pulled one up from next to a small sapling that was planted at the corner.

SMASH!

The car's rear passenger window exploded into thousands of tiny shards. The baby screamed even louder.

Thank god for safety glass.

He started to put the brick down but Hitomi grabbed his wrist and pointed at the front of the car.

"No! I'll get the baby; you get the driver!"

"OK!" It was the first word he had said the entire time.

Hitomi reached through the broken window, thankful for her long sleeves. She didn't have the presence of mind to think of unlocking the door. The baby was within reach and the flames were growing. She started undoing the car seat's safety belt.

She heard another crash of shattering glass and a door was being wrenched open. Good, the guy was saving the driver.

Hitomi knew the driver was dead, but she pushed it down. No one deserved to be burned up in a car accident, even if... no, she had to concentrate! Save the baby!

The baby's car seat was installed in reverse, which was why it had survived the violent crash.

Argh! American car seats were so stupid! They had an extra clicky-click thing in the middle of the chest that the Japanese ones didn't. She finally got enough leverage to reach inside and pinch it open, and she grabbed the baby from under an armpit and pulled it around and towards her.

Free!

Oh, oh thank god. She could breathe again. The smoke was cloying and awful.

Hitomi backed away from the car whose entire front was now engulfed in flames. The heat was incredible, she wouldn't have believed a car fire could rage with such heat, and she stepped further and further back, watching the man drag the driver's body away from the inferno and down the sidewalk a ways.

The man bent down to check the driver's pulse, then stood back up, shaking his head.

Hitomi had already known the poor woman was dead, but somehow it became more real.

She shook, tearing up a bit, rocking the baby in her arms unthinkingly.

The young man walked back over to the girl he was with and she pointed at her phone and said something Hitomi couldn't hear.

"Oh my, let me hold that for you dear," a voice behind her said, and she turned around.

A matronly looking woman wearing a floral dress and those lulu-something leggings was holding out her arms expectantly. She seemed far calmer than Hitomi, whose heart was pounding. She was on the verge of a freak out and the baby's piercing cries weren't helping.

Oh, right, the baby. The woman wanted to help.

"Ah, ah, OK." Hitomi said dully, letting the woman take the baby away from her.

Hitomi reached into her bag and fished out her own phone to call 911, just in case the other girl hadn't.

You were supposed to call 911 in an emergency.

The emergency dial came up and she hit the Call button.

*Dooooooooooooooo*

It was just a flat tone - a busy signal. There wasn't even a voice or error message.

She tried again.

*Dooooooooooooooo*

"I think the emergency lines are down!" someone called out to her. Oh, it was the girl who was with the guy who had helped her.

Hitomi's phone suddenly lit up with a picture of her friend.

"Minako Kirihara"

The picture was a cute one of her and Minako, with Minako making a V-sign while Hitomi stuck out her tongue playfully. Totally the stereotypical thing two Japanese girlfriends did when they took a picture - it was, as Minako would say, "super-meta."

She awkwardly thumbed the slide that accepted the call, still dazed by what she'd done.

"Hey! Hitomi! Hitomi! You there!?"

She breathed out softly and pulled the phone to her ear, tucking a hand under armpit nervously to help steady the arm with the phone as she caught her breath.

"Y-yeah, hey Minako -"

"HITOMI! OH MY GOD! Are you OK? Are you still in the city?"

"Yeah, I am - I was just going, um, going to get cupcakes when - when IT happened."

Her voice trailed off but Minako took up the slack.

"Oh my god I know right I was with Yumi and Sarah in the pool. We. Almost. Drowned. Oh my god."

Wow. Minako was pure stream of consciousness, she didn't even let Hitomi talk.

"And then Sarah and her mom were freaking out when we heard the Voice and I don't even know what's going on and we're all inside the house now and everyone is just watching the news trying to figure it out and," she paused to breathe, "Wait, where are you again? Cupcakes? In Georgetown?"

"Um, yeah, oh, I-I mean I didn't get the cupcakes..." Stupid. That was a stupid thing to say, Hitomi!

She got a hold of herself. "I mean there was a car crash! Oh geez, Minako - I had to pull a baby out of a burning car, it was terrible! I'm still shaking!"

She heard a loud "Whaaaa - !" on the other end. "Was the baby OK, Hitomi!? What happened to the driver?"

She nodded with the phone to her ear, "Y-yeah, the baby made it, but her mother, oh - I-I t-think she's probably - but the baby -"

Hitomi turned around to put her eyes back on the kind, middle-aged chubby lady who had taken the baby from her.

"Baby needs his mama," the woman cooed, holding it closer to her ample chest, "Baby's mama is in heaven, yes that's right, mama is in heaven." The large woman was looking over at the sidewalk at the poor, deceased driver's body.

The phone slowly came away from Hitomi's ear.

The girl across from Hitomi nudged her boyfriend: "Uh. Honey? The lady with the baby - that's - look at her, she doesn't look right. Say something to her."

He turned away from watching the fire and saw what she meant, his brow furrowed and he stepped toward the woman who was holding the baby a little too tightly, still cooing and aww'ing in a disturbing sing-song.

Hitomi could barely hear Minako on the other said of the phone, "Hitomi?"

The guy took a step towards the woman while Hitomi watched, dumbfounded. "Um, hey, lady, the cops are coming, are you alright? Can I help with the baby?"

The woman jerked around, staring at him wild-eyed.

"NO!"

She pushed the baby in front of herself like a shield, holding it outwards as it started crying again, its head lolled to the side, its neck unsupported.

Hitomi dropped her phone.

"Oh shit," the man said, stepping back, while his girlfriend clutched onto his arm with a gasp.

"Miss, Miss, please stop," Hitomi begged in her best, most humble English. She splayed out her hands beseechingly, hoping the woman wouldn't think she was a threat.

Why was she doing this?

The woman's head was on a swivel. She looked left, then right, then left. Her eyes were desperate but glinted with dark resolution.

"PLEASE!" Hitomi begged again.

"PLEASE! Don't hurt it!" She was the closest person, but still too many steps away.

There were more people circling around them, but everyone except Hitomi had kept their distance, worried they would make the wrong move and trigger the mind-broken woman holding the baby hostage into doing something rash.

Behind them the car continued to burn, letting out a rushing sound - whoosh - the flames crawled through the backseat.

"No, you don't understand! I have to do this!" the madwoman cried out.

Do what? DO WHAT?

She lifted the baby above her, holding it up roughly with thick, outstretched arms. But the woman was staring squarely down at the asphalt - gathering her courage.

A police officer pushed past the edge of the crowd. There were sirens blaring, drowning out the sound of the car horn and the flames.

"Put the baby down!" the cop yelled. He was trying to pull out something on his left hip, a gun? No, a taser. "I said put it down! Put it down NOW! Slowly!"

The lady was smiling vacantly, her eyes had glazed over, and she shook her head in denial: "No, no. Don't you see?"

SEE WHAT? Hitomi wanted to scream.

The baby was crying, the taser was pointed at the woman's torso.

"Don't you see?! We have to send them all to heaven before it's too late! There's still time! Jesus loves the little children. He wouldn't take the soul of a baby! They're innocent!"

Oh no. No no no.

"His mama must've died before the Lord took away her soul! She made it! Don't you see!? Mama is in heaven and needs her baby!"

People were yelling at her that it wasn't true - that it didn't matter. They were horrified at the scene unfolding in front of them.

"I have to - I HAVE TO -" The woman was starting to hyperventilate, she kept rocking up on her tiptoes.

More people in the crowd were yelling at her to stop. Pleading and begging.

"This baby, this baby belongs in the Kingdom of God!"

She was going to do it!

Hitomi was only a few feet away, but she just wasn't close enough!

"WITH HER MAMA!!!"

The woman began swinging her arms down as hard as she could, her face clenched and tight with the effort - a rictus of righteous insanity - and the uproar from the crowd reached a crescendo.

The officer pulled the trigger on his taser and twin darts flew outwards, trailing thin cords come to life with electricity.

Hitomi wanted to do something!

Anything!

She closed her eyes.

PAIN.

Hitomi's chest was on fire, it felt like someone had slammed that brick they had broken into the car with right between her breasts. Her hands were around something. She opened her eyes.

She was laying on the ground on her back, her head tilted to her right side. There was blood just... everywhere. Oh god, oh god no.

It wasn't just blood. She could see broken pieces of flesh and small tufts of hair, pieces of thin bone fragments.

Oh god, oh god, the baby, oh god, DON'T LOOK HITOMI DON'T LOOK.

Her eyes swung upwards and she was looking at... herself?

Hitomi knew, for a fact, that she was on the ground, somehow. But Hitomi could see herself - another self - standing above her, a few feet away, eyes closed. That version of herself was frozen in fear with her hands clasped over her face as though to protect herself from seeing the ruined remains of the baby that had been smashed to the ground.

That Hitomi wasn't... her. That Hitomi was standing.

But Hitomi was on the ground.

The other Hitomi flickered, light an afterimage on TV. And then the other Hitomi was gone.

The blood around her, flickered, then disappeared.

The... "chunks"... flickered and disappeared.

The weight on her chest felt more solid than ever, and suddenly that same heavy weight started crying again.

The baby. It was alive? It hadn't been brutally killed by the crazy woman above her?

She saved it?

How!?

She turned her head to the left, trying to get up, and then she heard the sharp crack of electricity and a terrible scream.