A rather dark oneshot I wrote a while back. Warnings for OOCness and implied character death.
Disclaimer: Harvest Moon is not mine. Got it? Good.
The ocean can be a cold and dangerous thing. Other times, it can be a warm and welcoming joy. But I believe that the ocean is nothing more than waves.
Waves can exhilarate and cause laughter and fun. Waves can crush and drown and destroy. But no matter what, they are still waves.
Life could be considered the same way. My father could be considered a warm character, welcoming to all and ready to cheer others up. But I… I know the truth or who my father really is. He is a murderer. But that doesn't stop him from being my father.
It's like the waves. Some people love them. Others are terrified of them. And some people could really care less either way, but realize that the waves are there.
People love my father. He's charismatic and bouncy and can make people smile. Some people don't really care for him, but he is our mayor, so they acknowledge him with a respectful distance. Only two people fear my father like thalassophobes fear the ocean. That would be me… and the person he killed.
My mother.
She was the mayor originally, you know. Not my father. She was the one who led this town to greatness in the era of the Goddess Tree. But then my father found out that if my mother were to die, he would take over, as I could not until I came of age. In Waffle Town, mayorship is like royalty, passed down to the oldest child in the mayor's family. If the child were to decline and there were no other available siblings, the job would go to an election. But my father knew that if my mother died and I was not yet old enough to assume my duties, he would be the one to take over.
He's been embezzling money. Every time someone ships or sells an item – every time someone makes a profit, really! – he demands a tax. Our tax rates are supposed to be 2%. He assures the victims that he can handle the transactions himself and takes almost 15% from their trusting monetary accounts at the Town Hall. Elli doesn't know that her salary is supposed to be almost triple what she is receiving. But no one finds out because everyone trusts my father and assumes that things are going correctly.
I found out about the embezzlement when I was thirteen. I remember the shock and horror of the discovery. At the time, I thought it was about the worst thing my father could have every possibly done. I didn't believe it of him, but the evidence (the transaction files that I had snuck into for the fun of it) stood right before my eyes.
But when I was fourteen, I found out something much worse.
I had thought that my father was paying his respects to my mother in the graveyard outside the church. I had walked up quietly behind him, not wanting to disturb him. He didn't notice me anyhow.
He was talking to the grave, addressing it by my mother's name. This in itself didn't surprise me, as I assumed that he was merely fooling himself into believing that he was conversing with my mother's spirit. I myself didn't believe in such things. My knowledge has always had a strong foundation in fact and reason. If it couldn't be proven, then it didn't exist.
My father, on the other hand, always seemed to be talking to himself, muttering away, addressing people that weren't there. Sometimes he talked to my mother, or his parents, or even Lucy, my older sister who had died as an infant. So the fact that he was talking to a grave really didn't surprise me.
What surprised me was that he was thanking it for going so quietly. I had wondered what he meant as I eavesdropped on his rambling, but as I lay in bed later that night, his statements began to work through my logical processes and I was drawn to a horrifying conclusion.
My father had killed my mother.
Over time, the evidence piled up further. It seemed that it had always been there, right in front of my eyes. It had just taken until now to realize what it meant.
It was times when I would pull out an old photo album and my father would mysteriously find more paperwork to do. Or like when I asked my father what exactly my mother died of and he turned pale and began muttering. I had assumed it was grief at the time. But it made sense now.
After about a year of steadily building evidence that made my conviction stronger and stronger that my father was indeed a killer, I celebrated my fifteenth birthday. It was on that day when I approached Irene at the clinic and asked if there had ever been an autopsy done on my mother's body. She had replied that there had not been; that my father had requested immediate burial. There was nothing to check anyhow, she had said. It was obvious that my mother had fallen down the stairs in the Town Hall at the wrong angle and had hit her head on the banister. No one had found her until it was too late to stop the bleeding.
But I knew better. My mother had always been a graceful woman. She had been a dancer and could probably walk down Gelato Mountain en pointe and not stumble once. If her death had even involved stairs, she would have been shoved down them – she certainly wouldn't have fallen of her own accord!
There was no way I could deny the truth. I heard my father once, in the wee hours of morning, talking to himself in his sleep. His mutterings were as good as a confession. It was him, had always been him.
But I was worried. My father's reign as mayor was only temporary until I was ready to assume the position once I turned eighteen. That still gave me almost three years. So why didn't I turn in my father, even after the evidence was irrefutable? Because it's like the waves. They can take lives and give others meaning. But they're still waves. My father made the townsfolk happy and hurt them behind their backs, stealing their money. But no matter what, he was still my father. That connection was undeniable.
And so life moved on. The day before my eighteenth birthday, I went to sleep in the evening and never woke up again.
It was like the waves. No matter what, he's still my father. No matter what, waves are waves. Life is just one big, vast ocean.
My name is Gill.