Dollhouse
a Hello Neighbor: Hide and Seek story
Hands stiff and moving on autopilot, he picked up the shovel from the brick-walled back room and headed outdoors where a dreary, rain-promising sky and thick, chilled air, quiet and lifeless met him. He stole around the blue house with the hole in the ceiling from the attic, the reason they'd bought the home for such a cheap price, but the hole in the roof was an "easy fix," said the peppy Realtor, "not a problem at all for the future."
He should have known better.
Like all families they weren't exempt from life's ups and downs, the four of them. Wife, Husband, Son and Daughter. He and his wife knew neither of them were perfect, but there was always room for mistakes and forgiveness. It was this attitude they raised their children with. They were committed, the four of them. Imperfect, but beautiful. There for each other. Always together.
And then the car crash, the hospital race and her dwindling life …
Then they were three.
As if dealing with the sudden death of his wife wasn't enough … A death in any family was never smooth sailing, emotionally especially. He never suspected he would be the victim of losing his beloved too soon, of having to cope with the sudden, screaming emptiness she had left behind in the land of the living. The weight consumed him, and perhaps that's where it all truly went wrong.
He'd somehow made it through telling their son and daughter, their bright ten year old twins, that their mother wasn't coming back home. After that, the fog settled in. He roamed from the living room to the bedroom, the kitchen once or twice if only to make sure to get a meal ready for the kids. They were still very new to the neighborhood, and with no relatives to lean on, he was left to see that they still had food in the house. Lost in his own grief, he failed to give proper attention to how his children were weathering the storm as well.
His wife would have known what to do. When they first moved in he had listened to his wife's idea and had a dollhouse made for their daughter. A mini version of the building they would forever call home to help the little girl adjust to living in a new place. He recalled making sure that the fine details were as close to the real thing as possible. He'd chosen the color of the roof to match the actual tiles of their house. They'd done something similar in the past by fashioning a doll that looked like her mother when she had trouble sleeping.
Playtime was encouraged in their children. Hide and seek was a favorite.
The kids would play that game while pretending to be somewhere else, or make believe creatures. The stairs would become a steep mountainside and one of them would collect and save goats while the other pretended to be a snow yeti; the kitchen would be a farm and there was a cowgirl and a cow rustler involved … Many a dinnertime often included a detailed summary of the adventures in their imagination.
He shut his eyes. Perhaps he should have seen it coming …
He plunged the head of the shovel into the ground, thankful there was a privacy fence keeping the rest of the world out and unable to see the tears fall from his face. He dug with tense precision, prolonging the amount of time it would take for the hole to be deep enough and he would have to face the inevitable.
Earlier, when he heard the thump outside his bedroom, somehow he knew in his heart one of his children had fallen.
His son was shocked silent when he climbed out onto the roof to retrieve him. Only when they had made it back into the kid's room did the words spill from his mouth.
"Dad, I … I pushed her. It was an accident, I … I pushed her-!"
Pushed her away from him, but not meant to be pushed off the roof.
It was in that moment he realized grief was not at all what they projected in the movies. Grief was a snake, a destroyer. While he had been lost in his grief over losing his wife, his son's grief over his mother turned the boy to aggression. His son made a foolish decision when he took their playtime to the roof. That decision led to a mistake that could have, should have been avoided.
He knew his son didn't want to push his sister to her death. It was an accident, but the worse kind imaginable.
They were now two.
He stepped back and viewed the mound he'd created in his backyard. One that screamed wrong, this is all wrong, but he had no choice. If the truth got out, despite the fact it was all one big, broken mistake mixed with child's play … he could lose his son.
He stooped on his way back inside and picked up his daughter's doll. The one that stared up at him with his wife's dress and smile.
When he pushed open the door to the kid's room, his son was curled up on the floor between the bunk bed and his sister's dollhouse, sobbing into knobby knees and almost hyperventilating. When his son began to scream he was on his knees beside him, holding him close as if he were still a baby. They stayed that way until the boy's energy ran out.
As his eyes rested on the dollhouse that once promised a bright future, The Neighbor knew it was up to him to protect what remained of his family.
Author's Note: With the release of Hello Neighbor: Hide and Seek revealing the tragic back story to the main game, I was inspired by those angsty crows to write this oneshot focusing on what The Neighbor must have felt as he was forced to process the death and burial of his daughter. The game really gives a punch-in-the-gut of feels when we see exactly what happened to The Neighbor and his family.
So there's your dose of angst for the day. Reviews are appreciated. :)