Chapter 4

I went back into the house, went upstairs to my parents' room and decided to look around to grab some family photos from our scrapbook. I did the same for Alice's room. Afterwards, I went back to my old room and collected the movies that I had, along with collection of movies that my parents bought and collected as well downstairs. I even brought my portable DVD player from my room. I didn't even had enough time to grab books, but instead I grabbed "The Family" Bible from the bookshelf. A step of crack was a recent family photo, where we're at Dover Beach. Removing the cracks and than the frame, I held onto the photo as I sat down on the couch.

Hazel and the Owsla came into the house from the front door and entered the living room.

"Well... I guess they're dead." I accepted reality.

Hazel had the Owsla to head back to the warren, however Tyler decided to stay back. The rest left from exiting the backyard entrance. Hazel and Tyler hopped onto the couch.

"This is my fault."

"Don't said that." Tyler said. "You couldn't have known."

"I heard the shouts this morning, I could have be able to stop it." I remorse.

"Mason, you could have been killed too if you investigate the sounds yourself." Hazel said.

I looked down at the photo. "At least I could have said my final goodbye if I have gotten a chance."

"You visited them recently didn't you?" Tyler asked.

"I had. However, I'm started to think it wasn't enough." I answered.

"Don't talk like that." Hazel said.

"No, it's true."

"Don't do that! Don't you ever take your family for granted!" Hazel shouted.

I closed my eyes with tears and stood up. "I'm not, I'm accepting my own reality and ON HOW I COULD COPE!"

Tyler got jumpy that he went behind Hazel, while Hazel stood on guard as I was being aggressive.

I felt angry that my family was taken away from me and I just got angry like a 8 year old child. Taking a few breaths to control my angry, I than settled down and sat on the rubble of memories lying on the floor, they once were.

"I'm sorry." I shook my head.

"It's okay Mason, you were angry." Hazel accepted my apology. Tyler came out and forgave me too.

"I don't know how am I going to go through it now. Losing my family I love, and losing a home." I said.

Hazel hopped towards my side. "You're home. We took you in after deciding to stay as a rabbit."

"Also to say, you pretty much have embodied Watership Down, as a new home and I could say Hazel is like a father to you." Tyler added.

"You're right." I cleaned myself. "I could say he is. I also have others like brothers and sisters, and so on."

Hazel patted his paw on my hand. "You never lost your family to began with."

"You're right, I could hold memories what I had with them." My smile faded after looking at the photo.

"I think we should leave before, anybody else could come." Tyler suggested.

"Couldn't agree more." Hazel agreed.

My heart was broken that I'm leaving behind. "Let's go home."

After we headed back home, I transformed myself back into the rabbit and headed back into the warren. Everyone else was up moving about and I didn't even want to interact with anyone because my grief took hold. After settling with the things I brought into my burrow. I grabbed the family photos I managed to take and took them to a empty burrow that it's enclose. I started to placing some of my family photos on the ground standing by the wall. It took about five minutes to grab some of the family and make a burrow a shrine. For all I know, I won't be able to know a grave, except they would be autopsy. It reminded a scene from Monster's Ball that Leticia Musgrove when her son was killed in a hit and run. She mentioned that how the authorities would be able to solve a hit and run by doing autopsy. I could even say the same thing about my parents and my sister.

"Mason?" Rose was behind me by the burrow's entrance.

"I'm sorry that I left early." I apologized.

"You don't need to, Hazel told me what happened to your parents and your sister." she said. She than looked at the photos, now being sprinkled by dirt.

"That's your parents?" she said.

"Yes, but they're just photos of them." I said.

She looked at a photo. "Where's that at?"

I turned towards her and pointed the photo. "That's a photo of my family and I were in Bodega Bay."

"Where's that?" she asked.

"It's a small town and had beaches. We used to visit there when I was living in California, before I came here." I answered.

"The place looked beautiful." she added.

"It's really beautiful over there." I agreed.

Rose started to nuzzle me and than felt her embrace. "I'm really sorry."

"I started to miss them already." I felt tears coming down. "Only if they could see our children."

"I know they'll see them one day. I know. So as my mother and father." she said.

Rose's father stopped running from having a broken heart and he was growing old. I hardly know Sage, but he used to tell me how he was with Rose's mother, before Rose was born and of course before they lived in Cowslip's Warren.

"I'm sure your father is forgiven for sure." I added.

"He is. My mother was always forgiving." Rose remembered.

"My parents were too. My sister always gave me a hard time, but I learned to forgive her from my parents." I also remembered.

Rose left. I didn't know why she left, but I continued to gaze at the shrine I just made. Hazel came in and looked at my photos.

"You looked cute as a kitten." he said.

I saw the first family picture. "I was only baby, what humans called them, but it was the first family picture I was in." I said.

He continued to look at the shrine. "What is this burrow for?"

"I just wanted to build a small shrine, until I get over my grief. I could remove them when I'm fully over it." I offered.

"No, it looks suiting. You could always look back too." Hazel smiled.

I hugged him. "Thank you."

Rose came back with some shards of crystals. "I managed to find some at the caverns." She started to engrave the crystals into a image of a family.

Hazel and I looked at it. I was a engraving of my family that are "humans".

"You did with my mother back in Cowslip's, I'm giving back by engraving your family's image." she smiled. I started to smile, as I remembered.

Soon after, we had a family feast at the Honeycomb and as night falls, I decided to sleep by my family's only unofficial grave. With the smiling of the photos, I couldn't be able to sleep for a few hours. It was until I felt sleepy and looked at my phone was midnight. Surprisingly, I see unread messages from other surviving family members by text. I quickly scan through them and I didn't even leave a simple reply. I silenced my phone and had it locked, before I closed my eyes and hope tomorrow would be better day.