"Maybe I should have been more forward with my positive feelings for him."
Amongst the raindrops, sirens and the zooming of vehicles could be heard in the distance. Faraway town was surrounded by trees, but they didn't nullify the sound of a highway nearly a mile away. Its small population were all waiting out the rain, so that aside, the place was tranquil. Aubrey stood in front of a garage, considering her words before daring to be visible through the window.
"Alright, I'm ready."
Three knocks on the door of the Kelsey and Henry household…
It was opened quickly by Kel's mom with a look of pleasant surprise. To not instil fear into anyone who made eye contact, Aubrey had avoided bringing her bat this time.
"You must be a friend of my boys!" she said, lightly bouncing Sally in her arms. The bright light coming from the inside was welcoming compared to the cold rain. "Do come on in, but leave your raincoat on the hanger."
The aforementioned boys were sat on the sofa, dazing at the TV. Only Hero acknowledged her presence, with an uncharacteristically apathetic wave. Aubrey knew he was trying his best to even do that. She silently sat down in the space between them.
There was a football game on the television screen. Nobody was paying any attention to it, clearly. To her knowledge, neither Kel nor Hero enjoyed the sport. It was impossible to know what was going through either of their minds right now, with their blank, listless faces. Were they mad?
She finally broke the silence. "Hey, look, um… I'm sorry. It affects all of us."
Neither of them even glanced at her.
"Has… Anyone talked to Sunny since?" she asked. No response. "I sent him… A bit of an upset message after he walked out… I'm worried he's returned to reclusiveness because of it."
"Don't you think you've caused enough problems?" Kel spoke up suddenly, getting up from the seat.
"You think we don't struggle as much as you do. You think I can just forget about Basil and be happy."
""Oh no, my Sunny who I love so much!" "Oh, I'm sorry for bullying Basil all these years, let's go back to good terms tomorrow! I'm sure Kel won't mind."" he continued, mocking her.
"Well, I-" Aubrey, flustered by the accusations, prepared to fight back verbally.
"That's enough!" Hero shouted. The room fell completely silent as everyone, including the parents in the kitchen, looked toward him. The last time Hero yelled like that was… During his bout of depression. When he shouted at Kel, after Mari had died.
Nobody knew what to say. The room was filled with anxiety for a minute or so, unspoken thoughts running wild in each of their heads.
Snapping out of her train of thought, Aubrey noticed flashing red and blue lights reflecting in the TV screen in front of them. And there was no way that this was a visual effect. They all looked behind themselves to, surely enough, see police cars outside the window.
"I'm going to check it out." Aubrey said responsibly, donning her pink rain gear once more and heading out the front door in the harsh downpour.
What a terrible Summer day.
Two police cars were parked on the road in front of Sunny's house. Standing in front of the house was an officer. The door to the house was open with the lights on inside.
She was about to walk past a car which was stopped between the two houses with its lights and engine on, when the officer inside rolled down the window to catch her attention.
"Better keep away kid. We're performing an investigation here right now" he said, disgruntled, before noticing an opportunity. "Say… If you're a local could we pick your brain for a second?"
Aubrey figured word must have gotten out to authorities about Mari, and maturely obliged.
The officer took a look at his notebook.
"Do you know about anything about the now-departed young lad who has been living alone in this house for the past week?"
It was a few seconds before the girl's brain interpreted the formally detailed sentence. Her body turned to stone in place, and her heart sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Her fists which were previously clenched in tension, relaxed like a doll. She felt sick to her stomach. No… She was going to be sick. Just the thought of Sunny's corpse was enough.
She ran back into the house, vomiting the little food she had recently eaten into the toilet.
…
Aubrey lay atop her bed, staring into the ceiling. After she told them what happened, Kel and Hero had simply asked her to go home after that and "get some rest."
She felt pretty apathetic about that. Nothing actually mattered, anyway.
Everything in her room faded to its bare essentials.
A picture of a friend. What was the point in friends when they all die anyway?
A drawer. It and its contents are just mass-produced combinations of atoms, destined to eventually degrade into garbage, and either live their remaining days in a tip polluting the Earth or be recycled into something new.
A bed. Its where people go to sleep, or sometimes to die.
Bun-bun. Pre-emptively, she felt bad for him.
"Nothing matters anymore. So it won't matter if I die." Aubrey said to herself. She entertained the idea that her neglectful mother would just leave her corpse to rot until authorities searched her out.
Perhaps, this is even how it felt to be her mother, every day. To have lost the one that she loved the most, just like her mom did. But to neglect your own child on top of yourself, to the point of leaving them to buy and cook their own food, only supplying them with the cash they earned from welfare?
Then Aubrey realized; perhaps it was like this because Aubrey was a disappointment of a child. Yes. It was obvious now to Aubrey that she was the piece of garbage that needed to be recycled, polluting the Earth and causing suffering to others.
Aubrey became NEUTRAL. Her hands shaking as if instinct to live were fighting back, she reached for her drawer… And pulled out a shiny, unused machete.
She held it in the air with both hands, its sharp tip pointing toward her stomach. She struggled to hold still all over, squirming uncontrollably as her body tried to move away from danger.
The girl yelled out as she used all her willpower to push the blade toward her stomach, gradually slicing into the skin. Unable to hold back the reaction, she screamed out in pain and flung the tool before going too deep, causing it to lodge itself in the floorboard next to her.
...
Exhausted from the blood she was losing from the open wound in her abdomen, the girl slowly fell unconscious on her bed, coughing and breathing heavily.
Aubrey looked around at her surroundings. She found herself in a familiar flower field.
Recalling her last time in this place, she turned around 180 degrees. A figure, dressed in entirely monochromatic clothing, could be seen walking away in the distance. She ran to follow, and as she did, everything became devoid of colour, until it was completely white.
The mist cleared up, revealing a memory. A lone, young girl, black hair and a bow, sat on the kerb at the edge of a road, missing one pink little shoe. She was crying loudly, her hands rubbing her eyes.
Just then, a boy with short, plain black hair appears from the inner corner of the street and stares at her. He turns his head curiously.
She reciprocates the look, sparkles of hope in her eyes. "Wh… Why are you crying?" he asks in a soft, quiet voice. As if he hadn't spoken in a while.
"Sunny, is something over there?" a louder voice calls from the direction the boy came from. Another boy, with brown and somewhat longer hair, joins his friend. They hastily approach the young girl, followed by two significantly taller and older children, and sit next to her.
"Hey there, what's wrong?" the older girl asked, while the first boy stares interestedly.
"M-my mom…" the pink-adorned girl responded. "She won't let me back in the house… After I bought these flower seeds for her… And um… My shoe… Uwee…"
The older girl opened her mouth wide in a funny shocked face, and then smiled. "Don't worry!" she said. "We'll help you find your shoe. Perhaps your mom just needs some time to herself!"
"Yeah, in the meanwhile you can play with us!" said the boy with the longer hair.
The boy with the black hair nodded in agreement. He didn't talk much, but the young girl could always tell how he really felt, deep down.
The girl stopped crying and smiled, looking at each othem. When she smiled at the boy who noticed her, his face turned red. They had only just met, but she could tell how he felt about her already.
Yes… If she just focused, deep down she could tell how he really felt.
