It's November 1, which means after a whole year of waiting, CLAIREVEMBER HAS FINALLY RETURNED!
In case you're wondering, "What in the flying Frisbees is Clairevember?", I'll explain:
Clairevember is a month-long celebration of the Resident Evil character Claire Redfield. Each day of Clairevember has a prompt, which Claire fans use to create something for that day. It can cosplay, art, fics, whatever you like so long as Claire is featured. Think Inktober, but Claire-based.
If you'd like to participate, the prompts are listed at the end of this chapter. Happy Clairevember, Claire fans, and happy creating! -Akumu
CLAIREVEMBER 2024
Day 1 - love
"Hey, what's wrong?" Claire piped up. "You look mad about something."
Chris just shook his head, jammed his gloved fists deeper in his green snowcoat's pockets, kept his eyes on the tire tracks passing cars had stamped into the snow.
"Nothing," he said. "Watch out for that dark patch there. It's black ice."
He'd taken only a couple of steps before he realized Claire was no longer beside him. As he paused and turned, she shot past him – a streak of hooded red snowcoat, velcroed pink snow boots, and My Little Pony bookbag – and leapt over the black ice.
She whirled around, grinning so wide you could see all three gaps where her baby teeth had recently fallen out. The wind blew her hood back, and her bangs and ponytailed brown hair flapped free as leaves on a tree in the summertime.
"Did ya see what I did?" Her breath streamed in trains of white clouds. "Did ya?"
"I told you to watch out for the ice. Last thing I need right now is for Mom and Dad to jump my ass for something you did when I told you not to."
"You said the A word. I'm telling."
"Tell them then. While you're at it, call the president of the United States and tell him too. I don't care. I just want to get home where it's warm and I can go to my room and close the door and not have to deal with any stupid, annoying, little sisters."
Claire's blue eyes teemed with hurt, then anger flooded them, and with anger came tears.
"You take that back," she said.
"Whatever." He tugged her hood up. "And keep your hood on. The only thing worse than a stupid, annoying, little sister is a sick one."
As he turned to head home, a fat snowball smashed him in the back of the head, freezing his already cold ears. He found Claire squatting, fanning snow into a mountain.
"Cut it out!" he snapped.
She stood, gripping the snowy blob like a dodgeball.
"Take it back!" she said.
He started toward her. Grunting, she launched the ball. He dipped but too late; it caught him in the face, and he staggered. One boot landed on the black ice Claire had jumped over. He slid sideways and smacked the ground.
"Chris! Chris! Are you okay?" he heard Claire say.
He wanted to answer, tried to answer, but his head was pulsing with pain so bad he couldn't keep his thoughts straight. The best he could do was moan and hold his head. The place it had met with the ice throbbed like his heart.
Claire said something – she was going to go get something. He tried to tell her no, that he had to go with her, but she'd already taken off. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on forcing his thoughts together.
She went to get help.
He would have been mortified by the thought of someone seeing him, big, strong Chris Redifeld who was going to go out for football as soon as he got to high school, languishing on the ground like a worm on a summer-baked sidewalk, had his seven-year-old sister not just disappeared into an icy mess.
I have to find her.
He tried to sit up. Pain shot through his head. Shrugging out of his bookbag, he rolled onto his stomach. Slowly, he pushed himself onto his knees. His head pounded as though someone were beating it with a hammer.
Her boot tracks raced forward. He staggered after them, the slush soaking his gloves and biting his hands with freezing wetness. Bracing himself, he looked up long enough to see the barren driveways, the darkened windows.
Could this day get any shittier?
A quiet scraping pricked his ears. He made himself look up again.
In the distance, he saw a little red and pink figure making its way toward him, dragging something flat and orange.
Claire and our sled.
He would have laughed if the pain didn't threaten to split his head in two.
Suddenly, she broke into a run. When she reached him, she said, "I told you to wait while I went to get the sled."
He looked from the sled to his sister. "You can't move me in that. You aren't big enough."
"Yes, I am. Now get on."
He looked at the sled. Well, at least it's dry.
He climbed inside, laid down with his cold glove cradling his head before pain erupted in it again. Claire dragged his bookbag to the lip of the sled and flipped it inside. Then, grabbing the rope, she yanked hard on the sled.
It moved maybe a quarter of an inch. She yanked again. Again, it barely moved.
"I told you you aren't big enough," he said.
Digging her heels into the snow, she growled as she tried to wrench the sled forward. She slid forward and fell backward.
"Yes, I am!" she repeated as she hopped to her feet.
She ran to the back of the sled and started pushing it. Sighing, Chris closed his eyes. He reopened them a few minutes later when Claire stopped and he heard whimpering.
He looked up. Her face had ruddied with cold and tears.
"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked.
"I can't move it," she said, sniffling. "I am just a stupid, annoying, little sister."
"No, you're not. I'm sorry I said that. I've just been having a bad day is all."
"Was Sam Jennings mean to you?"
"How'd you know?"
"You always sit beside her on the bus. Today you didn't. You both didn't talk to anyone and looked mad even after you got off. So what did she do? Pull your hair? Rub mustard in your face?
"No, nothing like that. I got her something for Valentine's Day tomorrow, and when I went to give it to her, I caught her with this jerk Trent Collins."
"Oh. Was she being mean to him too?"
Chris snorted. "Anyway, that's what's got me all bent out of shape."
Claire wiped her nose. "Well, she sounds stupider than her brother Todd. Yesterday, he put a tack on my chair, but Cecilia saw and told me and Ms. Court. She gave him a red card and made him stay inside during recess."
She smiled, and he smiled back. "Good. He deserved it," he said.
Claire suddenly twisted around. She jumped to her feet and started waving her hands.
"Hey! Hey! Stop!" she yelled.
He moved enough to see the bright, boxed headlights of a familiar, brown Ford LTD headed right for them. Instinctively, he stretched out a hand to pull Claire out of the car's path. Then the Ford slowed to a stop before them, its black tires carving fresh ditches in the gray slush. The doors opened. It was the Higuerases from down the street: Michael and Cecilia, who usually rode the bus with him and Claire, and their mom Mrs. Higueras.
"Chris! Claire!" Mrs. Higueras called as she dashed around the hood. "What happened?"
"Chris fell on some ice," Claire said. She held up the sled cable, a look of shame clouding her chapped-pink face. "I tried to pull him home, but I can't."
"Oh, sweetheart," said Mrs. Higueras. "Girls, you both stay right there. Michael, help me get Chris in the back seat."
Mrs. Higueras, who Chris had always seen as one of those women who stand on chairs screaming their heads off if they saw even the teensiest mouse on the floor, grabbed his right arm while scrawny little Michael Higueras grabbed the other, and together they hauled him into the backseat. Mrs. Higueras had Michael stuff the sled and backpack in the hatch and then take the passenger's seat while she helped Cecilia and Claire situate themselves on the floor of the backseat.
Chris expected them to stop only a few seconds later, when he saw the snow-topped black shingles of his and Claire's house, but they kept going.
"Where're we headed?" he asked.
"The hospital," said Mrs. Higueras as she glanced in the rear view mirror. "You need someone to check you and make sure you're alright."
Chris sighed.
"The doctors'll make sure you're alright," said Claire as she grasped his arm.
He smiled and then closed his eyes so she wouldn't see him roll them.
When they reached the hospital, Mrs. Higueras checked him in and went to call Mom and Dad while he lay on a couch and Claire and the Higueras kids sat in the waiting room. He watched Mrs. Higueras sign a clipboarded form at the front desk, then after she'd taken a seat with them, a nurse came over to escort him to the examination room. With her help, he stood up.
"Wait!"
Claire rummaged through her My Little Pony bookbag until she pulled out a red-marked sheet of pink construction paper folded in half. She handed it to him.
"I made this for you today."
For My Big Brother Chris, said the red marks. Below them, a lop-sided heart filled the front cover of the paper – a card.
He slipped it inside his jacket, smiling. "Thanks."
She smiled back, the three missing teeth apparent again.
The nurse helped them through a couple of hallways to the examination room. There, she had him take off his jacket and shoes so she could measure and weigh him and take his blood pressure. Then, she left him alone, sitting in the chair beside the thinly papered, metal table.
The card lay upon his jacket on the table. He took the card and opened it. It read:
Happy Valentine's Day Chris!
You are the best big brother ever.
I love you!
Love,
Claire
A stick figure of himself stood beside a smaller figure of Claire. They were smiling and holding hands.
By the time he was diagnosed with a nasty concussion, Mom had arrived. Chris got a large ice pack and an order to take it easy for a few days. The Higuerases stayed long enough to make sure the Redfields didn't need any help getting Chris into Mom's pink Cadillac, and then they headed home themselves.
Dad's Wild Glide was already in the garage. When Mom opened the door that led into the kitchen, the scent of hot, greasy pepperoni pizza poured into the chilly garage like late summer night air. They ate and watched Raiders of the Lost Ark on HBO, and after they had showered and Claire had gone to bed, Chris dug the thing he'd gotten for Sam out of his bookbag.
The necklace pooled in his palm, glinted in the light of his desk lamp. Amid the silver chain lay the circular pendant on which an R was engraved. He'd tried to find an S or J but to no avail, so he'd hoped the R would suffice. It was, after all, his last initial, and she was – well, was supposed to be – his girlfriend.
Fuck her, and fuck Trent too.
He laid the card Claire had made him on the desk. Holding up the necklace by its clasp, he took another look at the R that flashed white as the pendant spun like a little girl dancing to a song from a Disney movie.
I'll give it to Claire for Valentine's Day tomorrow, he decided.
Gently, he set it atop the card, turned off the lamp, and went to bed.
Clairevember 2024 prompts
1. love
2. spade
3. 3D
4. remake
5. doll
6. bloody
7. Colorado
8. survivor
9. alley
10. cat
11. guilty
12. gold
13. road
14. baker
15. operation
16. Prometheus
17. chronicles
18. degeneration
19. Inez
20. burn
21. side
22. locket
23. revelations
24. rose
25. voodoo
26. feather
27. death
28. giving
29. infinite
30. September 30