Chapter 11: nostalgia

I wonder how much time has passed. I've been in this graveyard of a house for quite a long time now. My senses have grown accustomed to the bloody hell hole but it's still just as disgusting. I had put mister's body back with the pile of dead bodies. I simply figured it would be better if no one saw me close to him. He seemed somewhat of a rebel, and I now possessed a secret letter. So it's better if I stay away, make sure no one gets suspicious of me...But I already messed that part up, didn't I? I'm pretty sure no other slave has caused as much trouble as I have. But oh well. What's done is done, there is no use fretting over it now.

I was about to fall back into unconsciousness when the gates opened and two men in black entered. They looked at me. One of them knelt on the ground and said, "You've got it easy, slave! We should have killed you, not once but twice. You are lucky we ran into Velaris that night and not Maurin. Now...we will be keeping a very close eye on you, so you try anything funny and the next thing awaiting you will be death. And this time you won't escape it."

They then pick me up by my arms and drag me out. The sun hits my face, I squint my eyes as I lose my vision for a second. The men drag me to the old shack and throw me inside and shut the door.

"Well, I'm home~"—I say playfully but there is no one to answer me or welcome me back—which just makes it look like staying at claret made me go crazy since I'm now talking to myself. I guess everyone's out doing their work, huh. I crawl to my place by the window and lay against the piles of boxes and old furniture—like another ruined and broken artifact myself. This feels good, I wonder have I started to feel at home among ruined and messed up surroundings?

I'm actually kind of relieved no one's here. I'm too exhausted to explain anything and I don't know how to face anyone either. I wonder, did they miss me? or would they have preferred if I'd never return at all?

I push aside these haunting thoughts and let exhaustion take a toll on me. I drift off to sleep slowly but surely. My frame of vision turns dark, then it spreads and my eyes shut, putting me to sleep. The sleep after a rough day simply hits different and I love it. It's like being sung a lullaby by exhaustion while being cradled in the loving arms of sleep—feels like home.

I wake up to the noisy sounds of people arguing. "lemme sleep...mmm" I say half asleep, tossing and turning. For a moment I had forgotten my situation and then when I remembered again, I slowly opened my eyes and the first person in my frame of vision was Vivi. She's crying...why is she crying? I jolt awake, confused. Everyone's here now, it seems like night is upon us.

Vivi grabs me by the shoulder, "Ray!", and wraps her arms around me tightly, "Where've you been? We were worried sick!" she whimpers through tear filled words.

Well...I wasn't expecting this reaction and not from Vivi. Although I knew she always cried easily despite her nasty attitude. She was always the kind of person who wouldn't sugarcoat her words and would often come out as rude or heartless but her close friends (including me) knew she had a soft spot inside for her beloved people. But I didn't think I still belonged among those people. And then Liz comes and hugs the both of us. And when they let go, Vivi has finally stopped crying and wipes her face with her sleeves. Now everyone's staring at me and I don't know what to say.

"umm...hi?" I say, awkwardly.

There is this very awkward silence which only lasts for a brief second and then,

"Hi? HI??? YOU'VE BEEN MISSING FOR TWO WHOLE DAYS AND TWO NIGHTS AND THAT'S WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY TO US? HI?" Vivi snaps at me, she's angry but the concerned kind of angry. I simply smile back awkwardly, pressing my dry lips together.

"We thought you died, Ray!!! Where the hell have you been?" Vivi is rambling on and on. I feel bad for making everyone worry like that but a warm and fuzzy feeling settles in my chest, my friends are worried about me! Even Vivi!— I can't help but feel slightly happy about it. I guess they don't hate me as much as I thought.

"Wait...I've been missing for two days and two nights????" I ask back, shocked.

"Yes! You have! Welcome back to earth, Ray. Took you a bit too long to realize that." Jay says with sarcasm in his tone.

"Ohhhh, no wonder I'm feeling so weak...hey! Would you happen to have some water and something to eat?" I ask.

"Have you not had anything to eat for two whole days????" Nox asks me in his loud and surprised voice.

"Yea, I haven't." I casually tell them.

"Alright, first things first." Liz comes close to me. "Are you hurt anywhere? Are you in pain?" she asks me, clearly concerned.

"No, I'm not. I'm just extremely dehydrated and weak. That's all." I tell her, confused and my exhaustion clearly obvious in my tone.

"Ray...if you are hurt, in any way, you need to tell us..." Vivi says with a very serious tone. "Please don't hide anything from us....I know I've been a terrible person but…" she pauses and then speaks again, "I don't want anything to happen to you..." Vivi has a very sad expression on her face as she says that. "What did they do to you, Ray?"

I notice how everyone is staring at me with seriously concerned and worried expressions and it just hit me, oh right! my clothes, they are covered in dirt and blood. Anyone would think I just came back from the battlefield or something.

"Oh! But I'm really not injured or hurt—well not physically hurt at least.... I can explain..." I jumble on my words. "And don't worry about this blood, it's not even mine." I may have smiled while saying this last line, which I only did because I didn't know how else to reassure them that I was alright. And God! I really need to stop smiling in the most serious of situations.

"IS THAT SUPPOSED TO REASSURE US?" Jay snaps. "What the hell happened???" He's pissed and worried. He was the older sibling but he was usually quite easygoing and he barely got angry but when he did, it was serious.

"Calm down, Jay! Give her some time. Let her rest first. We will hear everything from her soon." Liz tries to calm Jay down.

They give me a glass of water along with some bread. After I was done eating. I told them all that happened—from me sneaking out to bury Eve to being taken to Claret—that bloody hellhole. But I skipped the part where I met mister and the secret letter he gave me. I thought it wouldn't be wise to reveal that.

"Ray! You shouldn't have done that!" Jay refers to me sneaking out and breaking the rules (to bury Eve but he doesn't mention it directly). "You could have literally been killed." I lower my head not knowing what to say to that.

And then I try to lighten the mood, at which I fail miserably. "But all's well that ends well, right!" I smiled stupidly at Jay and I remembered a bit too late, 'Oops, I wasn't supposed to smile in serious situations.'

"NO SIS NO! IT DID NOT END WELL! DO U SERIOUSLY NOT SEE YOUR OWN STATE RIGHT NOW?! STOP WITH THE STUPID OPTIMISM, PLEASE!" Jay's had enough of my stupidity it seems and is now yelling and scolding me with a voice that sounds like it's going to break anytime. "Ray…we lost Eve…I can't lose you…" his voice dims, bringing tears to my eyes.

"He's right, Ray. Please don't do anything so reckless again." Vivi slips in softly and hesitantly. "We seriously don't want to lose you too..." her voice becoming dim towards the end. And I feel guilty all over again.

"Yea, sorry..." is all I manage to say.

"Well then how about we talk about something else now?" Liz says after a few moments of silence. She had always been perceptive and calm. The neutral kind of person. I like that about her and I'm so glad she came and swerved the conversation elsewhere. "Ray, you will need to change right. You can wear the clothes I had on when we came here (because the ones I had on the day we got here were also covered in blood—Eve's blood). That's the only other clothing we have."

"yea, thanks." I say, getting on my feet. Everyone else now goes back to rest (on the floor, the way we slept on our first night in this shack). Liz hands me the clothes—a retro style beige and black coloured patch sweatshirt and loose black trousers, they are so warm and comfortable, Liz's dressing style has always consisted of comfy clothing, it's lovely— I take a shower in the attached bathroom by the far end of this house. It's even more dirty and ruined than the rest of the house! There is no light (only the lamp I lit last time and another one the guys found later), the walls are muddy and moldy, the taps barely hanging on. But at least they work enough to be able to shower. I try to take a quick shower but still take quite some time to clean the blood and dirt off myself and no matter how much I clean myself, I never feel clean enough. The water's freezing and the weather was cold already but I had to bear it anyway. I watched the water drain at the corner of the floor and for a second it seemed like blood—blood flowing in red rivers. I jolt, breathing heavily, almost panicked and when I blink again, it's just water.

After taking a shower I go over to Vivi and Liz wondering if I should sit with them tonight…before I can say anything, Liz says, "Come, sit, Ray." And I'm kinda relieved I didn't have to start the conversation. I glance at Liz, then Vivi and then quietly sit beside them. I notice how Vivi isn't paying much attention to me anymore. We sit in silence for a few minutes and I think to myself, I simply should have sat by the window. "Let's lay down. We've had a rough day." Liz breaks the silence, rescuing us from the madding awkwardness.

We lay on two cushions, placed side by side so that the three of us could lay on it, me in-between Liz and Vivi. Now that it's night time—the only time we have where we can relax, lay our guards down—I notice the house seems in a better state than it did when we first came here. The furniture, debris and other broken and old stuff was pushed aside, making more space in the room. We even had some cushions!

"Where'd you get these cushions from?" I asked.

"We found them in this house when we tried cleaning up a bit to make it more habitable. We also found some other stuff we could make good use of, like some old cushions, a very old, dirty carpet and the furniture, old, dusty and torn but I'm sure we could all do this up nicely." Liz explains and I notice how we were all now accepting that we were gonna stay here—for God knows how long, and that it would be better if we accepted it and at least fixed the house up to feel a little better about it. But it still fills me with despair. I can feel my heart sink in my chest. I don't want to stay here and neither does anyone else, that's for sure.

"I see." Is all I say. And then after much hesitation I say, "hey viv…could you perhaps…sing something for me?" She quickly looks at me, alert.

"I thought you'd never call that way again or ask me to sing for you." she says.

Oh, she's referring to me calling her Viv, that was her nickname. Her name was already short enough, so she didn't have a nickname but at some point I started calling her Viv instead of 'Vivi'. I had this habit of giving nicknames to people I was close with. And they had grown quite attached to the nicknames I gave them. Nicknames were a sign of affection to me. It was the same with Eve. Her actual name was 'Evelyn' but she wasn't exactly fond of it. She said it sounded too serious or mature, and that it didn't match her personality since she was the childlike, bubbly kind of person. So I began calling her Eve, and at some point everyone was calling her Eve. In high school, no one even knew that her actual name wasn't even Eve. And she loved that.

"Why not?" I asked her even though I knew why she said that.

"I thought you'd be mad at me and rightly so." She says.

"I could never stay mad at you. You weren't wrong, Viv." (About me being a murderer, but I didn't say that out loud.)

"What would you like to hear?" She asks me. She means what song. Viv was the singer among our group and we loved listening to her sing. She usually sang solo and without any musical instruments. Her voice was enough music. It was angelic.

"Something nice and calm, I guess." I told her.

She sang one of our favourite songs. There was this part which always stuck in my mind.

"But life goes on, people move on and memories fade~

But the heart is stubborn, it refuses to let go~

And so I hope, that you will spare me a thought once in a while—and if you're feeling generous, perhaps we could meet again and have some tea, in the backyard of my house~"

Vivi's voice was beautiful. Everyone was alertly listening to her. She usually sounds rude and rough but when she sang, she was absolutely dreamy! Her songs were simple and relatable, thus everyone enjoyed them. Everyone loved listening to her. This song she just sang, named, "in the backyard of my house" she actually wrote it for her friends—us. It was Eve's favorite…And now here we are…