Aloe Vera Flowers - OMORI Oneshots

4. Cataclysm

Summary: The others wake up to screaming coming from Basil's bedroom.

Ships: N/A

Content warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, vomiting, in-depth descriptions of trauma and becoming traumatized

Genre: Angst

Notes: POV- I woke up today and decided that I wanted to make you uncomfortable :)

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    While Kel was always the first one to fall asleep, Hero was always the first one to wake up.

    When he found them, he couldn't do anything but stare.

    Kel and Aubrey weren't too far behind. Hero wasn't sure if it was Sunny's scream or Basil's that woke him up, or a horrifying clash of both. It must've been both.

    There was blood, god, there was blood, and Basil and Sunny were covered in bruises and scrapes and scratches, and Hero could barely comprehend it all, and it was only made worse as Aubrey pointed to a bloodied and decrepit eye on the floor.

    He heard Kel gasp as he saw Basil's garden shears beside his unconscious body, which had blood, Sunny's blood, on the ends of it. He heard Aubrey puke behind him, and he heard the sound of Polly's heavy echoing footsteps as she went to grab the phone. He heard the sound of his own heart beating in his chest, so loud and thrumming that it was physically painful, and he heard Kel's erratic breaths as he began to cry and yell at Aubrey.

    It felt like how it felt when they found Mari's body, the feeling of being a witness, the feeling of seeing things you shouldn't see. It was so vulgar and emptying, when your mind is barren and starving and exceptionally irrational all at once.

    He didn't even want to comprehend why it happened, but he wanted to at least know. What went wrong? What did Hero do?

    ...What did he do?

    Kel slapped him. Told him that they had to go, that he had checked their pulses and that they were both breathing. Hero is supposed to be the older brother. He's supposed to be there for them. Why can't he do anything right? Didn't he promise them? Didn't he promise all of them?

    The sirens of the ambulance woke up their whole neighborhood, and Hero didn't have to look out the window to know it. Nothing happened in Faraway Town. People will make the connection that it was the same people who found Mari's body four years ago, the same kids finding two more, and the same troubled, wrecked teenagers who keep hurting each other. They're going to know it was Hero's fault. First his girlfriend, and then he leaves, and because he left it's going to be two more corpses he's responsible for. He wasn't there for them. He wasn't there for any of them.

    He blurted out a laugh. Some hero, huh...

    Aubrey was looking at him, and must've yelled at him, questioning him. Questioning his laugh, and how loud he was probably being, he didn't know. He didn't know what time it was, or what clothes he was wearing, or where he was. Was he moving? Was he staying still?

All he was sure of was that he was never enough.   

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    It wasn't fair. It really wasn't.

    Why did stuff like this keep happening to them? Weren't things supposed to be better now? Didn't Kel help? Didn't Kel get the local shut-in to get out of his damned house?