if i die tomorrow - permanent hiatus

brave

TW: Hinted suicide, nothing graphic.

     "You must be braver than I am, my son."

     I stood at the front of the crowd, struggling not to scratch at the uncomfortable black fabric rubbing roughly against my skin. The people behind me were whispering amongst themselves, shifting restlessly underneath the relentlessly beating sun. 

     They couldn't respect my father even in death.

     And yet, was I any better?

     My face was dry, deathly pale yet expressionless. As much as I would have liked to release the numb shock pressing down on my throat, the beginnings of crippling fear unfolding and taking root like a weed in the depths of my soul, I couldn't summon up a single tear.

     I just stood there. Still as a statue.

     I held the tiny bottle in my stiffly clenched hand, holding back the mounting pressure slowly stirring in my body.

     You were there as well, idly playing with a strand of black ribbon draped half-hearted around the funeral in an attempt to pretty up the clearly abandoned place. You looked as though you couldn't care less about the death of some Royal Guard captain or another.

     I twisted my head away from your eight-year-old face, those indifferent green eyes. Even back then, I started despising you for your unconcern, your self-centered world.

     How was it sunny that day? Why was the world so full of light? How could such a cheerful afternoon steal the last person I had left?

     I listened with growing anger to the cheerful chirp of the birds as the dumpy little person standing on the alter with my father sleeping behind him droned on and on, sweat running down my stiff neck. I had lost feeling a long time ago, the moment I touched his stone-chilled skin.

     Was I betraying my father by not crying? Did I care so little that I couldn't even scrap together any show of emotion?

     He was gone. Gone forever.

     I screwed my eyes shut, willing myself to erase the image of him, laying limply on the floor, his big hands that had once held me with such love cold in death, foam bubbling up at his mouth. 

     To forget the words he had scribbled for me and left on the night table, the words I couldn't, couldn't stay true to. I wasn't strong. I wasn't brave.

     You stifled a yawn, looking with mild interest at a stray beetle crawling across the floor.

     This lowly, insignificant beetle lived while my father died.

     They were saying that it was his own fault that he died. That he had... killed himself because he couldn't face life anymore. 

     No way! They must have been lying! My father was the image of courage, charging fearlessly into battle, commanding a fearsome fleet of soldiers. He had promised me that I would be one of those soldiers saluting him, their swords glinting underneath the sun, before long, fighting valiantly for my Kingdom, return from a victory to a world of glory. He would never break a promise, never!

     Then it had to be my fault, right, right? It was all my fault! If I had been a better son, if I had worked harder and made him prouder, then he would still be alive. I was sure of it! 

     Suddenly I had to stamp down on the surge of tears, threatening to overtake the wall I had only just finished building around my heart. I hadn't cried in all this time, I couldn't cry now and break down for everyone to see. In fact, I could never cry again. The only person I could afford to show weakness with had already left me behind.

     Your sharp eyes watched the flames that flared up on his coffin, engulfing my father, taking him away forever, burnt out to ashes.

     The rest of the day was a blur of movement and colours and veiling it all, the hollow haze of shock.

     They led me away from the flames licking hungrily at the polished wood where my father slept. They made me sit on a hard chair in a dingy room with peeling wallpaper while they talked to the people at the orphanage. I kicked at the scratched floorboards, hating the world and all those that lived in it.

     It was satisfyingly silent, these hours while the people I didn't know nor care about shuffled paperwork around and talked in low voices, sneaking glances over at me. I relished in the feeling of the invisible yet iron-strong claws holding down my throat, pressing harder and harder and harder with every tick of the dusty grandfather clock sitting against the wall. 

     The murmur of the people and the chatter of the other orphaned children peeking sneakily through the window withered and fell limply to the floor before they could reach me, before it pierced my bubble of slowly suffocating silence. 

     I couldn't find it in myself to care what would become of me from there. 

     Did that make me a coward? 

     I couldn't do it. How could I? I couldn't be braver than my father.

     So was my fate the same as his?

A/N: Ugh this chapter was so hard to write for some reason ;-; I feel like it sucked. Did it suck?

Eh. Thanks for reading, people :)