𝐂𝐑𝐔𝐄𝐋 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐑! [𝐉𝐉 𝐌𝐀𝐘𝐁𝐀𝐍𝐊]

chapter four.

CRUEL SUMMER!
chapter four.

( i never was a child. i was pulled right out of the sea and the salt, it never left my body. )

On the first week of second grade, my mother passed away.

I don't remember much about receiving the news. My father wasn't the one to tell me, Diane did. She sat down with me on the dainty leather couch and delivered the news as gently as she could.

I hated that couch. The surface was always solidly rigid and uninvitingly cold. The cushions never softened, not even after years of being worn out. And no matter how many blankets were used, the cold leather of the exterior never managed to grow warm.

It was my mother's favorite. My father threw it out the week after her death. It's the only time I think that I've ever fully supported a choice of his.

I didn't cry when she died. Just like her dainty leather couch, her exterior was also rigid and uninvitingly cold. I hardly ever remember her speaking to me at all. Perhaps that's why it didn't feel all that different to begin with.

Her funeral was bleak. Almost no family showed up. It was mostly people she worked with and my fathers friends, including Ward Cameron and his family. Sarah sat next to me in the church and forced me to let her hold my hand during the burial. She cried in the moments that I should've.

If anything, while my mothers casket was being lowered into the ground, all I could focus on was the enormous mausoleum standing a few feet away.

It was made out of white granite, with an arch in the front, as well as a door that sealed the inside off from the rest of the evasive outside world. The thought of a place like that existing was oddly reassuring. It felt safe. Like drifting to the bottom of the ocean and finding nothing down there. Just a quiet numbness and a dark pressure that feels so still, so familiar. It was exactly how I liked it.

That's the way that it's always been. Since before that day, since before she died even. I can count on one hand the amount of times I've gone back to her grave after that day, and she died almost a decade ago. But on every occasion, my gaze always wanders over to that granite door, and the name engraved on top of it in big, bold capitalized letters, REDFIELD.

Even now, I find myself staring at the giant tomb, taking in the enormity of it. It's condition is a lot more unkempt now. The once polished white is now stained into a faded grey. There's overgrown branches invading every twist and turn. The granite that used to look quaintly undeterred is now soiled with dirt and scattered dry leaves, even a few cracks and holes have formed here and there.

On the door, there's a particularly large opening towards the top of the arch above it. There's a clutter of overgrown sticks blocking it, but something tells me that it's there for a reason.

I hold my flashlight up and shine it towards the name above the door, nearly reveling in the self-satisfaction I feel.

The first stop on the map.

As I walk around to the back of the mausoleum in attempts to find another entryway, I hear shushes. Then immediately afterwards, I hear voices that sound much like they have no intention of being quiet.

"Okay, so, you know how you're trying to remember a song and you can't remember who sings it?"

I turn my flashlight off, halting my steps to listen in for a moment, and a smile twitches onto my lips as the voices grow familiar.

Have they actually managed to figure it out?

"So, Redfield, this whole time, I thought it was a place, right? But it's not a place," I hear John B say. I can hear his footsteps as well as a few others coming closer. "It's a person."