The Erstwhiles

Heirloom

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today, to mourn and celebrate life. A humble friend to some, a husband and a father," the priest continues his voice trailing off in the ears of Lyra who is half attentive, her eyes lazily staring an opaque gaze towards the marble floor. hidden to what's happening around her, lost in the thought of her father's bizarre death.

"You feeling alright?" Darla, her stepmother, whispered in her ear, caressing her head for comfort, perhaps for Lyra or her own.

Lyra, unresponsive to the kind hands, held in her hand three white roses she studied them, contemplating if she should drop all three into the grave, save one for herself perhaps even not pay her respects at all, nonsensical thoughts to her. "Denial," She mutters in her head, whilst looking at the casket below. She tossed the flowers over her brows defeated, she turned to Darla to bury herself in her bosom.

"I love you," muffled yet audible.

               "I love you too," replied the mourning wife.

Two months have passed since the death of Samuel Bennett, a simple man yet victim to a fate not of this world's machination.

"Are you going this Friday night?" Emilia enthusiastically asks Lyra.

"Ugh... I don't really know about this set up," says Lyra, as she slams the door of the fitting room cutting Emilia's expectant expression.

                    "I know you're going through a rough patch right now, but that doesn't mean you can't meet up with guys," A drowned voice coming through the now shut door.

"If you want to cheer me up so bad, then how about you pay for this shirt?" replied Lyra as the door burst open, surprising her friend with either the offer or the door.

                  "You look bad in general, which is why I'll pay for it!" Emilia retorted in playful annoyance.

Lyra undresses the said shirt and tosses it to Emilia. She turns to the mirror looking at her scantily clad body. Nothing out of the ordinary she thinks to herself. Her eyes searched her form for familiar places. Her thoughts were whisked to the memory of Samuel's death.

Hazily she remembers opening a door, revealing a gruesome sight of her father's almost torn body, littered curiously with holes large ones at that. She froze not in shock but in memory. Anger warranted to the unknown builds up in her, she is ushered further to remember.

"Keep it," A desperate breath " Safe-"

The groaning voice of a dying man shook her blank. Samuel stretched out a clenched hand, his arm struggling to raise. He had reached for Lyra, but he failed. A pearl went rolling to their side, its crack newfound, he continued to reach further, ignoring his boon and caressed Lyra instead. Painting Lyra's cheek with his bloodied hand.

She cannot hear herself, is this trauma? She wonders. Unable to recollect her thoughts, she ponders what she had said that night. But the answer does not come to mind.

"Are you going to display your naked ass for everyone to see!?" Emilia harshly whispered to her, closing the door behind them. Lyra laughed whilst getting hit with her clothes flung by her now embarrassed friend.

An only house at the end of the street blares of music, its walls shaking. A jungle of people and amongst it was Lyra. Her feet dangling in the pool and in her hand a drink she could not recall.

"Told ya so..." Emilia's face cuts Lyra's line of sight.

                        "I'm not having fun" A sarcastic pause "Yet," retorted Lyra whilst eyeing a man in the pool. She gives an invite with her gaze, and the young man approaches with a beaming smile, slowly drudging himself towards her.