Jimmy the Birthday Boi

🥢 Chapter 7

Jimmy woke up. Today was—

— "Aaaaaaah!"

Today was—

— "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

For the first time in years, Grax woke up.

What day was it? She didn't know. She felt like she had woken up from a very long dream. As she looked around her, things look both familiar and completely foreign to her. There was no mistaking it, that was her bedroom, but everything was small, dusty and worn out by time.

She stood up and almost lost her balance. When did she get so tall? Her stomach growled. She was really hungry. How was that possible? Aunt Mary always cooked for...

Wait, what? Grax never had an Aunt Mary. Actually, she hadn't even met anyone named Mary.

No. Father and Aunt Mary were real. Jimmy couldn't bear it if they weren't. He left his bedroom and walked down the stairs.

Midway through the stairs, Jimmy froze. Down the stairs, in front of him, he saw a brown, dead mantis laying in a pool of green, fluorescent liquid.

— "FathI killed him."

Surprised by her own words, Grax ran down the stairs and looked inside the kitchen.

Aunt Mantis. Green. Dead. Half of its face missing. Grax was starting to piece together what had happened. How long had she been in that...state?

She looked around. Parts of the walls were clearly newer than the rest. Papa was really good at repairing walls no, shut up. Don't you dare. Those mantises took everything from me. And I didn't have the pleasure to be mentally present when I avenged...

— "Vrox!"

Hit with the sudden realization, she headed to the garden.

There, on a chair facing the garden, sat Old Reema, or whatever was left of her. Grax didn't know how long she'd been dead for. Was it weeks? Months? Nothing she could do now. Didn't matter. In Grax's dream, it was Old Reema who sold her village to the mantises. Flox had been right all along. Flox...what happened to Flox? No. One thing at a time. She moved her sights to the other side of the garden.

There, behind the tall grass, she could see it. She remembered now. Shortly after what happened, Old Reema had tried to make her dig. But she wasn't there to hear it. The words had just bounced on her brain and slipped right out of her head. Old Reema ended up doing it herself. Grax crossed the very scary grass—

— "Get out of my head. It's just dead grass."

Grax crossed the grass in a few steps. There, waiting lonely at the back of the garden, a small cross made of two sticks was planted in the ground.

— "Sorry I took so long."

Tears rolled down her cheeks.

— "You wanted me to be strong, but I just ran away from everything."

Her body was shaking from sobbing and malnutrition.

She cried for a while.

The young woman closed her eyes.

She started counting—

No. She started counting. She forced herself not to count. She was never going to count again. She was never going to do anything again. She was going to face it. It was hard. She cried a lot. But she counted. Like her brother had always done with her.

When she reached 10, she was calm. She had stopped crying. Her mind was clear. Jimmy was gone. She felt at peace.

— "There, big brother, I did it. I did not become a hero. That will always be your thing. But I am strong, like you wanted. Thank you."

She bowed her head and stood in silence for a while, hand on the small grave.

She slowly stood up. With her newfound strength, she walked back into the house, up the stairs, into Vrox's bedroom. There, she picked up some supplies from his "Adventurer's kit". It was dusty and barely recognizable, but it was there. A backpack, some ropes, some torches. She then headed downstairs, standing menacingly over the brown mantis's dead body.

— "You took everything from me. Now I'm gonna take everything from you. And you're gonna watch."

On these words, she grabbed the mantis's head and ripped it off from its body. With the help of some ropes, she attached it firmly to the top of her backpack.

— "Actually, you're not just gonna watch. You're gonna help as well."

She ripped off one of the mantis's huge claws, holding it like a spear.

Facing the front door of the house, she put her hand on the knob, and paused. The last time she had gone through that door, she was a child, leaving to buy a cake. Today, she was a young woman, scarred by years of trauma and slavery. What kind of world was she going to discover behind that door?

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened the door.