Heir of the Forgotten

~Tragedy~

Selene spends the rest of the day shopping around and eating good food. Her enjoyment comes to an end as she catches sight of the setting sun. She'dd have to head back soon if she is to make it home by dark.

She buys a bracelet for her mother that's supposed to bring joy and protection from evil. As her final purchase, it leaves her with five Atari.

She skips on her feet as she hums to herself heading home. She's sure her mom will love the bracelet. The flowers will make a good centerpiece too!

Oh, she was so excited! Despite her rocky relationship with her adoptive father, she found him a gift as well. It's a custom-made belt based on what she thought he would like.

She smiles, giggling to herself as she imagines what dinner may be. Maybe the steamed buns with the beef that she adores so much! Oh, or maybe pasta?

Selene walks through the wooded section without paying too much attention to the nature that sings around her.

Usually, she'd slow down and focus on the scenery, but she was too excited to tell her parents about the kind stranger, leaving out the part that he was a guard. That would make her parents worry, and she wouldn't want that.

When she reaches her home, the sun nearly set, the rounded top barely over the horizon. The sun only has a few more moments above the horizon before it falls. She pays attention to it, watching it grow dark. Well, technically, she was back before dark.

It's eerily still...

It's oddly quiet... Even the birds seemed to have stopped their song as she reached her house.

There isn't the sound of clattering pans or talking.

Each step appears slower than the last, she clutches the bag of presents tighter with every step, her heart hammering in her chest. Locking her eyes on the doorknob she felt her panic rising as her hands begin to tremble. Something is wrong, enough so that every part of her seems to know it.

Climbing the stairs is like climbing the world's tallest mountain, every step felt like ten.

She stares at the door... Knocking once, but the air falls into silence... hesitantly she raises her hand, rapping on the door with a slightly harsher knock.

She repeats each knock more forceful than the last until her chest tightens, her breathing becomes labored, and her palm sweats. After only a few knocks, she begins knocking with only a second pause in between raps on the door.

Selene takes a deep breath, then finally pushes the door open.

Her chest feels heavy, the smell of copper filling her nose as the panic in her chest grows ten fold.

Her eyes lift to the living room from the floor.

She takes a step into the home before her presents drop to the floor. Ice shatters like glass at her feet as she shrieks.

Not again, not again, not again, not again.

She's not sure why she repeats these specific words like a mantra. As far as she recalls, this is the first time she's seen this sort of scene.

Yet, her heart seems to know otherwise. She doesn't mind that the ice cuts into her skin as she drops to the floor and crawls to her father. She shakes him.

"Dad? Dad...! Stop it! Sit up! Wake up!" She tries to drag him to sit, but she can't move him. He's cold to the touch already.

She races to her mother, who is lying on her side, an arm haphazardly draped over her head, she began shaking her. There's a twitch in her fingers. "Mom?"