REAL

Real -10

ARNER
She holds my hands instead. My own eyes are filled with tears. I unveil the white cloth off of the face of one of the bodies. It's her mom. Erine starts to cry, louder. Her grip on my hand tightens. I don't know what to do at this point.  I unveil the cloth off of the next body. This time, she starts screaming. I can no longer control my own emotions and my eyes start to tear up as well. She turns to hug me and I let her. She stays like this for a long time. The mortician comes back after a while. He says, in the same grumpy way, "Sorry that I interrupted you, but we have a limited time for viewings and I would appreciate if you...," he pauses for a moment, trying to find the right word but gives up and says, "leave."

I nod at him and try to calm her down. He goes ahead and closes the compartments. Now, what to do with this girl. I should have brought mom along. After a few minutes, she gets up and almost falls down while doing so. I let her walk ahead this time and I walk beside her out of the mourge. I genuinely feel bad about how I treated her and what I said to her before. I feel bad for her and for her brother and mom.

We get back inside the car. This time she seats at the backseat. I take a glance at her face through my rearview mirror. She is sobbing. I ask her, my tone annoyed again, "Hey, you little thing! Stop crying. I'll get you an ice-cream." She replies in a muffled voice, "I don't want to." Fine. I start my car. It made a loud throaty roar. I really like this sound. It screams money. I drive us back home.

Once we are outside the house, she looks at it in amusement. Did she not see the house it before? I question myself. I leave her there and head for my room. On my way to my room, I see that the door to Adren's room is open. So, I head towards his room and I see that Adren has returned from school. I look at my watch, it's 04:27 PM. "When did you come back?", he asks me. "Around three hours ago," I reply in short and head to my room because I don't like long talks. He usually returns home by 4:10 PM as his college is not very far and he has a car. His college ends at around 4 PM.

After I go to my room, I lie down on my bed, tired but soon get interrupted when Adren comes knocking at my door. I stare at him and he gulps. He fears me. And I know why. He had seen me shoot a person, causing him to go on a coma for almost a year. Adren had thought that he was dead. He had asked me, "Did you kill him, brother?" His voice had sounded like he was about to cry. He fears me from then onwards.

He looks at me and asks, "Bro, I heard that our parents have adopted a girl name Ellie. Where is she?" I roll my eyes and answer, "She's outside. And her name's Erine." He, without even looking at me, turns back and walks outside, or I should say, runs outside. I don't care if he finds her or not, all I care right now is sleeping. But as I fall asleep, the images of Erine's mom and brother's dead bodies flash on my mind. It jolts me awake. I sit on my bed thinking about them. What kind of person were they? Were they nice? She said that her brother was nice. Did they treat her good?

Their thoughts also make me think about Ruby. I take out my photo album from the top drawer of my bedside table and start to look through Ruby's photos. She looks stunning in these pictures. Especially the one where she is wearing a sky blue dress and a white pearl necklace. She had once said, "I want to be a famous writer but I also want to be a singer. So, I think I should be a doctor when I grow up." She had smiled at me teasingly after that and I had captured that moment in a photo but now, she and her dreams all exist only in these pictures. She is no more now. A single tear flows from my left eye and reaches to my cheek. I use my right hand to wipe it away. I again go back to sleeping.

- Friday