E.A.T.O.N.

Chapter 16

The funeral is quick. Not the next day but the day after. We bury her ashes under a tree in the park. Her favourite tree. It always blossomed every May and grew the most beautiful cyan flowers. The same colour as her eyes. Oh, I miss her so much every single day.

The funeral is quick. There wasn't much left of her when her body was recovered, the bit that weren't destroyed were cremated. We didn't get to see that, though. Too gory, probably. I wasn't completely up for watching my sisters bloody limbs getting burnt, so this arrangement was fine with me.

The funeral is quick. I have to make a speech. So do my parents. They cry. A lot. I manage to hold back the river of emotions welling up inside me while I'm talking, but my barriers all break down when I see the ashes. Sobbing overwhelms my system until I physically can't stop. Some of my school friends are there too. They just hold me while I cry: they don't know what to do. Neither would I if I was in their situation.

The funeral is quick. Family is there, a lot of family. Grandparents, uncles, aunties, cousins, all of these distant relatives that I didn't know even existed. We don't really see any of them that much. I don't know why, everyone seems nice enough when they talk to me. To be fair, that niceness could just be sympathy in disguise.

The funeral is quick. We're home before the darkness seeps into the sky, turning it black. As black as coal. Blacker than coal. There's not a cloud in sight when I clamber into bed that evening, staring up at the ceiling and hoping for a better day, a better week, a better year, a better life, even.

The funeral is quick. I wake up the next day numbed by grief. I begin to get up before realising that it's Saturday. I go back to sleep. I wake. I sleep. I wake. I eat. I sleep. I wake. This is all I do all day before finally, at 5pm in the evening I get called to dinner.

The funeral is quick. I don't know why it was quick. My sister was a beautiful soul with a beautiful life ahead of her to live. And all we did was bury some ashes under a tree. And talk. And y'all some more. And then go home. We should've taken that time to remember her life, but nobody actually seemed to care beside my parents. And myself.

The funeral is quick. I trudge down the stairs half-asleep in an almost elephant-esque manner. My parents grin at me as I stroll into the dining room. But their grins are too large, eyes too wide. What now, what now, what now? Then I see the newspaper in my fathers hand. Oh no. Newspapers mean bad news. I don't really know what bad news I could be given right now, considering my sister is dead, my parents are clearly not dead and I don't care for any other family.

The funeral is quick. My father thrusts me the paper. Quickly. Too quickly. I read it slowly, repeatedly. In shock, shocked. The headline is bold, the headline is brutal, but that's not what stabs a needle through my mending heart. It's the line after.

"THE FUNERAL WAS QUICK"
abnegation figures killed Anna Eaton because she "wasn't selfless at all"

A/N- sorry for no post in ages, I've been so busy! Will have another chapter up tomorrow :)