The day bleeds into nightfall

'I thought I heard you laughing'

Friday 25th July 2037

It had taken five days before they could look through Ruby's stuff. Being in the house, it was okay. The thought of looking through her belongs felt like an evasion of her privacy. When she was live, Maddie was fine looking through her wardrobe, or even just looking through her diary. Now she was gone, it seemed weird.

The boxes had sat on her bed, haunting Maddie. The bed shouldn't be full of boxes, it should be home to her obnoxious sister who had no concept of personal space. It should be full of her dirty laundry, and the blanket she swore blind she didn't sleep with, but somehow would end up in her arms in the morning.

Their parents often liked to embarrass their eldest daughter, teasing her for having a blanket over a stuffed toy. Apparently, she had a ton of teddies when she was a baby, but she didn't like them. Theo and Maddie both had stuffed animals when they were kids, Theo had a pig called Percy and Maddie had a bear named Teddy, very imaginative. Ruby, on the other hand, had this blanket. It was originally white, but nearly two decades later, it was more of a grey colour. Dianne and Joe used to tease her about it, watching her face change to a crimson colour, and she swore down to them that she didn't sleep with it, but none of them were surprised when she brought it to university that September, she had justified it to herself as moral support.

That was the first thing Maddie found, as she tentatively opened her suitcase. She was cautious, picking it up gently, and somehow, she found herself inhaling its scent. It still smelt like Ruby. When she was little, she had become fixated with the object, always wanting to play with it, which caused massive ructions in the house, but now it felt weird. It felt like she was stealing it from her sister.

She didn't know what to-do with the blanket, staring at it for a good ten minutes, before deciding that the blanket was best suited to staying in her bed, and that's how Theo found her. He had gone in to check if she was okay, and he found her asleep in, in her own bed, with the blanket next to her.

'Mmmm.' She groans, tossing over to face her brother, waking up a bit more. 'Oh.' He doesn't say anything about the blanket, she doesn't give any information up.

'I started sorting out Ruby's stuff.' She says, sitting up, as her brother climbs onto her bed. 'I just can't keep it up like that.' He nods, pleased that he isn't in that situation. They both knew she could move to a different room, but it was one of the things that made her feel close to Ruby.

'You know we can always set up the camp bed.' The thin boy offers. Unbeknownst to them, Joe was at the door, marvelling at their interactions. In the past few months, they had been running rings around one another, but this had changed all of them. He noted how his son, in this light, was a dead spit of him. The girls took after Dianne, with subtle elements of Joe written into their face. 'Honestly, if you don't want to be here, you can bunk in with me, or I can come in here.'

'I love you Teddy.'

'I love you too mouse.' She slides onto the floor, as she catches her dads' eye.

'How long have you been there?' He shrugs, he had been their long enough to see the sweet interaction between his children.

'A while, what are you doing?' She shrugs.

'Ruby's stuff is there.' She doesn't want to admit to him that she doesn't like it. Maybe she should be grateful, that she was the one with all Ruby's stuff, maybe in some weird paradigm, she's close to Ruby. At the moment, it was a stark reminder that her sister isn't there to unpack it. 'I started unpacking.' No one had mentioned unpacking, they sort of just dumped it into the girl's room, just like it would have been if she had been alive.