Are We Alive?

Twenty: Dark Crimson Rose

Dark Crimson Rose–Mourning

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The family only stayed in the bunker for a week before taking off again. Camping out on the side of the road to sleep gave Rin time to sneak off while whoever guarded wasn't looking and practice summoning heat and making it go away. Dispelling it was a lot harder than pulling it to the surface. Once he started practicing with the wierd power, the flare-ups became less frequent and less intense.

He got comfortable enough to practice with his family(without their knowledge), feeling around for their body temperatures when someone was out hunting. He tested the radius of how far away he could feel body heat. He tested it as he hunted by himself, too. He could feel the body temperatures of animals around him. It made getting meat for meals easier. He'd found enough deer to make several articles of clothing for their group.

Shura was teaching Shiemi how to make the clothes and the blonde took to it easily. She was very good at estimating measurements and even better at sewing things. Izumo was good at making the kids clothes–nimble fingers were good from fixing and making small things.

Chelsea had bluntly pointed out that Marshal was gaining weight very quickly and needed clothes that were comfortable, so she got to walk around in short dresses that were loose around her body. She grumbled about it, but accepted the help. They all knew what must have been going on, they weren't stupid.

Marshal could barely keep a Tsukumo-portion of food down and outright refused to early anything but a few berries for breakfast, but she was gaining weight on her belly. It was just slightly distended, but it was obvious if you looked for it. She didn't seem to be freaking out about it, but Rin figured a person like Marshal wouldn't show it if she was actually panicking. He trusted Chelsea to know her sister well enough to help her through this until Marshal admitted to what was going on.

Rin was worried more about how fast she was growing. It hadn't been very long since the incident with the brutal douchebags that kidnapped them. How was she already distended that much? Rin had a feeling, but he dreaded bringing it up until it seemed necessary.

In the meantime, they carried on travelling until they made it to another town in North Carolina. They found an okay house, still standing and even with doors and a couple windows intact. "Ah yes, this is the lap of luxury right here: we've got two windows and doors that function like they're supposed to." Shima joked drily. He got only a few chuckles for his efforts, but that seemed to satisfy him.

They made their way through the house and discovered three corpses locked in the basement. They couldn't operate stairs, so Rin resolved to killing them down there and dealing with the smell if they had to go down there during their stay. There were two more upstairs, teenagers it seemed, that Konekomeru and Yukio killed and pushed out the second story windows and watched the corpse heads explode like rotten watermelons on the concrete of the driveway below.

The only room left was the room upstairs at the end of the hall. When Rin peered in through the cracked door, it looked to be a nursery. He swore silently and took a moment to steady himself before pushing the door open slightly.

It creaked loudly and he winced. He peered around the room. It was a wreck–baby blue walls splattered with blood, books from the little bookshelf strewn across the floor, more blood and gore staining the rocking chair in the corner, diapers thrown everywhere, baby powder spread across the room. Rin was afraid to look into the crib standing silently by the wall, but it would haunt him if he didn't look.

He took a deep breath before striding over to the crib.

It was so much worse than he expected. He'd expected done creepy little monster baby to wake up and jump at him. He'd expected a malnourished little body to be squirming there. He expected ominous bloodstains but no baby. He'd expected anything but the tiny bones resting in the blankets. Tears pricked at his eyes immediately. It was just tiny little bones. They were nearly clean, not even much rotted meat on them, it had been so long.

His breath was caught in his throat. He choked up looking at the baby bones in the crib, still swadled in blankets and perfectly arranged like a human baby. It had died alone and it had rotted alone, all this time in the apocalypse.

He let out a strangled sob and crouched in front of the crib, letting the hot tears flow down his face. This baby....This little baby boy....had rotted away in his crib. When the dead came, someone had probably closed the door so they couldn't get to the baby and it had starved had died and rotted so quickly. Not even a trace of baby fat was left to suck on.

The morbid thoughts made him cry harder and his shoulders shook as he pressed his forehead to the white wood of the crib.

He heard footsteps come closer, but he paid them no mind even as he was wrapped up in a pair of arms. He didn't know who's they were and he didn't care.

Those tiny bones shouldn't have been there and it both hurt and scared Rin more than anything had before. They were so fragile and soft and would probably snap easier than a wooden pencil if Rin tried. He shook his head to rid himself of the thoughts, burying his face into whoever's chest was there.

"Don't think about it. It will only make things worse." Yukio murmured quietly go him. He sat with Rin, rocking his older brother while he sobbed over the death of this poor, unfortunate little baby. He stroked Rin's hair and let the teen hold onto him as long as he needed. "I should've come in here first. I would've covered that up." Yukio sighed.

"No." Rin's hoarse voice was muffled against his twin's chest. "Don't touch him, please. Just–Just leave him there. Let him sleep until someone else comes along. It's cruel if we move him." Yukio didn't question the way Rin spoke as if the baby was only sleeping. He just stayed there and held his brother. Rin had always been too soft, even under his solid and cautious exterior. Especially under that exterior. Rin couldn't deal very well with bad things involving kids. He'd sobbed over Sachi being orphaned when her parents died and he was always so sweet to Tsukumo. Seeing tinny, fragile baby bones in a crib would hurt him a lot, no matter the fact that he knew nothing about this poor baby boy other than the fact that it probably starved to death.

When they went back downstairs a while later, no one asked about Rin's eyes being puffy and red or his dead expression. They let him go around to the backyard to see the treehouse the kids were so excited about. Yukio sighed, shaking his head. "He found the Nursery." He said in an explanation. "He'll probably sleep in there tonight. No one says anything about it. Just let him do it." They all nodded and split up to start making the house more habitable.

Most of the windows that were smashed out had wood barricaded across them. The furniture had old blood on it, but they took what they could get. There was a livingroom with a couch, a loveseat, and a La-Z Boy reclining chair. Down the hall from the Nursery, there was a kid's room with a twin size bed and a beanbag chair. On the opposite end of the hallway was the Master bedroom and bathroom. The bedroom sported a king sized matress that was stripped of any sheets. After sleeping in cars or on the ground outside, Bon and Izumo didn't mind sleeping on the bare matress. There was a porch swing on the back porch with cushions on it and it had a good view of the treehouse. The treehouse itself had pillows and old blankets for the kids to sleep on, thankfully.

Ryuji was called in to clear the spiders out of the treehouse. The kids begged to sleep in the treehouse and Rin finally gave in as long as Renzou kept watch over them. Rin, just as predicted, slept in the Nursery, getting comfy in the stained rocking chair he cleaned off and if they could hear him singing softly to the baby bones in the crib, no one would say anything about it.

Everyone chose their respective rooms and hunkered down, except for Renzou and Konekomeru.

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Yeah I had to make everyone cry there. I was gonna do a cliche nasty, creepy zombie baby and then I went "Wait, no. Let's make it hurt more. This baby is dead beyond dead from starvation and rotted all alone." And to answer the question, that baby was barely a year old when he died.