Chapter 5: Cocoon 2

Still age of 9 then 10(birthday not celebrated but he did aged a year)

Third Person PoV

Ren is staring blankly while sitting on a chair, he blinked slowly and tried to mask his current expression with a matured and cheerful persona.

He stood and went down the stairs, while walking down in the middle of the stairs, he stopped as he saw his mother dusting the corner of the upper walls with a duster made out of feathers sticking to a thin stick.

The corners of the wall she was dusting off was actually the part above the small kitchen that occupied only a fifth of the first floor.

If the first floor was divided in five, two parts are where the house entertain guests, one part was the bathroom, and the other one was a small corner where it smells of burns and waste, it wasn't that fancy, it was also dirty too, as it was just piling garbages at one side then burning them, and then that's why the stinking smell always lingers here.

The place where his mother bothered to clean was always only the kitchen, and the place for entertaining guests which is the first place greeting a person the moment they enter the door.

A week ago, she told me that's what we only need as she went out to go find a job in the neighboring town. The town was disdainful of us afterall, how can someone pity us and offer mother a job. Even if they did, they would only offer the tiniest of their money, and mock us behind their back.

'Father, I feel like resenting you again. Fuck. I felt that you, no, we just made mother suffer more.' His blue eyes started to blank out and lost it's light again despite masking it without a trace a moment ago.

Five months passed since his father's funeral, and he believed that they're doing worse than before, mother got more busy for work, they've been eating less, the house got dirtier, they've gone poorer, while he was often cast out from his previous playmates.

Maybe if he didn't blamed him that night, he wouldn't have to live much worse than before.

He kept telling her mother that, but his mother would cry and just tell him it wasn't his fault, that his father was at fault, she told him how she resented him a little, 'How can his heart be so weak and leave us so easily like this. Ren, you weren't at fault. Stop blaming yourself, you're just a child.', was how she always tried to console him.

Ren continued to walk down and continued to live his life like this for the next three months, the money being earned by his mom a day wasn't always stable, her body became more fragile, and she would always come back exhausted from work, they couldn't talk as much as they did before, eating degraded to once a day. Life seems to be a bit hash on him or maybe quite a lot.

One day, while her mother was cooking boiled vegetables for lunch, she suddenly collapsed in pain, and made a loud thud more than enough to break his heart if ever he was there, but he was outside the house carving woods, trying to make a gift for his mother.

Only the burning smell of food lured him inside. Upon his entrance, he immediately saw his mother collapsed on the floor holding at her chest while seemingly unconscious.

"Mother?"

He urgently got more closer and kneeled on one knee to check on her. She expressed her pain on her face as she clutched on her chest tightly enough to crumple her old clothes.

"Mom!? Mom what's wrong with you?" He exclaimed as he reached out his index finger below her nose.

'Why is there no heaving air? Why can't I feel anything?' His eyes clouded as he thought so,

he lowered his back and put his ear around his mother's heart. He have to hear it beating no matter what, he have to.

With that hope, his ears heard.... he heard nothing too.

"Ah no no noooo! no no no! Mom you are alive! You're still breathing, you're heart is still beating!!"

If there's one of those common things that was in his wretched life right now, it was his father in the coffin and his mom right now, they weren't breathing, their hearts stopped beating.

But he can't accept that, he mustn't accept something like that.

"Mom, wait wait, I'll, hic hic... I'll call for sob.. help."

He softly said so as he ran outside in denial.

He kept thinking that maybe, it was his fault again too?

Why did it take him too long to come in, what use is a made gift if he'll just give it to another corpse.

The last remaining and deserted hope for living in his heart suddenly dispersed to nothing at that moment.

His eyes dulled too much and truly lost the shine it once had before. He stopped in contemplation and continued to run again.

At that time he didn't called for help but ran away from the house instead and went somewhere else. He waited at the roadside.

He stood there bowing his head and clenching his fist very tightly, resulting to his nails burrowing into his palm.

Now it was marked in red lines and caused stinging pain, but it doesn't hurt him at all.

His heart was broken and that seems to be the pain he only felt right at that moment.

'Why is it like that? Why is it like that?'

"Damned it, damned it, damned it all...Why did you have to go too... you all do nothing but keep going and leaving me."

His tears and snot flowed on his small face while his breathing was labored.

He waited there crying until he saw a truck coming this way at fast speed, before it even passed him, he immediately ran in the middle of the road.

As the truck was moving at fast speed and his size was smaller than a 7 years old, it seems unavoidable to be hit.

The truck's driver was having a hard time controlling his speed as he was drunk right now. His has difficulty in his sight and he keeps dozing off.

He was driving at a fast speed when the vehicle suddenly bumped into something.

Bang!

"Huh? What the heck. Who the hell would hit a car like a newbie. Hey who is it! Are you insane? Whoever you are drive your damn car proper-"

"Argh. Hm? Urkkk, shit. shit. shit. is that a kid. what's a kid doing here."

"Is this a joke? Someone tell me this is a joke right now, hey! Shit. Right, right I'm drunk, this are all my hallucinations, this must all be my hallucinations that's right, it's not me, I didn't hit anyone, I didn't even see anyone ahhh!"

He opened his car door pissed and went down shouting in a drunk voice when he suddenly saw trails of flowing blood, his drunken state made him curious and his mind was clouded to even get a proper conclusion.

There on the side of the road what he saw was a bloodied kid lying coldly with an injured head and broken limbs, the clothes were red with blood and there were even trails of blood flowing from his lips. The moment he saw that child, he was stricken with panic and fell on his back with fear.

He went inside his truck fast, driving away while mumbling like a madman.

To be continued