Chapter 41
Disclaimer: If you recognise it, surprise, I don't own it.
Chapter 21– Rest.
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Walking through the streets, I don't really recognise anything around here. The style of the buildings is familiar, but I have no recollection of this location at all, and I know for a fact that I have not left the island. Of course, I don't recognise it anyway either, but perhaps that is because there is hardly anybody out on the streets. I can see the occasional eye peeking out through the curtains through their windows, everybody too scared to leave their homes now that the Conami Islands are under new management, for however long that remains to be the case.
"Um, where are we going, Detoro-Kun?" I hear Nami ask from behind me, still following me along. Honestly, I thought when we were out of that stupid shack, she would quickly run back home to her sister, so I don't know why she is still trailing behind me. Maybe, because her home is the same place her mother just died, just like my home is where George just died.
"I am going home. I have something to do there." I say, keeping my tone neutral. There is no point in isolating her and making her my enemy by being aggressive, it isn't even her fault after all, and she doesn't even know about the hold that she has over me, and I am going to keep it that way. But I also can't be so friendly that she starts to follow me around for the rest of her life, which would seriously hamper mine. And if it does turn out that our paths going forward are going to be majorly intertwined, then like I said before, I am going to make sure that I am higher up the hierarchy so that she won't give me orders, ever.
"Oh... Which village, then? This is Cocoyasi Village, my village." Hmm, good to know. I never really ventured to explore the rest of the Conami Islands because I had no need to. I had everything I needed right there on my beach or close by at Shokuyasi Village. However, the thought of the village fills me with dread at what could have happened to it while I was out of action. I know that everyone has enough money to pay for themselves, so they should be safe on that front, but there are a few volatile and aggressive characters as well. I hope Bob just paid up and didn't try to resist, for his sake.
"Shokuyasi Village," I answer, but I don't change my direction. I might not have known where I was, but I know where I am going. I am not an idiot. I have been alive and left to my own devices long enough to figure out enough crap for myself, and knowing where the sun rises and sets and, in turn, the four directions are easy. So given the position of the sun, I was already on my way home, and then after that, I would check out Shokuyasi Village. I am worried about the village, but I have to go home first. I don't know how long I have left before things go... stale, and I have already been out for at least a day.
Feeling the urgency, I start to speed up, building myself up to transfer from my walk into a slow jog and, from there, ramp up till I am sprinting home. Weighed down by everything that has happened and that I have been hit by, I find it hard to work up the energy, but I slowly do so, dredging it up from the depths of my being since I don't have time to get weighed down by all the bullshit.
"H-Hey, wait! Let me come with you!" I heard a desperate voice call out in the distance behind me just before I seriously sped up and left her in my dust. Hearing her voice, my body starts to slow down. She has just lost her mother, and she doesn't know where her sister is, and she doesn't want to go home to her mother's site of death either, so she is latching onto me. But I am not stopping, and I don't intend to bring her with me, so I keep moving forward. But I am so slow now that I can hear her behind me, maintaining the distance between us, and I am unbelievably frustrated since I don't have time to waste here.
Stopping, I turn around and hurry back towards her, but she doesn't see me on account of her running for her life, her head down and seriously out of breath as she tries to keep up with me. She lets out a startled shriek of surprise when I reach her and grab her under the armpits and throw her up into the air before quickly turning around and catching her behind my back. With Nami now piggybacking on me, I will no longer have to slow down in the least as she will be with me, which is why I immediately sprint off at full speed before she even knows what's happening. And if she starts to scream and cry because of the intense speed I am travelling at, well... she shouldn't have forced me to take her with me then.
Tuning out her screams and cries, which are surprisingly now forcing an effect on me, I focus on sprinting as fast as I can, wanting to get home before she regains her wits enough to tell me to slow down. I also push the thought of what is waiting there for me out of my mind, knowing that I need to go there before the situation deteriorates too much.
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Now with my feet on familiar ground, I begin to slow down, my feet not willing to listen to my brain as they automatically slow as we near our destination. The trepidation I was ignoring so well starts to swell back up inside my heart, and this nauseous feeling starts to bludgeon inside my gut. My legs want more than anything to stop, to keep from arriving at my home, but I force them on anyway. I am determined to not be the sort of man that runs away because then I would be running away forever. I need to face this and deal with it. Otherwise, I will never best any of the future challenges to come my way.
Now just walking, I continue down the path, the trees becoming sparse as I move onward. The only sound accompanying my feet hitting the ground is the panting of Nami as she rests listlessly on my back. Even though she didn't exert herself in the least, she was out of breath and dazed from the whirlwind tour through the scenery of the Conami Islands I just took her on. Which I prefer because I would rather not deal with her questions or voice right now.
The dirt path transforms into sand with a stone path laid out in front of me as the trees disappear, and I am shown the full sight of my home, surprisingly the same as I left it. But down by the shore, just out of reach of the encroaching waves, is the body... is George. In two separate pieces...
Turning my upper body around, I grab hold of Nami, who doesn't put up a fuss or raise a commotion since she is so tired. I turn around and walk to the closest tree and place her down on the ground so that she is resting against it. She looks up at me but is too busy coming down from the high of my sprint that she can't say anything, and she is too lethargic to move.
Leaving her there, I walk down to the beach, my feet sinking into the sand just like how my heart is sinking into my stomach. Then, finally, I come to a stop before the motionless body of George, my sandals now resting on dry red sand. On the ground, not far away, is his unattached head. The only thing I can find in this to take respite in is that his head is facing away from me because I don't think I could face looking at his unmoving face.
Quickly looking away, I walk towards my shed, wasting no time on the door and kicking it open, uncaring about the damage. Walking in, I walk to the section where I keep my tools and pick up my shovel, which used to be just for digging up paths or terrain that was in my way, but now it will be used to dig a grave. Then, walking back out with the shovel in hand, I look out at the sea, trying to calm my beating heart, the thrums with malevolence. I stifle it for the moment so I can focus on the task at hand, but it remains there, just beneath the surface, waiting to erupt once more.
Turning my eyes away from the sea, I can see a bunch of debris washed up onto the shore, and it takes a moment for me to connect the pieces of wood littering the beach with my boat that was destroyed. Another emotion rises in my heart, one that I am unfamiliar with, but I know that it is painful to feel. Ignoring it, I spot a particularly big piece of wood laid out on the beach, relatively intact, and so I go and grab hold of it and take it over towards George, resting it on the sand beside his body.
Picking up my shovel, I go to the other side of George's body and aim for my shovel so that I can move the body onto the wooden panel. But I can't do it, somehow using the shovel to move him, to shovel him away like he is dirt, feels wrong. And so I place it down, and move back to the other side of his body and grab ahold of his hand to pull him onto the wood. But again, my heart drops, and I feel as if a chunk of my soul is ripped out as my fingers touch against his cold, stale, lifeless hands.
The tears come unbidden, leaking uncontrollably from my eyes. I try scrunching up my face to deny them their leave, but I can do nothing to stop the stream from pouring out. The most I can do is force my mouth closed, biting viciously on my lips to keep the noise from escaping me. I try to carry on through the anguish, to push it to one side and focus.
I grip George's hand tightly, ignoring how it is hardly affected by my grip and my other hand quickly grabs it as well. Then, denying everything else I am feeling, I start to pull, moving backwards as I do so, my eyes shut closed. I do not want to subject myself to the sight, but also not wanting to look at the rest of his body, at the place where his head no longer is. I don't want to see it. I don't want to see the disconnect. The exact spot where it separated...
I move backwards, my feet scraping across the red sand and George's body digging a groove into the red sand. It is hard and slow going but not because it is physically demanding. I might not have trained religiously these past few years, too busy with my numerous jobs and building our home, but I did my fair share. I should be able to easily move his body. I had lifted and moved boulders the size of a horse. This should have been easy, and yet it was taking every ounce of m willpower to move it the slightest-
I lose my footing and almost fall back, saving myself with a quick foot back to steady myself. The weight that felt near impossible to move before suddenly lightened, and I nearly tripped up because of it and lay down in the red- in the bloody sand. My eyes open, and I look around for whatever was the cause, and to my left is surprisingly Nami.