My Boy Builds Coffins
Title: My Boy Builds Coffins
Author: longerthanwedo
Characters: Duncan, Lily
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~1,000
Summary: The thing itself is beautiful. Made from the finest wood, wood he singled out for this purpose. Honey-colored and solid, he can hear her laughing inside. He can smell the air and the liquid scent of lilies, he can feel the sun. That day, he remembers, that day by the pool. The day he began building her coffin.
Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters, and I am not associated in any way with those that do.
Author’s Note: For the vmfic_gameon character centric challenge. This is Duncan’s mind when he learns that he might have killed Lily.
It’s in his mind; he sees clearly now.
“You killed your sister,” they say, and he sees.
It’s floating, riding the shoulders of men in black, all faceless, supporting his creation. Thick air parts as the precession marches; trees swaying out of its path. Waving bright ebony skies. He watches as they carry her, he sees his work in motion.
The thing itself is beautiful. Made from the finest wood, wood he singled out for this purpose. Honey-colored and solid, he can hear her laughing inside. He can smell the air and the liquid scent of lilies, he can feel the sun. That day, he remembers, that day by the pool.
The day he began building her coffin.
He had to work quickly, of course, with sirens blaring outside. He lined up the planks, drove each nail deep, till the metal was out of sight and he filled the holes with glue. He could feel people surrounding him, voices trying to break his concentration as he painted over the bloodstains with steady hands and a shaking brush.
You can do better, he couldn’t help but think. This is sloppy work, shameful, she deserves more.
But he shook his head; it wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t been forewarned, he hadn’t seen this coming. No one had told him that Lily would need a coffin so soon. No one had given him the size, the measurements; no one had told him he would be the one to build it.
Nobody had told him that he would kill his sister.
He sees the box, floating past his eye. Sees the lid, shut tight and letting no sunshine in and the way the hands carrying it hardly touch the surface. He wonders if she’s really there.
He didn’t see her, after it happened. Didn’t see her broken and bloody, because he had no time to look. He had to keep working.
She must have shrunk, he thinks, air pumping in his lungs.
He can still hear her laugh.
It’s universal, light as the breeze threading through his hair and fingers and eyelashes, and he thinks maybe that’s why. Maybe when he broke her, when her skull cracked, it let all the laughter out. Whoosh, into the sun, and then she was gone. Shrunken, dry, cold. Stuffed into the box he made, varnish and paint sealing her away.
Severing her life from her body and leaving her laughter to infect the space around him.
Haunting him.
Not my fault, he had thought, but now he knows it is. It’s his fault her laughter won’t die down, won’t leave his mind. His fault for building such a twisted contraption, for not making sure the box would trap her for good, laughter and all. The parade marches before him and his eyes focus on the surface of the wood.
He can see, now, why she isn’t gone. The paint is scratched in places, and glue has fallen out. Fingerprints mar the surface; his and those of the carriers, disrupting the gleam. The slightest space separates the lid from his sister, and the sound of her escapes, more and more each second, seeping through the leaves, through his skin.
His fault, his fault she haunts him.
The precession is smaller now, each second shrinking into the fog and the distance, and he’s tempted to follow, to run after them, after her and scream.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Let me fix it.” Let me kill you again, this time I’ll do it right, I promise.
He wants to run but he doesn’t. He just stands there, watches as the people march, until they’re finally out of sight and he waits for the laughter to fade. He can’t see them, can’t see her, can’t see the flaws in what he’s made, but it continues. The laughter rings and rings and he can’t stand it. He covers his ears with his hands, but it echoes still.
He can’t stand it, he can’t stop it.
He can’t let it happen again.
He runs, through the trees and the lily-scented air. Back to his shop, the room with linoleum floors, splattered still with paint and blood and splinters. This time he’ll do it right.
Hammers and nails and snippets of conversation run through his head as he begins to work. Sleek, golden boards that fit together flawlessly. Chestnut red with sharp edges. Matching brown with tints of gray and carefully rounded ends.
One after another he builds them.
Coffins, one for everyone in his life, everyone he’s spoken to, laid eyes on. He’s thinking ahead, piling them up, because you never know. Never know what will happen next, who will stop breathing, whose laughter will need to be trapped.
I killed my sister, he thinks, I don’t know who’s next.
I don’t know anything.
He can’t see the sun anymore, and that’s when he looks up. Towering to the sky, surrounding him, blocking the sun and the wind and the smell of flowers. He’s trapped now, in his cage of coffins, and he sits back, admiring his work, blood on his hands and thoughts of those closest to him swarming around, bouncing off the wood and passing through his mind again and again.
His whole life around him in long boxes, and he wonders what happens next.
When the time comes he’ll be ready, ready to trap his family and friends for good, no way of escaping. No laughter to haunt him, no reminder of what he’s done. What he hasn’t done yet, what he’s sure to do soon.
Alone with his life, their deaths, and the sound of her laughter still echoes in his mind.