Pick up the pieces and go home.

[broken_brushes]

Four and a half years I'd been on the island. I'd lived and loved, I'd built something I was proud of, I'd cried and carried on. But only once had I ever come across a mysterious item from home, and over time, I'd forgotten that I, too, could be the target of anything so explicitly cruel

Comments

[bennet_beauty]

Jane had seen a great number of strange items in her time arrive with such flair and horrid timing that she thought it was something of a ritual to be placed through. Now, she felt truly terrible for Shari, though she had only the faintest of ideas what such a thing was for. "Shari?" Jane spoke gently, crouching to right the cup of coffee (but ignoring the mess) before continuing on towards the woman.

[broken_brushes]

Jane always moved so gracefully, so quietly that I didn't even realize she was there until she spoke. The name seemed to come to me through a fog, wrapped in cotton, but when I turned to look upon her, the obvious concern written across her features jolted me from my reverie. I looked down, noticed the pool of coffe at my feet.

"Oh h- heavens," I quickly ammended. I didn't have me in it to cuss in front of Jane. "I'll get a towel."

[bennet_beauty]

Jane was already at Shari's side, reaching a hand out to press to her arm in order to gain her attention. "I am sure people will let it be for but a moment," she insisted. "It is only coffee and you are far more important,' she said, her gaze flickering to the side and to the object that seemed to have garnered such shocked attention. "What is it?"

[broken_brushes]

"It's…" I trailed off, considering how to explain the situation to Jane, who presumably came from a time when people still put their dead bodies on display in their parlor. "They put my body here, in the hospital," I tried, motioning to the table. "When I died, so that my family could verify it was me."

[thebettermen]

He's heard the stories, of course. Telepathy might be the neater way to pick up on local gossip, but listening often works just as well, lacking though it is in anything impressive. Things are known to just show up, at times, to appear out of thin air just like every person who's ever step foot on Tabula Rasa. And though Charles misses the actual arrival of the table, he's acutely aware of Shari's reaction to it; he watches her for a few seconds from a polite distance, his desire not to intrude on what's clearly an unplanned private moment soon quickly overruled by a more immediate concern of ensuring she's all right.

"Shari," he says quietly upon reaching her side, a hand lifting to rest at her back. "Come with me, love."

[broken_brushes]

He had the nicest voice. I'd always imagined it sort of low and velvet-rough, but I'd always imagined Charles much older, too, wise and untouchable. This younger version sounded confident, almost lyrical, with soft vowels that could be incredibly persuasive. Much like the hand at my back.

When my eyes slowly opened again, my gaze drifted to the towel at the end of the table before it shifted up to Charles.

"I'm okay," I promised, knowing how unconvining I probably sounded. Needed to get myself some of those English vowels. "I can't-" I paused to swallow, then rubbed at my forehead with a shake of my head. "I can't just leave it." If I came back to find out some well-intentioned soul had washed my death shroud, it would not be pretty.

[thebettermen]

"What is... it?" Charles asks, his confusion reading clear in his eyes, though his expression remained otherwise concerned. That she wasn't fine was rather obvious, but he feels no need to belabour the point, not without some explanation as to why she's upset in the first place. A table, a towel -- they hold some significance, obviously, but what, he can't be sure. Her face is more difficult to read than her thoughts would be, giving only an impression of the situation rather than the details, and it's some effort to keep his own frustration at bay.

[broken_brushes]

My death was not something I was uncomfortable with. There had been a time when I'd been irrationally anxious about other people finding out about it, when I'd stupidly thought it would change how they'd see me, but my death itself I'd been at peace about since well before I'd arrived on the island. The thing of it was, others were seldom so calm about it, and every time I had to tell someone I liked about it, that worry knotted up in my stomach again.

"It's, um," I began, and faltered not because I was having difficulty saying the words, but rather because I didn't know what words to say. "Sometimes the island, it sends us things from home, kind of like how we all just appear." I had no idea if Charles knew any of that yet, but it seemed like a good idea to explain anyway. And maybe I was stalling, just a little.

"I died," I finally said, because there just wasn't any nice way to put it. "Before I got to the island." He was smart, he could put the rest together.