Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to Survival of the Fittest, a RPing board loosely based off of Koshun Takami's Battle Royale, with its own unique plot and spin on the 'deadly game'. We've been around quite a while, and are now in our thirteenth year, so don't worry about us going anywhere any time soon!

If you're a newcomer and interested in joining, then please make sure you check out the rules. You may also want to read the FAQ, introduce yourself and stop by the chat to meet some of our members. If you're still not quite sure where to start, then we have a great New Member's Guide with a lot of useful information about getting going. Don't hesitate to PM a member of staff (they have purple usernames) if you have any questions about SOTF and how to get started!

Let the games begin!

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Twelve; i'll be your shelter
Topic Started: May 24 2009, 10:25 PM (409 Views)
ifnotwinter
Member Avatar
half Iago, half Fu Manchu, all bastard
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Erik Laurin was twelve, and he knew what cancer was. Cancer was what his Granddad Eli had died of, before he'd been old enough to recognize the old man's face. Cancer was something people whispered about and raised money to cure and it made people bald and sick.

But cancer wasn't supposed to be real, not like this. Cancer was something in magazines and doctor's offices that other people went too, it wasn't supposed to be in his mother.

Erik Laurin was twelve and he was putting the twins to bed because his dad was at the hospital and Grandma Alice was sleeping. Morgan and Charlotte had spent most of the afternoon screaming for Mom, and now they just stared at him with heavy, reproachful eyes, clinging to each other. They called for him when he left the room, desperate, like the baby birds he'd seen once after a storm had blown their nest into the street. He tried to calm them down, reading from the book of fairy-tales that Mom had always read them before bed, but he wasn't Mom and they stared at him, waiting for him to make things right again.

Erik shut his eyes when the words on the page blurred, held his breath so he wouldn't be able to pull in a sob but it wasn't working. I'm twelve, I'm too old to cry, he tried to tell himself fiercely, but it didn't work. He wanted to cry. He wanted to lie down like the twins and scream himself hoarse the way they did, and he wanted Mom to come and pick him up like she'd done when he was three, smelling all like spices and soap, not hospital disinfectant.

When he opened his eyes there were tears sliding down his cheeks. He put the book back on the shelf, where Mom always put it, and left the twins sniffling in the dark. Outside the bedroom door Lucky and Bear, their two dogs, looked up at him with liquid eyes. Kimberly was sitting against the wall next to them.

"You should go to bed," Erik said, and hated the way his voice trembled.

"So should you." At nine years old Kim was a rebellious pain, in Erik's opinion, but her voice wasn't particularly spiteful, just tired. "Pierre's already asleep."

"It's not that late." Lucky pawed at his knees and Erik crouched, burying his fingers in the soft hair behind her ears the way he had countless other times. "Besides, I'm older then you. And I'm staying up in case Dad calls."

Kim's lower lip trembled for a moment before she turned her head away. She didn't say anything else, her fingers twisting hard in Bear's ruff until the big black dog whined softly. Erik got up, trudged into the kitchen to glance at the hard black of the answering machine, looking for a message that he knew wasn't there. Both dogs followed him, and he slumped into a chair at the hard Formica table, watching them.

Lucky had been a rescue, young and pregnant. She'd had only a single pup, Bear, who'd grown up to tower over her, massive and gentle. Erik remembered when Bear had been weaned,how he'd cried at night until Dad had gotten Lucky's blanket for him to curl around.

He heard a soft noise, and glanced up. Kimberly was standing at the entrance to the kitchen, watching him. One thumb was tucked into her mouth, and Erik's eyes stung for a moment until he blinked the hard tears away. He hadn't seen Kim suck her thumb in years.

"Hey," he said, and tried to pull a smile. It didn't really work, but at least Kim took her thumb out of her mouth. "Go get Pierre, okay?"

She didn't stop watching him, just shifted her position a little and started to play with a strand of her hair. "He's sleeping."

"I know." Erik got up, moving across to her and grabbing her shoulders in a rough hug. "Bring him to Mom and Dad's room, okay? I'll be there in a moment."

She regarded him again for a moment, then shrugged and wandered off in the direction of the room she shared with Pierre. Erik walked across the hall to the twin's room, flicking on the light. They weren't sleeping, he'd figured as much.

One on each hip, in the practiced way that made Kim tease him about being a girl, he shifted them across into his parent's room. They had a massive bed, a beautiful king-size sleigh bed with the softest covers and multitudes of pillows. He settled Morgan and Charlotte near the head, guarded by a fence of fluffy pillows, then went to the closet and pulled it open.

The dirty laundry hamper gave him what he wanted, his mother's powder-blue bathrobe. He scooped it up, inhaling for a moment the familiar scent, then returned to the bed just as Kimberly entered the room with Pierre in tow.

She stopped short, then looked hard at Erik. "What're you doing?"

"I thought we could all wait up for Dad to call." Erik tossed the bathrobe on the bed and gestured to the phone on the bedside table. "Besides, it's - I don't know, it's nice. You know?"

Kimberly looked at him for another moment then nodded, climbing up. Pierre was already up and cuddled against Morgan, one hem of the bathrobe in his hand, eyes closed. Kim settled on the other side, Charlotte wrapped in a fold of sleeve and head resting on Kim's chest, yawning.

There wasn't a lot of room, but Erik sprawled himself on the foot of the bed, absently twisting the bathrobe tie around his wrist. There were loose threads coming off it, like the scattered threads of the Chinese Staircase bracelet he was trying to make in his room. He hadn't worked on it in ages.

For a few minutes, everything was quiet. Then Kimberly shifted, carefully putting Charlotte down closer to her sister. "Erik?"

Her voice was tiny, something he never thought he'd hear from her. Looking up, he saw that she'd pulled herself into a sitting position against the head of the bed, clutching her knees.

"Yeah?" He moved up as well, pulling himself a little higher on the bed so that he could put a hand on her knee. Trying to sound older, a little more like Dad, he cleared his throat. "What's wrong?"

"I don't want Mom to die."

It came out in a rush, words tripping over each other and ending in a deep inhale as tears began to spill out of her eyes. She bent her head into her knees, gasping jerkily for breath, and Erik felt his heart do an uncomfortable double beat.

They'd never said - the D word, they weren't supposed to. Because Mom wasn't going to, she couldn't, she was Erik's mom and she wasn't supposed to die until she was old and gray and maybe not even then. He wasn't supposed to be in her bed holding his sister because she wasn't there to do it, and this, this wasn't supposed to be happening.

Erik Laurin was twelve and he wasn't supposed to be holding his sister because his mom wasn't there to do it, but he was. It was awkward but he managed to reach forwards, putting his arms around her and pulling her forwards into him. There was a moment of awkward moving, and then he was on his back next to the twins and Pierre, Kimberly on his chest and soaking his pajama top in tears and snot.

He held her, though, because that was what big brothers did, when moms weren't around. Because he was the oldest, and he was the biggest and he had to act like it.

But in the end, Erik Laurin was twelve and he just turned his face into the worn fabric of his mother's bathrobe, whispered "I don't want her to die either," and let the hot tears finally come spilling out, crying for his mother, for his sister, for his brother and the twins and his father and his grandmother, crying for himself because he was twelve and his mother wasn't supposed to be dying.


marc st. yves
light it up or burn it down we'll all die in fire
{food for thought}


phineas rosario
fall down seven times stand up eight

sebastian conway
can't see the forest for the trees
{book of sparrows}


(so you've got to keep in mind, when you try to change the world for the better not everybody's gonna be on your side)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Create a free forum in seconds.
« Previous Topic · Memories from the Past · Next Topic »
Add Reply