Chapter Text
Michael’s brother died last week.
The funeral lasted a total of ten minutes: the same amount of time it took to toss the mangled corpse of a ten year old boy into a ditch and cover it back up.
There was no eulogy. No speech. No other family members besides his father wiping the sweat from his face, shovel in hand, and his sister who sat on a grassy patch in the shade of an old oak tree.
The weather was entirely inappropriate for a funeral. Instead of the soft pitter patter of raindrops, or the need for a black umbrella to properly grieve, it was unbearably hot. The air was thick with moisture and everytime Michael so much as shifted, he could feel the strands of his tumbleweed dark hair sticking to the nape of his neck.
“All right, I buried him.” The low voice of his father startled him from his reverie. His father, William, wasn’t a sturdy man. Despite living in the very outdoors nature of Utah, he looked pale and sickly. Most of the times he had a screwdriver in those trembling boney hands than the organic labor of a shovel, and if he wasn’t stowed away tinkering with another one of his robots at his restaurant, he would be watching the telly at home.
The very act of seeing William outside, completely out of his element, was unsettling.
William dropped the shovel and stumbled away from the now filled grave with a frown. That frown of his wasn’t due to grief or sadness. In fact, it felt more politely bothered than anything. As if he had accidentally dropped a couple of his blueprints instead of just buried his youngest son. “Sit here and grieve,” he muttered, wiping his hands on his dirty pant legs. “Play tag or something, just don’t bother me.” Then he trudged the ungainly path back to their house, a little wooden thing on the plains.
Michael watched him go in silence.
Only two children remained now by the small mountain of disturbed dirt. One who stood just several feet away from the grave, and another who was much farther under a tree.
“Michael.”
Michael didn’t reply.
“Michael,” The speaker, the mousy twelve year old girl that was his sister, tried again but to no avail. She quietly got up from where she sat beneath the oak, brushing her blonde hair away from her face with thin fingers. She attempted to pool it behind her ears, but it just swung back into place like a thick curtain.
Michael’s gaze dragged against her face, which was sunken and indescribable. There was something beneath that waxy skin, an indiscernible anger that would have had him wincing back and snapping just several days ago, but now he accepted it with open arms.
“You must feel happy, don’t you?” she said.
“Elizabeth--” It was the first time Michael had spoken since William had buried his brother. His voice croaked and crackled like a damaged audio box.
“Now you’re feeling guilty? Or is it an act? Sorry to say, but there isn’t anyone around that’ll be impressed, Michael. Not after what you did to him.” She moved forward then. Michael took a step back.
“Why are you even here?” Elizabeth spat, her blonde hair flashed wildly in the burning sun. “You killed him, and you want to play the cryer. Go back home and talk with Father, why don’t you? My brother wouldn’t want his murderer at his funeral.”
Murderer.
It was the only thing that had filled his head within the past couple of days.
Michael Afton, fourteen years old, and a murderer.
Maybe he could’ve just sobbed and blubbered out, “It was an accident!” But whatever he did that day was no accident.
How could throwing his only brother into the jaws of a robotic monster an accident?
Not to mention the cruelty that had bombarded his little brother for so long from Michael’s own tongue.
Elizabeth was right, wasn’t she?
He was a tyrant, a thief, a murderer.
Michael dared to raise his line of sight from the weeds beneath his shoes to Elizabeth’s face.
She was flushed with anger and her chin quivered with distaste. Even her hair, which was once curly and brilliant, was now a greasy mop of spider web that stretched over her skull.
Immediately, his eyes darted to their house.
“Sorry.” He muttered out this half hearted excuse and picked his way down the unruly path back home.
When Michael finally did reach the house and had one hand over the door knob, he allowed himself a quick glimpse back to the gravesite.
Elizabeth had returned to her spot under the tree. The mountain of dirt was undisturbed.