The stories of the murders at the meat factory had now turned into a story meant to scare kids into finishing their food and going to sleep early at night. Elena had heard it plenty of times from her friends and it had frightened her. It was the reason why she had been so scared when her father had taken her into Destroyed Dener for the first time.
The stories aren't real, Elena. Trust me, there's nothing scary about the Peak City. Don't you want to see where I grow my herbs?
Yes I do, Dad.
Then come along now. You've got nothing to fear when I with you.
She liked to recall the times she had gone with her dad to the greenhouse with the afternoon sun shining on them like it was at that moment. She imagined talking to him whenever she went there after his death. It had been one of the only times in their busy lives that they had been able to have proper conversations.
I saw you checking out Andre's son the other day, he's hot, isn't he?
Shut up, dad.
You don't seem to hang out with your friends that often, nowadays.
I told you, Dad. They're busy. We're all busy. But on the inside she would think, most of them are dead. But she did not tell him. No, he already felt sorry for her. She did not want him to worry more about her. He had his own demons to deal with. Like the death of his wife, which had been his daughter's fault. Her friends' deaths too were because of the curse she had afflicted on them.
Elena had a smile on her face, a bitter-sweet smile. She missed her father so much. She wished she had savored the moments that they had spent together. They hadn't been very close before the respawners' arrival because of her father being off to conferences all the time. This also caused heated feuds between him and his wife which Elena hated to see. She remembered hiding away in the store room whenever they argued. But her father had loved his wife and he had loved her too. He had shown his love to her after his wife's death. She knew he regretted fighting with her mother, that he would take all that back if he could.
He had eventually fallen to her curse too. Why can't I die and just join them? A question she had asked herself many times. And asked God too if he was listening out there but so far, the only answer she had got was silence. Silence was an answer too.
She carefully traversed the huge hill of debris and then slowly slid down the other side. She was in the backyard of a red-brick house at the start of a cul-de-sac. She moved forward, cutting through the backyards, of which most of the separating walls had been destroyed or crumbled until she arrived at the greenhouse that gleamed in the afternoon sun. She approached the adjoining small cabin that had been built by her father with help from her uncle. It was here where he had conducted his research on medicines synthesized from the plants he grew in the greenhouse.
She opened the lock and entered inside. The whole place smelled musty. Her father's office consisted mainly of a desk and shelves that were piled with all sorts of medical books and journals. There were thick registers too consisting of his research that Elena had already memorized but liked to look at from time to time because she liked to read her father's handwriting. In this instance, however, she grabbed his research registers and put them to the side. She grabbed the small plastic bag of marijuana that was behind them. She also took the small mp4 player with earphones that were placed besides it which had been gifted to her by one of her patients on his deathbed. It was one of the greatest gifts she had ever been given.
There was a small lawn chair right outside the cabin and she sunk into it. She carefully rolled out a joint from the pot and popped in the earphones. She lit the joint and inhaled deeply. She let the smoke numb her mind and she felt a rare moment of peace. She scrolled through the songs and put on her current favorite, Move Along by The All-American Rejects.
Go ahead as you waste your days with thinking.
That was what she was doing, thinking about him. This was the song she listened to whenever her thoughts about him were too difficult to handle.
And even when your hope is gone;
Move along, move along just to make it through.
She wished she could move along, move on from him. She hated him with a strong passion, she hated everything about him.
And yet, she still wanted him.
His name was Chuck which had the same number of letters as her name. That was the sort of thinking that had made her attached to him. These small coincidences that she had made herself believe were heaven-sent, that it was meant to be. Chuck had been a patient of her father's after he had broken his leg in the mines. He was a tall, strong guy with straight, dark-brown hair and a moustache which she hated but was a part of him, as if without the moustache he was a completely different person. She had taken care of him and she had listened to him intently as he had bragged about himself and joked around with her. She had found him annoying at first but at the tender of age of fifteen, it did not take long for her to develop a crush on him. She would think about him all day and all night, she would even skip helping her dad so that she could spend time with him.
The song had finished and she had been too lost to realize it. Shit, I missed the best part. She took another deep puff of the joint and put the song on again.
She had known for a long time that her father smoked weed and that he grew it in the greenhouse. She had tried her best to convince him to stop smoking but he had never stopped. She hated smokers until she found out that Chuck smoked too. He had convinced her to try it out and she had obliged in an effort to please him. He had convinced her to do many things which she regretted. He was the first and only one she had had sex with and she had thought that she was his first too.
Boy, had she been wrong.