She is Fatal to Death (Standalone Story)

Chapter 41 (Honey and Blue)

Rocio

Memory...

Twelve year old Rocio only wanted to get some agua fresca.

She looked down at Tía Reh with horror. Her aunt laid there, face upward, unblinking. Her brown skin was ghastly pale, lifeless. She was still beautiful, but now it was disturbing to look at for too long.

She took a step back as the blood puddle grew and grew and grew, ruining the white-tiled, kitchen floor. Her high-pitched voice was as tiny as ever. "Tía?" Her heart nearly exploded out of her chest when she heard the home's front door open.

"Ma?" Eight year old Renata called out. "Hola, mami! Hellooooo!"

The sweet sound of her voice broke Rocio from her shocked spell. She raced from the kitchen, her pounding steps clearly startling Renata who jumped but soon smiled after with familiarity. "Ah, Rocio! You didn't eat the last cookie did you?" She kicked off her black school shoes, leaving her in her white knee-high socks. "Where's ma?"

Rocio meant to be calmer, but all she did was shout, "stop!"

Renata arched a brow of suspicion. "Why are you being so weird? I need to pee."

Rocio put a firm hand on Renata's shoulder when she tried to move further into the house. "Listen to me! We need to get my ma now!"

"Ow!" She attempted to shake herself free, but Rocio was just beginning puberty and outweighed her by at least twenty or thirty pounds. "Stop that! It's not funny. I'm gonna pee myself–I didn't go at school."

Rocio couldn't stop the tears as they burned and welled in her eyes. She wasn't shouting anymore, but her grief-filled voice was just as loud. "Renata, please listen to me, we need to go to my house."

Finally, fear reached Renata's big brown eyes when she realized Rocio wasn't playing some strange joke on her. "What's wrong?"

Rocio's chin trembled and she tried her best not to sob right then and there. "Let's just go, okay? Put your zapatos back on."

"Okay," she hesitantly did as asked. Rocio opened the front door again and attempted to pull Renata after her.

She resisted and looked back, but thankfully the kitchen was blocked off by a wall from this angle. "Where's ma?"

Rocio tried to clear her throat, but it did nothing for the cotton clogging it. "We should hurry, okay?"

_____________

Rocio held onto Renata as she cried, inconsolable. They clung onto each other tightly as they shared the twin mattress.

They'd just buried Tía Reh earlier that day.

"It's okay, Nata," Rocio shushed her, "it's okay."

"I want mami!" She whined, voice crushed by grief. Her face was red and puffy, though it was hard to see as there was only the slightest luminescence from the moon in her—now 'their'—bedroom.