Okay so, in this chapter the story is going to get darker and finally start the action.
You should also be warned that this chapter may not be for everyone since it will contain evidence, I'm not sure if that's the right word, of r*pe. I didn't write the scene while it was happening but it's pretty apparent that it did happen.
There will be a short synopsis of what happened in the next chapter if you'd like to skip this one.
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The first thing that Ender noticed when he fully opened the shack's door was that, the inside was way messier that usual.
The floor was filled with broken glasses and there were dried bloodstains on most of his and Catherine's possessions. Even their best create that they used as a table was now in shatters.
The whole scene screamed of a gruesome story of violence and struggle. Ender didn't care about the shack's condition though, nor for any of the items in it.
His eyes kept scanning the house, before they suddenly stopped.
Ender froze.. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. He didn't want to believe it!
"No, no, NO!" Ender's voice cracked with desperation, each "no" rising in pitch and intensity.
Ender fell down unable to control his body. A few steps in front of him, on top of what used to be the bed that Catherine and Ender shared, laid a body.
A feminine body that Ender was quite familiar with.
Filled with mostly blunt injuries and some small gashes, Catherine laid with her eyes open. At first, her open eyes flickered a small hope inside of Ender, but it quickly got extinguished when he noticed their absence of life.
Catherine was almost naked. Her clothes were forcefully ripped open and barely hid any of her body.
After a whole minute, Ender managed to get some semblance of control and stood back up. However, he couldn't do anything about the tears that flowed down his face.
He slowly reached their makeshift bed and noticed the white fluids flowing out of Catherine's now dead body.
He couldn't stop himself from throwing up.
He barely managed to turn his face and throw up away from her body.
He was sad, devastated and empty.
"Why gods?! What has Catherine ever done to deserve such a fate?" Ender questioned and waited.
Unremarkably, there was no answer.
Ender had a growing suspicion that he wouldn't ever feel happy again. Not after seeing what was done to Catherine.
Since the gods didn't answer him, Ender had to do something himself. He pushed his body around and this time, successfully reached Catherine's body.
"Oh Catherine…" he murmured.
Even though he was sure of Catherine's death, he still reached out and checked her pulse. He had to…
Nothing. He was met with silence.
Utter and devastating silence.
Catherine was dead. It wasn't debatable, but a fact. Ender couldn't procrastinate any more about it. She was dead and he wouldn't ever see her again.
'Her smile. That damned smile, that could somehow make even my worst days less gloomy. I won't have the chance to ever see it again.'
Ender punched the floor.
'I won't ever wake up next to her again. How can I ever sleep, knowing that?'
Ender punched the floor again.
'Her voice, I won't hear it ever again... That. Beautiful. Voice.'
This time, the floor was met with a stronger punch.
A second passed, and then another one. The punching had stopped.
Ender had stopped.
He stopped punching the floor. He stopped breathing and also stopped thinking.
All that, because he remembered something that Catherine told him yesterday… Something that hurt too much, even thinking about it.
"Our-Our baby?" he weakly murmured.
The wooden planks broke. Ender's continuous assault had made some cracks on the floor before, but it couldn't resist that last punch. It was stronger and more fierce than all of the previous ones..
"Squeak, squeak."
A sound.
Ender looked up and noticed a rat heading slowly and cautiously toward his direction.
Even though he could't smell it yet, Catherine's body had started smelling.
'I have to take her out of here… and bury her. Lest, the rats eat her...' he thought.
Ender's abrupt movement scared the rat away.
He rummaged through the items scattered around and found the best looking bed sheet and covered Catherine's body with it.
The road towards the nearest graveyard was short and uneventful. However, Ender got a lot of curious stares from the inhabitants of the slums. They didn't have to be very bright to realise what he was holding.
He reached the graveyard and looked around for a shovel. He knew that there was always one lying around as it was very common to bury someone in the slums.
He found one quickly and started digging the hole.
Ender wasn't thinking anything whilst he dug. It wasn't the first time he had to bury someone, so he knew what he was doing.
After he made the hole, he emotionlessly put Catherine's body inside and filled it back with soil.
He somehow made his way back home.
"Hm? How did I end up back here?" he inquired quietly.
He didn't remember wanting to go back to his home. He also didn't remember much of what happened in the following hour.
He remembered getting suddenly getting overflowed with rage and start breaking things.
When he was done and had regained back some clarity he found himself in a small room with nothing but broken pieces of wood and some cut pieces of cloth. The shack's floor was filled with broken fragments of their past possessions. Nothing remained untouched though.
That was when he finally noticed something.
"The suit… It's gone!"