[028] brave

                                                      Suki can only hear the water filling her ears, blocking out all the noise that had begun to trickle in. She continues to lie down in the bathtub, hoping to drown out all the noise that seemed to fill her head lately, while staring up at the ceiling. She would do this often when she'd start to see and hear things and most times, it'd work. Suki had tried medication, but it didn't make the visions stop. If anything, it made Suki feel like a zombie.

                                                      Plus, you couldn't really mix alcohol and medication, could you?

                                                      Suki looks over and sees the antler queen staring down at her, prompting Suki to immediately close her and sink lower into the water. She's overwhelmed with memories from her time in the wilderness. All of the carnage and blood and violence and hunting. The harsh winter and the things they had done to survive it. Suki sees flashes of the symbol all over again, the memory of it seared into her brain. And then she sees the moment they were all surrounded by the fire, all dressed up as they continued to feast on the latest victim of the wilderness's game.

                                                        She isn't sure how long she's down there for before she rises back up, gasping for air. She runs a hand over her face, taking deep breaths as she slowly felt normal again. And then when she'd open her eye, the figure was gone. Suki huffs in frustration, slamming her fists into the water and creating more of a mess. But that was the least of her worries as she continued to sit there, holding her head in her hands as she began to cry.

                                                       Maybe it had been naive for Suki to think that her dreams and visions would end once she left the wilderness. But they were still plaguing her, still continuing to haunt her when all she asked for was a normal life. Or something close to it. Suki would never be able to escape the wilderness, not when she had managed to carry a piece of it with her and hold onto it after all these years.

                                                       After she finished with her latest mental breakdown, Suki decided to get ready for the day. But before she'd go into work, Suki decided to take another trip to the town cemetery. She was there to see her mom, something Suki often did whenever she had the chance. And with the way her day had started already, Suki was sure that she wanted nothing more than for 

                                                     "Hi, Mom. I know it's been a while since we last saw each other but I figured... better now than never," Suki replies, sitting down and brushing some leaves away from her mom's grave. "And I even brought you a present."

                                                     Setting down the clay vase with a couple of flowers inside down, Suki took a deep breath before she properly looked at her mom's grave. Back then, various people in town would trash her mom's gravesite and write PSYCHO on the back. It had been cleaned off by none other than Suki herself, albeit with tears streaming down her face. After she had come back from the plane crash, it stopped. Suki still visited her mom's grave from time to time, cleaning it up whenever it wasn't maintained. And then she'd sit there and talk to her, obviously never getting a response back.

                                                     A part of Suki knew that she should try and move on. It was healthier that way. But moving on from her mom felt like forgetting her and Suki couldn't do that. She wanted to hold on to whatever she could. Her mom was the only comforting memory that she had left.

                                                    "I'll admit... I haven't been doing too good. I know I promised you that I'd relax on the drinking. And I really do plan on stopping soon. But... something's happening. Something out of my control. It reminds me of something you told me once," Suki continued.

                                                    "Have you ever felt like something bad was about to happen to you, Suki? It hasn't happened yet but it will. You can feel it approaching, enveloping around you like smoke. And there's nothing you can do. You just have to wait for it to come," her mom had told a naive, thirteen year old Suki while she was preparing to go to bed.

                                                     "That was before you decided to drive our car into the lake. I didn't understand it back then. How could I? But now I do. I know exactly what you were talking about.  If there was a bad thing coming, it was in you. You were really sick, Mom. And you passed it down onto me. Am I going to follow in your footsteps? Am I gonna snap and end up...?" Suki trails off, deciding not to finish that sentence.

                                                     Suki shakes her head, deciding to not even finish that thought. "I know I should visit Dad at the nursing home. But it's difficult when he can't even look at me. He abandoned me before the crash and after, it was like I had died on the plane. He barely acknowledged me. He didn't comfort me. I don't think he was happy I came back at all."

                                                    While everything else in Suki's life had drastically changed, her relationship with her dad hadn't. He just kept on drinking, nearly drinking himself to death at times. Suki practically picked up the habit from him, realizing that there was something to her father's method of self-medicating. You didn't have to feel the pain if you were numb. It was probably the only thing they ever agreed on. And half of the time, her dad drank so much that he assumed it was him taking down all the booze and not his own daughter. 

                                                   Eventually though, Suki had to put her father away in the nursing home and paid for him to be taken care of. Suki had only visited him once, hoping for some sort of change now that he couldn't drink anymore. But he didn't say a word to her. He didn't even look at her.

                                                   Suki was a walking, breathing reminder of his wife. And he was in too much pain to acknowledge her.

                                                   "Sometimes, I think he'd be a lot happier if I died and you came back instead. And I don't blame him. Sometimes, I wish that too. Being dead is a lot better than living with all of this pain. You're lucky, whether you see it that way or not," Suki adds.

                                                    Suki often wondered if she would've been better off staying inside of the car with her mom and allowing her to kill them both. She wouldn't have gone through what she did in the wilderness for those eighteen months. She wouldn't have been so fucked up in the head like she was now. She wouldn't have to feel a thing anymore. Suki would be with her mom forever, whether it be in heaven or wherever the afterlife was. Maybe there was no afterlife at all, and it was just eternal darkness.

                                                   Either way, Suki thought about it more than she cared to admit.

                                                  "I should probably go and visit him soon. Even if it's just for one last time," Suki mused aloud. "And then... I think I'll be able to properly accept it and move on. I should've done it a long time ago. Finally, I'll have to stop drinking and try to go on without it. I don't know how I'll get there but I hope to. Something has to change, doesn't it?"

                                                 The only response Suki got, however, was from the wind. Suki closed her eyes and takes a deep breath, tilting her head back and allowing the sun to hit her skin. But her moment of peace and tranquility would ultimately be broken when she hears her phone ringing. Suki opens her eye and goes to check her phone, not recognizing the number. But nonetheless, she decides to answer it anyway.

                                                   "Hello?" Suki answered.

                                                   "Suki?" an all too familiar voice answers.

                                                   "Natalie?" Suki called her name. "H - how are you even able to call me right now? I thought -."

                                                   "I was in rehab?" Natalie finished for her. "I got out a while ago. You're not a difficult person to find, believe it or not."

                                                   "I didn't want to be. I was growing tired of having to hide all the time. Why are you calling me?" Suki questioned.

                                                   "I need to see you. We have to talk," Natalie answers, making Suki's head cant to the side.

                                                   Suki sighs. "You got the postcard then too?"

                                                   "Yeah, I did. I think I know who sent them too," Natalie replied. That made Suki very interested.

                                                   "Who?" Suki questioned.

                                                   "I'll talk to you later," is all Natalie says before she hangs up, leaving Suki no other choice but to wait on her.

                                                   Suki takes that as her cue to get up and leave, making sure to fix her mom's grave a little more before she left. But in the process, she felt eyes on her. Suki turns around and looks to see if there was anyone else in the cemetery with her. But she couldn't see anyone. It was only her (or so she thought). She tries her best to relax and keep walking, heading inside of her car.

                                                  She makes it back to the store, opening up for the day and cleaning up around the shop. The first round of usuals come in and Suki attends to them all. Honestly, she probably should've hired someone to help her. But Suki was so used to doing things on her own that she'd probably end up doing all of their work anyway. And besides, doing so much work kept her mind busy - allowing her to stay in the present rather than drift back into the past like it did so often.

                                                Although the next customer would send her firmly back into the past.

                                                 "Thank you so much for all of these. After Jenny here decided to break the last one, I knew I just had to come back and get some more," Nancy remarked with a small smile.

                                                 Nancy Morrison had become Nancy Welch after marrying David, a bold move since he had dated Courtney first, about ten years ago. But with Courtney long gone, it wasn't as though she'd oppose the union. They had a seemingly picturesque life, with David being a construction worker and Nancy being a stay-at-home mom with their only daughter. David was less of an asshole now, age and being a dad humbling him out. And Nancy was as nice as ever, seeming to blossom now that her oppressive older sister was gone.

                                                 "Oh, it's no problem," Suki replied, just as Nancy's six year old daughter decided to join the conversation.

                                                 "Why do you look like a pirate?" Jenny blurts out the moment she looks up at Suki, making her chuckle.

                                                 "Darling, that's rude," Nancy quickly scolds the six year old.

                                                 "It's fine. I thought it'd be pretty cool," Suki playfully responds.

                                                 "It is cool. I want to be one!" Jenny says, giving her mother a pleading look.

                                                 "I'll consider it. Go wait with your dad over there," Nancy replied and Jenny nods, waving at Suki before she walked off to join David who picked her up in an instant. "I really am sorry about her. She just says the first thing on her mind sometimes."

                                                 "It's really fine," Suki insists.

                                                 "I'm just happy that you're doing well for yourself after... everything that happened. I just have to say, you were so brave to survive and come back. I don't think I would've made it," Nancy adds with a small, sympathetic smile.

                                                Suki's smile falters. She wouldn't see herself as brave, especially with all she had done in the wilderness. She was a terrible person. "I almost didn't."

                                                "Nance, it's time to go," David called out, interrupting the conversation, "It's getting late."

                                                "Right. Well, it was really nice to see you again. We should find a time to catch up sometime," Nancy says before she begins to leave.

                                                "Have you heard from her?" Suki suddenly asked, making Nancy turn around to look at her. They both knew exactly who Suki was referring to.

                                                Nancy shakes her head. "No. Not since she just... left all those years ago. But that's for the better. Life's a lot better with her gone."

                                                And with that, Nancy leaves the shop with David and their daughter. Suki just stands there, wondering if that statement was true. But nonetheless, with the next customer coming in, she didn't have much of a choice but to keep on going until it was closing hours. Suki was feeling pretty tired afterwards and she was just ready to go to bed.

                                                 But when Suki made it inside of her home, she could sense that something was off.

                                                The hairs on the back of her neck were standing straight up as she ventured through the darkness, reaching out to try and find the light. She eventually did find the light switch and turned on the light, only to scream in shock at what she'd see next. Suki almost wondered if she was dreaming as she saw Courtney now sitting inside of her living room, a grin on her face. Even though she was wearing designer clothes and her long blonde hair was pinned up, she recognized her instantly.

                                              "Hi," Courtney responds, "did you miss me?"

( 🌲🔪🦌 )

word count: 2301
notes: so we got to see nancy and her new life as well as get some more sad back story with suki because her whole life is honestly just depressing. and now courtney's back??? shit's really about to kick up a notch