Predator (DWT x OC)

62

When he was fifteen, his family fell apart. 

There were cracks, there were always cracks, spiders legs under the surface, hairline fissures in a seemingly perfect facade. And when he was a child he had believed it, never looked deeper, never known to look deeper, but that only lasts so long. 

His Dad got angry, too angry, too loud, spitting words with an acid tongue that seemed to corrode his mother's very resolve. She grew quieter, withdrew from him and his sister while his Dad only seemed to get angrier. 

His Mum died just after his fifteenth birthday. He'd lost her far before then. 

But, for the most part, they were happy, they were okay, and they were whole. His Dad would take him out to hunt, teach him how to build traps, and how to blow stuff up, and he would laugh, and crack stupid dumb jokes that made the whole family groan. 

His Mum would always know when to hold him, even though he didn't need to tell her. She would fix him up after he fell out out of trees, or sprained his ankles, or accidentally stood too close to the blast zone when he and his dad would explode clay pots. 

And his Dad would apologise when he yelled too loud, and his Mum would kiss him goodnight, and cook his favourite dinner when she hadn't come out of her room day before. And even though they weren't perfect, and even though it could have been better, he looks back and wishes he could have kept it. 

It was slipping, when his Mum got sick, and she stopped cooking, stopped coming out of her room, and his Dad stopped laughing, replaced with silent dinner tables and harsh words, and a loneliness he'd never felt before. 

The one thing, the one person who withstood all of this, was his baby sister. 

She was eleven when they lost each other, starry eyed and round cheeks, miniature med kit that their Mum had made for them by her side wherever they went. She had their Mum's need to help people, the talent of putting someone back together. She also had their Dad's stubbornness, the fire within to keep going. 

But then he lost her too, and his Dad took them far away, outskirt colonies and remote villages, back breaking work for barely enough to survive on, and the life he once lived, the family he once had, faded away, distant dreams and the faintest imprints on his skin.

It was gone, and he learned to move on. 

And that was it, they had left, only a waning memory to hold them by. 

But now, now there was a person standing in front of him, someone that shouldn't be, someone that should be dead, someone that should be gone, someone that he was never meant to see again. 

She's taller, features a little more pronounced with the layer of soft baby fat melted away, dressed in a fancy gown that they'd never been able to afford, scars that should have never been on her skin. 

But the thing that strikes him the most, is how much of his mother is missing from her. The kindness, the gentleness, everything he'd seen when she was a kid, was not with her anymore. 

She'd grown up. 

And more importantly, she was alive. 

And no, he knows that this shouldn't be real, this shouldn't be happening, and the person that he thinks it is should not be standing in front of him, but when the word falls out of his mouth without permission, he knows. He just knows. 

"Rosie?"

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