DICORE [NO LONGER UPDATING]

Chapter 12

"Aqua!" I shout. I see him on the floor of the Aunt Ellie's old workspace, over her dead body, sobbing hysterically. "Aqua, are you okay?"

"No! Where were you when this happened?!" He screams.

"I..."

I can't look away from Ellie's dead eyes.

"I was right there..." I say.

"How did it happen?!" He asks, with the most painful urgence in his voice.

"Ectumus killed her."

Aqua is silent.

"Dad killed her?" he asks.

I don't know what he means. I shrug.

"Did...he kill her with this?" He holds up a flyer promoting DICORE, just like the one I saw in the room where I was trapped.

I nod. "But before he poisoned her, he broke her ribs," I say.

Aqua cringes backward in disgust. "No!" he shouts. "That's terrible! He couldn't have! No!" He's almost in tears again.

I don't know what to say. I don't feel the same as he does. Nothing I tell him will do anything.

"She can't be dead!" He shouts. "You don't just...die!"

"I'm so sorry..."

"This isn't real! Don't you think?!"

"No. It's real."

Aqua's eyebrows scrunch downward, and he storms upstairs to his room.

I...don't follow him upstairs. I can't stop staring at the dead body of Aunt Ellie on the floor. I don't like looking at it, but it seems impossible to pry my eyes away. I never saw her like this, never clearly, even when I was sitting right there. Death has been around me for maybe five days straight, but seeing Aunt Ellie dead brings a feeling to my throat that I didn't expect.

Why does the hole in my stomach hurt only now that I see her?