Seasick (You, Haunting My Mind & This Town)

Hollow

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"Elaine, have you got everything you need?" Sadie's voice beamed in the summer heat. They were a good fit. Summer was Sadie's season. Sadie is the epitome of summer. The word summer was invented for Sadie. God made the season for Sadie.

ugh, that is too many summers and Sadies.

"Elaine?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I've got everything,"

As soon as the Anderson family reached their designated area, Elaine got a side-mission to grab snacks from a nearby convenience store. Luckily, the cashier happened to be a friend of hers she made two summers back.

"I didn't know you worked here," Elaine stated. She had Sadie's number and they texted quite regularly but never had she once mentioned about getting a job.

"Started a couple months ago," Sadie answered, scanning the items and adjusting her dark blonde curtain bangs out of her face, "Dad said it would help me gain some sort of experience. I still don't know what experience he was talking about, all I learnt is counting coins in record speed."

Elaine hummed, grabbing the polythene bags from the counter, "Well, contact me once you've found that out."

"By the way," Elaine started.

This time Sadie hummed, and Elaine found out that she does not like Sadie humming, she's better off chirping a response- but that did not matter. What's wrong with her? Why was she psychoanalyzing Sadie?

She shrugged the thought and continued, "The house on the corner, someone's living there now, I noticed."

"Yeah," Sadie answered, "That's the Hendry family, the couple got one son whom I met during my morning walks."

Morning walks, such a Sadie thing.

Elaine hummed again, realising that she does that too, a lot of times. Oh, how must Sadie feel like when she does that? annoying and irritating, she guesses. 

Elaine does not know what has gotten into her. She was behaving as if she wanted to impress Sadie by her antics. Maybe it was because she was her only friend. After much thought, she musters up enough courage to croak out a response, "I see,"

Sadie smiled. Elaine always thought Sadie could read her mind sometimes, "Where are you staying this summer?"

"About 3 houses away from the Hendry's"

Sadie did not respond, gazing straight at Elaine as if she had said a joke in midst of a funeral, "What? is that house haunted or something?" Elaine asks as she continues the uncalled staring contest.The shorter girl mutters something, handing the change to Elaine, "No, I mean..." She leaves it at that.

Weird, but nothing extraordinary knowing Sadie and this town. This town had always given her the creeps. She doesn't know how her parents don't feel it. In reality, they say they feel more relaxed when coming here.

"See you later?" Elaine requested instead of informing the other.

"See you later,"

———

Her mother had lived here before getting married to her dad to live in the city. So it's normal for her to be attached to this place.

Elaine wouldn't question their revisits to the town if her mother did have relatives living there.

Elaine never knew her mother's side of the family. Not that she wanted to add people into her 'to-know' list in her brain, but she would at the least want to know what happened to them. Did they relocate themselves into a bigger and more advanced place? did they run out of the country? Are they even alive?

The situation was a living question mark. The town was relatively small and did not really have any tourists attractions except for the peaceful beach.

The town's name itself gave Elaine shivers.

Brody's Hollow.

Hollow.

A hole.

Emptiness.

Elaine can't describe it more accurately than it does itself. The town had at most twenty five residents, probably twenty eight since the Hendry Family moved in.

The town had a weird geography, being a coastal place as well as having a huge forest at the outskirts of it. As it wasn't a big town, the forest could be seen from anywhere if you resided here.

There were rumours about the forest. There always were.

And she never wanted to enter it. Ever. Well, at least not alone.