La Mort et ses Merveilles ✔

18. Never Let Me Go

I only kept silent.

"I hope whatever you're looking for, you find it," I said, rubbing his back with my palm. "I'm going to be upstairs, I still haven't checked the other bedrooms. If you need anything you know where to find me."

"Sure," I heard him say as I scrambled back up to the hallway.

It was probably six by the time I made my way to the master bedroom, belonging to Leslie's aunt and uncle. There were just so many rooms in the house, and so many interesting and useful things to go through that I had lost track of the time. Yet even then, as much time I spent looking through drawers and reading every ingredient list from all the bottles of beauty products from the upstairs bathroom, Leslie was still in the basement. I guess he was still looking for the photo. I wouldn't be surprised, given the fact that there were just so many cardboard boxes on the shelves. I could only hope that he finds it eventually. Nothing's more heart breaking then spending hours searching for something only to realise that it's not there.

The master bedroom was much more fancier than Leslie's former bedroom, with nice furnishings filling the space compared to the blank , soulless and plain furniture of the guest room. There was a large, king-sized bed in the middle, and a sideboard and wardrobe to the side.

The fact that Leslie outright refused to tell me anything about this place just left a bad taste in my mouth. I didn't want to be nosy or anything, but if it was really something so devastating that it troubles him even to this day, I wanted to help. I wanted him to know that he could talk to me.

After finding nothing of much use in the sideboard, I moved on to the wardrobe. Deep in my gut I had a feeling that I shouldn't, but I just ignored it.

There was nothing really worth mentioning in the wardrobe, just the usual clothes and personal items. There was a safe in the bottom left hand corner, and I knelt down to inspect it. It was unlocked, the door slightly ajar, tempting me. Maybe there was something valuable inside. Sure, the most valuable currency now was food, but luxuries were always nice for trade. Watches, gold bars, perfumes, they still had value in a world like this.

Instead, all I found were a stack of envelopes. I could feel my heart sink, but I guess beggars couldn't be choosers.

A part of me told me not to look in those envelopes, that they must've been hidden away for a good reason. But I ignored it, as usual. Sure, I may have had a bad feeling about this house but that wasn't an excuse to leave stones unturned.

My heart beating in my chest, I took the whole stack of envelopes and picked out the one on top, the largest one. Taking out it's contents, I let out a sigh of relief as it turned out to be just letters.

Scanning through its contents, I realised they were from his mother. It went on about how sorry she was and how she hoped that he was living a good life with his uncle which she could never have provided. There were a few of these, but I wondered why on earth would they be locked away in a safe? Was his uncle safekeeping them, or was he keeping it away from him? Either way, I stopped reading through them, given that they were meant for Leslie's eyes. I felt dirty for intruding.

I was about to stack them up neatly, when I noticed a collection of small envelopes in a larger plastic one. One of them had slipped out, when I tried to stack all the envelopes together.

Picking it up, I noticed that there was something written in rather menacing red ink, in all capitals.

"LESLIE'S 11TH BIRTHDAY"