Lost: Casa Perdida [Completed]

Negligence

The Narrator

The silence at Eustacio's farm was broken by the loud noise of the choppers - two of them - which began to land. Garcia and Sosa waited as the helicopters began to descend, watching them and hoping they would land soon. Everyone was in the kids' rooms. The bodies were left where they were, except for Mrs. Bustamente's cadaver. Since they were dead, it was better if they waited for the medics and the forensic team to deal with them.

AnnSophia was still one the bed, burying her head in her legs, weeping. Her hair, which used to beautiful when properly worn, was messy. Her mind was filled with thoughts of guilt. You killed two children by your own ignorance, you monster! Child slayer! You deserve to die! Even though she was otherwise someone resilient and tenacious when it came to facing negative thoughts, in rejecting them, she couldn't dismiss those accusations deep down in her heart; for, now she was directly responsible for the death of two children. No one asked you to make a milkshake. You were the one who thought of doing it. And when you saw a box with a sugar label, you were stupid enough to not think twice after noticing that the 'sugar' was not of a usual color. You were ignorant and idiotic enough to presume it was 'diet sugar' and mix it with the milkshakes, not caring to ask someone else, not exercising caution or even considering that the powder might've been another chemical stored in what was once a box of sugar. You won't be able to clear yourself off this guilt, child murderer! Images of Rodolfo's face when he was dead - with streams of blood pouring down his eyes, ears, and nose, and the froth emanating from his mouth - flashed before her eyes. It seemed to be seared on her hands: the memory and guilt of poisoning, which couldn't go away. If only I can go back in time, if only our raft didn't stop by here, this wouldn't have happened. She felt like she was in prison in her own thoughts, guilty of poisoning those children due to her own ignorance. She wanted to escape out of that prison but she thought, I cannot bring the children back.

"I want to see MariaRosa," she had said a few moments earlier before the helicopter had entered the horizon.

Sosa had glanced at Garcia who then told her, "You shall do no such thing. We want you to stay right here." He felt that glancing at MariaRosa's mutilated cadaver would make her feel so guilty that she would try and harm herself.

Sosa had managed to sweep up the toxic powder and put it in a plastic bag. There were traces lying around, but minute ones.

Near AnnSophia, Rhett was sitting like a rock, depressed but unable to cry as he had run out of tears. His grief was the kind where even if one wanted to cry - since crying would bring some kind of catharsis- tears couldn't come out. The pain in Rhett's heart was physical. It felt like his heart was crushed, weighed down by a large boulder. Though his grief was internal, its pain was physical, something experienceable. All the other deaths he had witnessed during the course of that wretched trip didn't affect him the same way as the way his brother's demise wrecked the happiness within him. The loss was a wound that did not show on his body in the form of a gash or rupture, yet it was deeper and more grievous than an injury that bled. He wanted to scream, to yell, to shout and to break something to release himself from the burden yet all he was able to let out were deep sighs.

The policemen didn't anticipate that things would end up the way it did. Fortunately, Melinda had not died. Four deaths would have been too much.

"The helicopters have landed," Sosa said as two helicopters landed in a clearing in the backyard. One was white in color with the emblem of the Red Cross and the Argentinian Police. The other was dark green.

"I'll go look at it. Keep a watch over these kids. See that no one escapes or does something stupid." Garcia went downstairs to fetch the medics while Sosa pulled out his double-action pistol and pointed it AnnSophia and Rhett. With the poisoning of the children, they were suspects of murder.