Chapter Text
Puffy's mind was clouded in a mist of red.
Red like the pool of blood her daughter was laying in. Dead.
She took a deep breath in trying to calm herself even slightly, just trying to take the image of the small figure on the floor with her back up and several years through the thin fabric of her clothing.
The air was clear but her nostrils could only smell the scent of blood, decomposition and soot.
Puffy couldn't stop herself from flinching when a gentle breeze picked up. She detested that. A gentle breeze was something most people would find pleasant, she didn't not. Right now it was too much. Everything was too much.
She felt so numb. Her bloodied hands limp by her sides, her mouth slightly open to help herself breathe even though it proved itself to be useless. Her eyes, wide and glossy with tears.
So much for trying to stop herself from breaking down.
"Miss Marigold?"
She wiped her eyes unknowing I'd any stray tears had fallen , and turned to the person that had referred to her.
She hastily nodded at them.
"Another body has been found in the garage, are you okay with identifying it for us?" The woman's voice was stable and gentle, "of course you could always do this when you're feeling better,"
Puffy felt nothing but fear pour into her as the cop finished speaking.
"I'll do i- it now" she spoke quickly, she didn't want to have to do this more than once in the week or the weeks approaching.
She just wants this to be done and over with already.
Following after the woman despite the stumbles she occasionally made, Puffy and the officer walked around to the garage door. There was a police car parked not too far from the door, along with police tape.
There were more cops at the door of the garage. Some wore gloves, whilst another emerged with a camera, probably having just taken forensic photographs, he moved to the side so as to not get in her way.
She felt a shudder run down her back, her hands sweaty and clammy, she swallowed down any remaining tears.
Taking cautious steps forward into the garage, the sight wasn't instant, she had avoided looking up even at the cop moments prior. It was a few droplets of blood at first, well not necessarily droplets, splatters would be more accurate.
She didn't take long to notice the same faint vulgar smell she had smelled moments prior mixed in with the smell of a rosy perfume, just the same smell she had smelled whilst with her daughter's corpse.
She dreaded seeing its source, already knowing it would be just as bad, if not worse.
Then she caught sight of the slowly expanding pool of blood. In her eyes it felt infinite. She swallowed, closing her eyes and lifting her head up to get the full sight and opening her eyes- her stomach lurched. Fear inclined her to keep staring. She didn't have it in her to look away.
Just a few metres from her laid another body. Its eyes were once more rolled to the back of its head, resulting in Puffy having a view of its eye sockets. It looked tense- all its muscles were likely already in a state of rigour mortis.
It was nothing like in book descriptions or movies.
This- this thing didn't look as if it was sleeping in a pool of blood, no, it looked disgusting, revolting, just nauseating.
It looked ghastly, its skin was pale, but not in the whitish tones of a human, no, the things skin was light purple. By just looking from this distance, she would see the wound from which it had been bleeding out, it was in the neck. The pale purpley skin of the thing held a heavy contrast to the wound.
A shiver ran down her spine at that moment.
It looked as if it was still slowly pooling out the last few droplets of blood left inside, millilitre by millilitre, what used to be filled to the brim with blood was left with practically none.
Puffy hated the easy contrast between the wound and the skin. She hated the blood, she hated the faint smell, she hated it. She knew for a fact that the smell would only become more prominent as time went on and the body began to truly decompose. She didn't want it to stick around and have to experience that.
Its hair, which was once supposedly golden, was bloodied to the core. If she hadn't known any better- if there wasn't a metallic sting in the air, if the body was standing upright and human-like, if its skin was a light peach like a humans, if the wound wasn't so prominent and bloody, she would have believed it was a living being.
She would have simply wanted to believe what laid in front of her was human.
Currently she wanted to believe anything but.
The realisation hit her at once. Who this was that is.
She gagged, vile rose up her throat. For a few seconds she couldn't stop looking at the ghastly sight, her eyes glued to the corpse. She was staring but to the point it felt like she couldn't see.
"Miss Marigold?" A husky voice questioned.
She tore her view away from the corpse, letting out a shaky exhale.
"Foolish-" she found that the lump in her throat had grown, her voice torn as she stated the nickname. Tears began flowing faster than moments ago. "This- this is my eldest son"
She paused, backing away from the body. With each step she found herself struggling more and more to hold her own weight.
"His name is Noah" she breathed it out all at once, her voice sounding pained as she stated the boy's name.
She turned her head to face the police, watching as one noted down Foolish's name. Another stared at her solemnly. Tears began to fall, each one coming faster than the last.
Hopelessness was the only thing she could feel.
Staggering to the garage door, she leaned on the wall, looking down at the floor as her vision blurred with progressively more and more tears
Sobs began to ring out across the room. She didn't realise when she began to tremble and slid down the wall, now sitting with her knees to her chest, sobs growing more pained as they escaped her.
She didn't register as a cop sat beside her and took her hand in their own, squeezing it gently trying to help her find any form of comfort, or when another tried to usher her out only to be shut down by the one holding her hand.
Her vision was tainted with the ghastly corpses of her two children. Dead. They were dead. Puffy knew this. She did.
She wished she didn't.
She wished she could have just lived in a state of oblivion for prime knows how long, but here she was.
Here she was sobbing on the garage floor in a house with two bodies, and yet nothing but a hollow chest.