Chapter Text
Everything was foggy and confusing. Blood seeped down her forehead, cascading past her eye. Through all the unprocessable commotion, the head of a man became comprehensible, his facial features mixed into a mess of eyes and teeth.
"My silly little Sophie..." He sighed, lightly cupping her cheek. His voice struck a chord within her, and she knew that it was very important, but she couldn't bring herself to understand why. All she could do was cry.
Just like that, she was awake. Like a lot of her mornings lately, Sophie already felt suffocated the moment she could absorb her surroundings, and she wanted to be somewhere else. Anywhere else.
"You woke up earlier than the alarm." The familiar voice of Rosemary wafted into her ears. The woman had been dead for quite a long time, but Sophie never asked why. Did it really matter how she died, if she was still around, in a sense?
"Yeah..."
"Have you been crying?"
She reached a hand up to her face and winced. Her cheek was absolutely drenched. She sighed, before wiping the tears until they were dry with a pajama sleeve. "Apparently."
Her mother hummed. "Do have any idea why?"
"Not a clue." She never did.
Instead of dwelling on it, Rose opted to change the subject. "Don't forget to take your medicine."
"Yeah yeah, I know."
It was like this every day, barring the fact that the alarm didn't wake her up. She got out of bed, got herself dressed, snuck through the living room where Felix slept in order to get to the kitchen, took her medicine in there, then backtracked to get to the bathroom to shower and brush her teeth.
In the bathroom, she squinted at the mirror and very gently preened her hair with a wide-toothed comb. After losing most memories of her life, Sophie had struggled a lot with her hair.
According to Rosemary, she had the same hair texture as her biological father. He was inexplicably absent, though, so she only knew what her mother knew secondhand, in terms of grooming. Fortunately, that was enough for her to get it presentable, and that was all she needed.
Sophie assumed that Felix had woken up and started doing something, due to the fact that her mom wasn't hovering.
She never asked why, and she doubted there'd be an explanation, but her mom went out of her way to avoid the man. Sophie decided to believe she just didn't want to be seen, but it was probably more complicated than that.
There was a knock on the bathroom door.
"I'll be out in a minute!"
She could hear Felix shuffle on the other side of the door. "You plan on doing something, today?"
"Only the usual."
"Oh, well if you don't mind, could you bring home some dinner?"
"Got it!" Her comb got stuck, and she grabbed it with a wince. "Agh- Anything specific in mind?"
"Whatever you want is good."
Carefully, she maneuvered the hairs from the comb. That needs to be trimmed, tonight... "Anything'll work, as long as it's not homemade."
"Ha! Fair enough-" He was cut off by the sound of the phone ringing. "Shit. I uhh- looks like we've got that sorted out! I'll give you some space, now. Be safe."
"Uh-huh." She placed the comb down and gave herself a once-over, before exiting the bathroom. She was eager to leave the house at this point, and any goodbyes from the lost souls in the house went on deaf ears.
Her focus was mainly put off by Felix, in some corner, harshly mumbling to the person on the other end of the line, seeming frustrated and a bit perturbed.
"Dad?"
"Sophie." He responded, hardly paying attention.
"Who's on the other end?" She had a feeling she knew, but there was the occasion that he was being called by someone interesting, and any change from routine was a welcome one.
"Oh, just someone on Cyberfun Tech."
That seemed to confirm her assumption, but to make sure she asked, "Is it the guy we hate?"
"Pff- no, it's just Chris."
"Oh, alright, tell him I said hi!" She made a crude gesture.
Felix snorted. "What? No!" He exclaimed to the man on the other end. "Nonono, she was just saying hi. Being polite."
She rushed to the kitchen and fumbled around several drawers before finding the car keys sloppily stashed with sauce and seasoning packets. "Alright, I'm leaving now! Love you!" She paused, waiting for a reply, but she'd apparently started a small bout of bickering.
It didn't matter. Unbothered and without a second thought, she practically ran out the door, narrowly avoiding falling on her way to the car. Just like that, Sophie's whirlwind of a morning slowed, and a relaxing, if not slightly boring day had begun.
With every week that passed, it seemed like Chris' paranoia waxed, which always resulted in a phone call. One a week, for the past two years. He didn't always have something interesting to say, but this time around...
"People are still fixated on Ms. Parks."
Felix sighed. Of course, it was about a dead person. It always was. "What do you expect me to do about it?"
"Felix, I don't know what's going on with this one."
"Obviously."
"People are saying she died in K-9, for one thing."
It was offputting, but he would have been more concerned if people called him or asked him about it. "Well she did, didn't she?"
"Yes, but why hasn't anyone connected to her publicly said anything on the matter?" There was a frustrated edge to Chris' voice. "You'd think they would at least get missing posters made, right? Nothing has happened for two years."
"Now that you mention it..."
"It's weird, isn't it?"
It twisted Felix's stomach into uneasy knots. Did nobody see that anything was off or did nobody care? He didn't know which idea was more disquieting. "Yeah. Yeah, it is. Has anyone tried calling CF Tech about it?"
"Two people, but after one call each, they stopped."
"Hmm..."
"Felix?"
The gears in his brain were turning, and he went into survival mode. "She has no family confirming or denying anything, right? Just two curious employees with no idea what happened?"
There was a pause on the other end. "Yes sir...?"
"Alright, that's easy then. Just confirm the rumor that she's dead, and claim she was privately buried."
"Oh, I looove where this is going..." Chris responded. "Where am I supposed to say she died, exactly?"
"In K-9. In the backdoors. Via... Heart attack, or something. It doesn't really matter." He surprised himself with how easy it was to come up with. He waved his hand, dismissing the brief touch of guilt.
This time, there wasn't response at all. Felix could hear the sound of breathing and maybe a slight movement, but that aside... Nothing.
"What is it?"
"Nothing, nothing at all, I just... I never thought I'd hear any of this from you. I thought this'd be another reason to end the relocate project, you know? That's usually how things go when things start going wrong."
Felix scoffed slightly at this. Of all the times to start caring about things like that... "You made it crystal clear to me that wasn't an option anymore. I've accepted it. All I can do is make sure things go as smoothly as possible and hope nobody dies, right?"
"... Yeah. Right."
With that, the call between the two ended, and Felix was left alone in his house as always. Sophie had somewhere to go every day, and Chris was always a man of brevity, probably because they couldn't stand each other.
In reality, though, it wasn't like Felix was ever really alone. That'd be too good for him, and men like him didn't get a reprieve. He could feel someone standing behind him, looking over his shoulder.
"Just when I think you've finally hit rock bottom," a familiar, low voice rumbled in his ear. "You just have to bring out the shovel."