Chapter Text
In the beginning, everything was fine.
Tommy K. Innit was the only child of a family of 3, he had been the only child his parents had ever been able to have. He was the only thing they had to fill up the 2 story, 3 bedroom house (with pale blue walls and a dark grey rooftop).
As a consequence of being an only child, he had more work to do than any regular farm boy he’d met. He'd accepted this since he was young, and relished in the sound of the animals as he worked alongside his dogs, Betty and Walter, while his Ma did housework and went out to pick fruit from the trees, and his father took care of the harder chores (getting firewood, preparing meat, all that good stuff).
He'd had a favorite cow - Henry - and made sure to milk and brush them every day. Ever since Henry was a young calf, he wanted to learn how to care for her hooves properly so they wouldn't grow out too much.
He hadn't been alive for the Great War. It had ended a few years before he was born, but he had heard stories about it, and was more than thankful he wouldn't have to deal with getting involved in it.
His life wasn't the best, but it certainly wasn't the worst! His parents loved him, and the worst punishment he ever got was being sent on outhouse duty, which was typically reserved for his Dad. He was sure he'd have gotten worse if he touched a single drop of anny before he turned 14.
(Didn't even taste good when his father offered him a drink at the age of 15. He supposed it tasted better if you drank more.)
Then the Great Depression hit.
Some people called it the Slump, or the Great Slump. His friends from school- Wisp, Deo, and Eryn - started showing up thinner, and stopped showing off any new clothes. They went silent as time went on, and more ravenous with every meal.
They were quite poor, anyways, after farm costs, but Tommy always defaulted to his favorite clothes - some light brown shorts that went past his knee, a white button-up with long sleeves that he often rolled up, a blue cotton jacket that reached just below his fingertips and a green bandanna tied around his neck.
His friends always teased him that he didn't have any shoes, but Big Man Tommy Innit had skin as thick as a cows hide! He didn't need shoes!
Then it started getting warmer... And money started getting thinner.
Livestock got thinner and sicker from the heat and lack of food.
The people began to show skin and bone.
(Tommy couldn't remember a time before he could see his Ma’s bones in her wrists when she pushed her sleeves up to do the dishes.)
Stomachs growled in the middle of the night.
(Tommy's dad often pushed his servings to one of the other two, sometimes offering it up to the dogs when they refused.)
The temperature started rising.
They tried to sell their sickly livestock for money to buy food, but no one seemed to care.
(Tommy cried himself to sleep the day they had to eat Henry)
The grains ran out soon after, most having been sold, the rest going into preserves.
Until, finally, they had to resort to the last living things in the house.
("No! No, you can't! You can't kill them! I won’t eat them! We can find animals in the woods, Betty and Walter are not dying!" Tommy protested.)
Tommy almost threw up when he was served the remains of his dogs.
He didn't have enough energy to cry anymore.
He refused to join his parents in bed that night, instead lying in his own bed as his room filled with smoke.
In the end, it wasn't the hunger that got him.
It was the fire.
He was found hours later after his parents had fled the home and left him in the brittle remains of his home
———
The next time Tommy awoke, it was to the last brittle embers of the rampaging fire being snuffed out
There were no parents by his side, no friends trying to get his body out of the ashes
only silence..
cruel unforgiving silence, there were no birds chirping there were no sobs ringing out into the air
where were his parents? Didn’t they care for him? Why did they leave him?
was he not enough?
Tommy felt the strong urge to look around and try and find out where everyone had gone
as he was looking around him he noted the burnt remains of his home
as he was looking around he saw a hand..
one that looked eerily similar to his own
but that couldn’t be! He was alive wasn’t he? But as he looked further and his own burnt face came into view..
he came to a chilling realization that he was dead and that corpse was HIS
———
Art for the chapter:Art by ShiftingOS