Bright daylight filtered through the leaves of the old fruit tree in the garden. Lucian looked up at his father with trusting eyes, their color of warm honey.
"Let's go play hide and seek again, shall we?" Lucian's father said, placing Lucian's little body inside the coffin. "This time, it will be your mother's turn to search for us."
They had dug the hole together in the garden behind the house, enough for a small coffin to fit in.
"Where are you going to hide, Dad? I want to hide with you."
"We have to hide separately. Otherwise, your mom will find us right away."
Lucian nodded in agreement, a serious expression on his face as he lay down. His father placed a small bag of warm baked cookies beside him, in case he got hungry, and a small jar with fireflies on his chest so that he wouldn't be scared in the dark.
"Be quiet, no matter what," his father whispered with a soft smile.
"I will." Lucian grabbed the jar and hugged it, his eyes focused on the dancing lights inside.
The lid closed, and the coffin was buried under shovels of earth, the scent of soil and wood filling his lungs.
With a jar in one arm and a sweet cookie in his other hand, Lucian began to munch, feeling the warmth of it spreading through his body, keeping him cozy.
He knew his father wanted to keep mother to himself, and would get himself caught on purpose, just to spend more time with her.
"Guess I will have to wait for a long time..." Lucian whispered to the fireflies, taking another bite of his cookie. "I wonder what my little wife is doing right now. I hope she is lonely without me like I'm without her."
Occupying himself with thoughts of his future wife, he waited for his parents to come and find him.
"I'm five now," he began to count, using his fingers to help him with the numbers, "She is probably really small and cute right now...I wonder if I can pick her up and spin her around like dad does to mom."
His tiny brain didn't process the danger behind his father's actions. But his little heart was beating loudly from being left alone in the dark.
His excitement about the game faded fast. The wish for someone to find him soon turned into a prayer to be saved. He swore he was going to move out and marry his wife as soon as he got out. Maybe she was already looking for him…
"There will be no playing hide-and-seek in our household, when we grow up. We will play...um... ball. We will play ball together."
He nodded to himself, as the idea sounded like the best in the world. He didn't want his children to feel lonely either, so he would let them play with his wife too, unlike his father.
The fireflies slowed down their dance, losing their glow. The air thinned, making Lucian's head spin, and his stomach churn from the lack of oxygen.
His little chest rose and fell with difficulty. He struggled to breathe, his body writhing in panic. He scratched the wooden coffin with his nails, trying to make a hole, to let the air in.
But his hands were too weak, his fingers bleeding from the effort. The darkness surrounded him like a heavy blanket, crushing his little body.
The jar eventually fell from his hand as his body stilled, the darkness swallowing him whole.
In his mind, Lucian was still in the small garden behind their humble home, while his body sank to the ocean floor.
'Father was just playing the game longer than usual. He wouldn't... he couldn't have left me there on purpose.'
Lucian didn't remember the exact moment of his death. The feeling of being trapped in a coffin though, was similar to drowning. The water pressed at him from all sides, the lack of air making his lungs burn, his body screaming for mercy.
Just like how his father pulled him out of the coffin, a pair of hands grabbed Lucian's collar and dragged him toward the surface. A small ray of light shone from above, his consciousness fading in and out.
'See? Father came back for me.'
Lucian slapped the face away, his head turning to the side to cough out the water in his lungs.
"Gah!" He took a deep breath, only to choke on it again as strands of glowing hair appeared in his vision, "Don't touch me."
The woman who was about to give him mouth to mouth, moved her hands in surrender, "I was trying to save you─"
Lucian spat water on the rock he was laying on and pushed himself up. The waves that had almost drowned him were gently caressing his feet, the sea spray misting his face. He was on a shore, surrounded by rocky cliffs.
"What are you doing?!" She yelled, trying to stop him from jumping into the water again. He slipped past her, diving into the waves, "It's dangerous!"
He was not going to give Voice his body and let it taint it with a love scene with another woman, so he was going back to the sea, be eaten by fish, and be done with it. He would rather die than disgrace Celine by making her watch him with someone else. He could bear her hating him for dying, but not for betraying her.
The woman grabbed his arm, trying to pull him back, but his strength surprised her, and she ended up being thrown across the rock.
Lucian began to swim further away, when a strong wave lifted him up, and threw him back to the shore. His body rolled with the waves, as if the sea itself was rejecting him, spitting him back out.
"Do you have a death wish?!" she yelled at him.
"Are you going to kill me if I say yes?" Lucian managed to ask between coughs.
She clicked her tongue in annoyance, "Don't be stupid. You owe me your life. If you kill yourself, my effort to save you will be wasted."
Her words trigger a weird choking laugh out of Lucian. He owed the whole world his life by that logic. Be grateful for his parents for giving him birth, grateful to the air for letting him breathe, grateful to the ground for letting him walk on it, and to the sky for not falling on his head.
When she tried to drag Lucian away from the ocean, he grabbed her throat and squeezed it, his eyes bloodshot.
"Are you a shackled as well? Did they send you to make me do their bidding?"
╔═══ Author's note ════╗
I realized I never revealed how Lucian turned into a shackled, did I?
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