Phytoremediation

Mortem Obire

Basil sat on the hospital bed and stared at his phone. Opening and closing the voicemail list. Praying he was about to receive one from Polly, saying she's alright.

His face was still a sort of stony expression, likely caused by shock. Inside, meanwhile, was an incomprehensible turmoil of emotion. Basil couldn't really think straight, and didn't even look up when a police officer entered the room with a doctor.

"It appears you don't have any sort of... pathogen or disease, Basil. Detective Nēr here is going to speak to you now, so uh..." The doctor spoke awkwardly, and promptly left with a similar amount of awkwardness.

Nēr... pronounced "neer"... it seemed familiar to Basil. He looked up from his phone to the Detective. A familiar face greeted him. The face of the police officer that arrived when Mari died.

A wave of anxiety ran over Basil, and his didn't hide it. "I see this event really shook you up... again." The now detective said quietly, "Sorry we're meeting again on such... negative terms."

"I thought you were in Faraway." Basil said, trying to delay the inevitable bad news.

"Yeah, well, when you're one of the only detectives in the province who's worked on a murder case in a few years, you get shipped around the province for cases like these..." Detective Nēr awkwardly paused, "...Right, uh... so... I need you to identify... uh... the woman we found. It'll just be a picture. We censored the worst of it, but... uh, let me know if you need some time before seeing it."

Basil swallowed some saliva in his mouth. His anxiety was already pretty high just being in the presence of someone he deceived in the past. He felt as guilty at that moment as if he was the one who killed the woman found dead in his house.

"Y-Yeah..." he felt the detective looking through him as though he were glass.

He thinks I'm guilty.

"Alright... uh, here it is." He said, and handed Basil the photo face-down. Basil trembled as he took the picture. It was the same photo paper his old polaroid used.

Basil turned over the picture. Polly's head was on display. Beheaded. A massive censor was over her right eye. Over her entire face was spots of blood, some water, and another unidentified, but sickeningly white substance.

Basil felt like puking again, but his stomach knew there wasn't anything left to vomit. It instead grumbled, with what could've been seen as irritation if one's body could complain.

Basil handed the photo back. "Th-That's Polly." He stuttered out. The detective stood up. "Thank you, Basil. That's all we need for now."

As soon as he shut the door, Basil began to cry harder than he ever had before. Something quietly reentered his mind as he began to sob into his hands.

Tears fell, and the tear-diluted snot followed after. Basil sniffled to try and stop the sinuses from evacuating themselves all over the hospital bed, or Basil's clothes.

Instead, this resulted in Basil gagging a few times, and landing multiple tears and some snot onto the floor. Gross...

"Why... why did it..." Basil paused his quiet cries to sniffle, "Why did they kill her... why did... why... first her... grandma... why not me? Why... "

His incomprehensible cries paused as Basil's father walked into the room. Heath.

"Stop that pathetic whimpering, Jesus. It was just a caretaker, not one of your parents." Heath said with an eye roll, "We can get you a new one."

Basil held in his crying. Heath sat on the hospital bed next to Basil. "Look, Basil, sometimes things die, and you just need to look back on the good memories. Just like when my dog died. His name was Sparky. I felt sad about it for a few days, but I learned to move on. You need to learn that too so you can do something useful instead of whatever... this is."

Heath patted Basil on the back, as though anything he just said helped at all.

"Now try and get over it, your mother said she had some public thing to do tomorrow, pre-election stuff or something." Heath said as he stood up and left the hospital room. Leaving Basil alone all over again.

Basil cried for a few more minutes straight, just throwing nonsense from his mouth between hiccups, sniffles, and sobbing sounds. After finishing his inconsolable breakdown, he picked up his phone. He needed to be with Sunny right now. To make sure nothing took him away. To make sure he was safe... and also to make sure Basil didn't have to stay at one of those creepy motels alone.

He sniffed in, and tried to hide the misery in his voice. He dialed Sunny's home phone... busy. This prompted Basil to return to his fit of tears and crying for another 21 minutes and 18 seconds. Yes I counted, there isn't much else to do when you're a disembodied voice forced to follow someone until the chapter ends.

Again, he called, this time actually receiving an answer, making Basil have to sniff in on the fly, and try not to let his voice break. "H-Hello, Sunny."

"Oh, Basil, hello! I'm sorry to hear what happened to Polly, are you okay dear?" Magnolia asked.

"Um... I'm... I'm fine, I- Can I talk to Sunny?" Basil sputtered out.

Magnolia shouted with her hand over the receiver, "SUNNY! BASIL CALLED, PICK UP THE PHONE FOR HIM! DID YOU PICK IT UP? WHAT? OKAY!" a click was heard, and Sunny spoke.

"Sorry about that. Are you okay? Was it Polly?" Sunny asked worriedly.

"Y-Yeah, it was... um... can I stay at your house? I can't go into mine yet since... y'know... still being investigated... has a corpse in it..." Basil's voice cracked. He hoped Sunny didn't notice.

"I'm so sorry that happened. I'll ask my mom, though. One second." Sunny spoke flatly, but Basil could tell Sunny cared. It was in his voice, in an intangible sense.

Maybe I'm just reading into stuff too much... Next I'll start saying dragons are talking to me...

"She said yes." Sunny announced after a few moments.

"Okay... I'm... um... gonna be there in a few minutes. I'm gonna ask the cop to drive me there." Basil said with some relief. The police in China were thankfully, a lot less authority drunk like in some nations, so Basil felt hopeful at the prospect of not having to talk to his parents to go home.

Detective Nēr stood in the hospital lobby still, speaking to another officer. Basil approached, waiting for their conversation to end. Nēr turned and looked to Basil. "Hey, you have a place to go to sleep tonight? I can ask the secretary to let you stay the night if you need to."

Basil shook his head. "I have a friend I asked to stay with, and he said it's okay." Basil looked in an expectant way at the detective, hoping not to have to sound selfish.

"Do you need a ride there?" Detective Nēr asked.

Basil nodded, and walked outside with the detective. 

The two entered the police car, Basil sitting in the back, but still having a door handle on the inside, since this was a transport vehicle rather than the usual detainer cars.

"Don't worry, kid. I'll make sure that bastard doesn't kill anyone ever again."