The October Malice ༄ (gxg)

five, succubus

Opal's mother was unleashing all her munitions that morning.

"Jeremy, I got home at 3 A.M. last night. Is it really too much to ask for you to not make so much goddamn noise in the morning?!" she nearly screeched as she took the box of cereal from her husband's hands to pour herself a bowl of cereal first before he did.

"Honey, I've been as quiet as I possibly can. I don't think it's physically possible to be even more quiet." He leaned his hand on the counter beside her, his other hand on his hip as he looked down at her with that look so patient. Opal could never understand why her dad was so patient with her mother's unnecessary rage that seemed to be unending. "The mice are going to start thinking I'm one of them."

He held that hopeful smile of his on his thin lips, that slight curve and glint in his eye that always wished for his wife's reciprocation of it. But it never came, for Amanda's jaw was locked tight with irritation as she poured the cereal into her bowl.

He sighed, turning to Opal who sat at the island eating her own bowl of cereal and raising his eyebrows comically. He and his daughter always had a way of silently communicating, and it eased her a bit that he could retain his humor. Her dad had been through a lot in the past year, after leaving his job out of town and opening up the least likely type of business to thrive in the little town. He seemed to always have a five o'clock shadow emblazoning the lower half of his face, specks of grey hair beginning at the roots of his light brown locks. He had even lost weight, his glasses always ready to slip down his thin nose.

She worried about him sometimes, mostly because her mother never seemed to. Amanda was only existent when she had something to complain about.

"How are classes going, Pumpkin?" he asked Opal as he leaned his elbows onto the other side of the island, staring down at her half-empty bowl of cereal. His eyes vaguely shifted to the morning newspaper sitting on the island beside him. He usually only read them in the afternoons, but something on the front cover caught his eye.

Before Opal could even open her mouth to respond, her mom whipped around with her bowl of cereal in her hands. "What do your grades look like?"

Clenching her jaw, Opal lowered her eyes to her cereal and chopped the milk with her spoon. "Well, usually grades look like numbers, sometimes letter. They can be points sometimes, or percentages the other times—"

"Opal Anne, don't you get an attitude with me!" her mother exploded, eyes widening in rage as that familiar vein creased the corner of her jaw. Her face had already flushed red as fiery anger wrote itself so evidently across her face. Opal's casual boldness dissipated under the stare of her mother's ill-tempered rage.

"You asked me what my grades looked like," Opal muttered, choosing to keep her eyes boring into her mom's. Her mom always had a way of tearing her down, of chewing her up until she was just a puddle of pulp—"good for nothing" as Amanda would always say.

"Yea, and I didn't ask for your damn attitude. I worked all damn night last night, and what kind of respect do I get first thing when I wake up? My husband has no care for my exhaustion and my daughter is just a goddamn brat—"

"Mrs. Browning died."

Both Opal's and her mother's eyes snapped over to her Dad upon his sudden words. He stood from his leaning position on the counter, holding the newspaper up closer to his face to be sure he was reading it right.

"What?!" Opal exclaimed, eyes wide as a sheer coldness invaded her veins, her hand that held her milk-filled spoon already trembling.

"S-She's dead..." he mumbled, his fingers that held the newspaper pressing in so that the paper gently crumpled beneath them. His already gray eyes turned grayer, his fingers releasing their hold and letting the newspaper fall to the counter. He took his glasses from his face apologetically, his hand coming up to pinch his nose as he walked away from the newspaper as if he couldn't stand the stench.