Chapter Text
Chiwa thought house sitting would have been harder. It had been a few days before her mom was fine with her being out on her own once again. She spent all her time watching after Rudo and Regto’s house. She guessed the stigma of Rudo being a murderer’s son and murder happening here was keeping potential thieves at bay.
She sighed and looked down at the plushie who she still hadn’t named. Soon enough people were going to turn up and strip the house of everything they had now that its owners were gone. Her only hope was that this being the home of a murderer would keep people at bay.
Chiwa looked around the small house she’d pushed the broken chair outside and picked up everything that had fallen, placing it on the nearby desks. She was hesitant to do anything more than that it’s not like she could fix them but leaving them on the floor felt wrong.
Chiwa sighed, shunning plush close to her chest as she sat by the door when she remembered something…drawers there were some over there.
“If we found a place to hide the valuable stuff in the drawers no one would be able to steal it,”
Chiwa picked up the cracked watch, slipping open a drawer it was empty ... .a little too obvious for her liking she was pondering bringing some less valuable stuff to put on top of it like wrappers and other trash she could find around. Part of her felt bad about stuffing their drawers with a bunch of useless garbage.
Well it’s for the greater good.
Just as Chiwa turned to leave her blush slipped from her grip and into the drawer. Quickly she grabbed it…her hand hitting the bottom of the drawer in her haste…when she noticed it was hollow…she blinked.
I really shouldn’t go snooping, especially in the dead’s belongings.
Chiwa picked up her plushie and turned to the door when she looked at the watch still in her hand then the other valuables.
Okay it’s not like I’m a thief this will stop their stuff from getting stolen.
Forcing down her guilt from intruding on their privacy Chiwa slowly lifted up the drawer to find nothing …well not nothing just a paper in some writing she didn’t understand and a symbol that made even less sense three circles surrounding some sort of circle in a bigger triangle.
Chiwa stared at the symbol for a bit. It reminded her of something…after a moment of staring she snapped her eyes away from it. Where she’d seen it would probably come to her later.
Chiwa placed the watch down as well as any other valuables she found, slowly she placed the drawer bottom back in its place. She picked up the plushie from its spot on the table and headed out, closing the door behind her. As she walked out she decided she’d have to find something to do with the chair later, she thought it would be better to throw it away.
Anyone else in the slums or even the rich side of town would agree…but the thought of Rudo made her push back the idea every time it came. Chiwa sighed, even though throwing it out would be easier, but she knew Rudo wouldn’t throw it away he’d find a way to fix it’s leg or use the parts for something new…so she guessed she had to do the same.
Taking a turn down the alley Chiwa walked out at her usual spot when she found her path blocked by a few boys, one of them had blonde hair the other had brown Chiwa recognized them they were twins the younger twin usually followed the older one’s lead, so in that case they were both as stupid as the other.
They were part of the crowd of kids who’d bullied Rudo almost every day until he was thrown right down to the pit. Chiwa never understood it, if they were so dead set in the fact Rudo would be a murderer—which he wasn’t—why would they poke the bear?
The brown haired one spoke with a smug grin on his face, “Well I wanna say I didn’t warn you this would happen…”
Chiwa cut him off, “Why do you wanna gloat about someone who was murdered?”
Chiwa’s gripped the puppy plushie at her side tighter, even if no one here trusted Rudo or expected him to ‘snap’ shouldn’t they at least care someone had been murdererd…shouldn’t that fact alone stop them from coming here to gloat?
“Well I mean what kinda idiot hangs around a murderer anyway…he was practically begging for it,” the blonde boy, the younger twin chimed in after his brother.
“But hey on the brighter side of things at least you won‘t have to worry about hanging around with him and him suddenly snapping and killing you,” the brown haired twin said as if to soften what his younger brother had just said.
Was this how Rudo felt?
Chiwa’s hands loosened as she began to drone out their words…she was angry she was sure of it. Regto was no idiot and if she’d been murdered instead of him she was sure he’d have done more to clear Rudo’s name…but no she’d been with him before Rego's muder maybe saying that fact would have gotten someone to listen to her.
Though it was what the younger twin said that had stopped her in her tracks she wasn’t angry about that when she’d been hanging out with Rudo their whole friendship had always been clouded with the murmurs and distasteful looks of the people around her. Chiwa remembered her mom telling her not to hang around him otherwise when that boy finally snapped and killed someone it would be her.
It had been an unsettling thought early into their friendship…admittedly she’d kept a distance from him when they first met and she went over to help him, even though it hadn’t ended that way since she’d realized she loved him somewhere along the way the thought of it brought on one more crushing wave of guilt.
“You really are the worst…you believe everything you’re told don’t you?” Chiwa said, pushing past the boys.
Chiwa went to make her usual turn down the alley before remembering she’d been seen. These past few days she’d taken great care not to be seen by anyone around Rudo’s home or in the general area he lived. In the slums rumors spread like wildfire no one would need to see her in the house to figure that’s where she was going.
It didn’t help those twins seemed the type to figure it out and tell it to anyone who would lend them their ear. Chiwa sighed a little wondering how she’d be able to get back there later if people knew she was hanging around there. If her mom ended up hearing…no when her mom ended up hearing about this she’d probably forbid Chiwa from leaving the house at all.
Chiwa held the plushy against her chest frowning…what was she gonna do?
Well we’re not gonna do nothing…we’ll keep watching the house until something stops us.
Chiwa smiled a little...she figured it was best to have a little optimism right now. Maybe for the puppies sake. Chiwa paused as she'd been thinking of the plushie like it had any say or feelings on things…she knew it wasn't an inanimate object but that didn’t stop her from doing so.
Rudo had always put the objects he had around him ‘feelings’ into consideration like when he gave her the plushie. Chiwa hoped Rudo wasn’t right about objects having feelings because if she imagined the puppy wouldn’t have had a good time when Chiwa dropped him and let him get trampled before coming back for him in the middle of the night.
Chiwa shuddered at the thought of it…yeah, she really hoped her puppy didn’t have any thoughts. Even though she didn’t see the point in it anymore after having been seen by the twins, Chiwa ducked in a path through some back alleys as a woman passed her by.
Chiwa’s mother had always advised her against staying in back alleys by herself…but she was fast, she guessed she had to be at times she’d done her fair share of avoiding the types that looked at her weird out in the slums…so her mother had not ever had anything to worry about..
…Until now anyway.
Chiwa would never agree with her mother and her thoughts on things but that didn't mean she wanted to see her mother hurting because of her.
But that’s what was happening anyway.
Apostle visits, rumors, all of this had to be weighing her mother down. Her mother was a stronger woman than she let herself believe she hadn’t fallen apart when Chiwa’s dad had died. Chiwa couldn’t have said the same for herself; she spent months crowding the house…she hadn’t made many friends either.
Her mother had patiently waited for Chiwa to finally make that first step herself, never telling her to get over it and keep moving, or that she didn't have tim to sit there all day. Chiwa knew a lot of parents would…but instead her mother sat by her side never saying anything to force her to leave the house. Eventually Chiwa left the house on her own again.
Chiwa stopped looking around the alley and the dirty brown paths, the broken crates and slabs of wood all around her…then it struck her she knew this alley. Chiwa had been twelve at the time when she had followed behind Rudo on his trips to the rich side of town.
Chiwa didn’t follow him there…she hadn’t wanted to meet the disgusted looks of the people over there or risk getting in trouble with the apostles, but she had waited by this alley for Rudo to come out. She remembered scolding him for continuing to do something so reckless even though she knew there would be no stopping him.
Most trash ended up being sent to the pit from the rich side of town; occasionally some apostles would gather the trash in the slums mostly when it got ‘unsightly’ enough for them to view the garbage near it as a bad thing for their side.
Otherwise most people in the sims trashed their own trash out routinely by themselves around the edge of the pit. Chiwa had never liked doing it so much it seemed unfair they had to risk falling in while the people on the other side never had to worry about it. One more thing that was more weird and unfair was that the people in the slums hardly had anything but every week or so her mother would take her to throw their stuff out into the pit.
Maybe it had been her time spent around Rudo but eventually she’d begun questioning why they threw all this stuff out if they’d kept even some of it she was sure it could have helped tons of the people here.
She never voiced that thought.
When Chiwa finally got home her mother was just returning holding a bag. Chiwa went to take it from her peering inside. Usually she’d be worried about her mother seeing the plushie but her mother had just given her a little nod before heading inside. Chiwa followed after heading to her room.
She knew her mother was stressed, it had to be the rumors going around because of her hanging around with Rudo. The other kids hadn’t said anything around her….no that wasn’t true Chiwa knew it was more she was just avoiding them by spending all her time out at Rudo and Regto’s house.
Despite how it had started out with their home being an uncleaned crime scene. Chiwa had ended up finding comfort in coming there every chance she got. Sliding open the door to her room she sat on her bed holding up the plushie to her face.
“Rudo probably wouldn’t want me in his home though…” Chiwa said.
Rudo was dead…she knew even if she’d defended him he probably still would have ended up dead. Though arguably she had done something much worse she’d walked away and dropped his gift. That coupled with the people cheering and yelling at him to be sent to the pit. That being the last thing he heard before he died.
“Why is everyone here so awful?”
Chiwa murmured the question even though she was sure her mother couldn’t hear her. Part of her knew she’d always thought that everyone here, everything about the slums, the rich people on the other side of towns who’d condemned them for their ancestors' crimes…all of them were awful.
Chiwa shook her head as if hoping to shake off the thoughts. “I can’t go around assuming things of people,” Chiwa said to the plushie.
She couldn’t go around assuming there were already enough people doing that to everyone. Proof of that was how the people in the slums viewed Rudo, and how the people on the rich side of town viewed the slums…things would be so much better if they’d just given each other a chance first. She clutched the plushie a little tighter.
I won’t be like them.
Chiwa slowly loosened her grip on the plushie, slowly she flipped it over gazing at its back the stitches she’d used to six up the tears from earlier were still there. Chiwa reminded herself to be gentler with him, otherwise she’d keep having to stitch him.
Pushing her door open, Chiwa headed towards the door. “Mom, I’ll be right back. I'm going on a walk.”
Chiwa didn’t wait for a response before heading out the door. When she turned the familiar street down to Rudo’s house she saw nothing…well not nothing per say but the front of the house was entirely empty…Chiwa looked around hastily throwing open the door. The chair was gone, some of the tables were too and anything else she hadn’t tucked away in the drawers.
Could someone have stolen them…
The idea seemed bizarre to Chiwa even though she’d always known it was a possibility she’d never thought anyone would have had the guts to do it. Despite how desperate things had been here in the slums it had always been an unwritten rule to bury any of the ‘filth’ who’d been thrown down to the pit into the deepest corners of their mind until they were forgotten about entirely.
Forgetting about the people who got thrown into the pit usually ended up with everyone avoiding where they had lived or their things like it was the plague…like their filth was something that could be caught if one wasn’t careful. Chiwa raked her brain for a few moments trying to think of what would have happened to the chair.
Maybe it’s there.
Chiwa placed the plushy into her pocket and turned out the door. She’d left it by the door and it was broken so maybe someone had ended up throwing it out, depending on the person they could have left it by the other side of the gate where the rich people lived.
Most people didn’t bother going through that step when people had something they didn't want. One could simply walk around the edges of the slums and throw their unwanted trash down. So only someone truly spiteful would go through the trouble of moving the furniture from Rudo’s home near the rich side of town.
As if summoned by the thought, Chiwa noticed the two brothers from earlier. She spared them a glance but didn’t stop running, only skidding to a stop when the older twin stepped in front of her.
“Hey Chiwa, you heading to the rich side of town? Taking after trash really isn’t—”
Chiwa didn’t think about it much before she shoved past him, in the corner of her eyes she saw him stumble landing on the ground but she didn’t pay it much mind. She was sure there’d be consequences later, but if they knew she was heading to the rich side of town that meant they must have put Rudo’s things there.
Part of Chiwa was surprised they’d go these lengths just to mess with her.
Are their egos that fragile?
Chiwa ignored the thought, focusing on how to get the chair back. If someone in the rich side of town had already trashed it, it would only be a matter of time before the trash was thrown out into the pit and she’d never be able to find it. She had to bet on the chance it hadn’t been noticed yet.
It had been at the most thirty minutes since Chiwa’s interaction with the two twins it would have taken them half that time to get to Rudo’s house and another few minutes to make their way to the rich side of town, place the chair there and do all of it without get caught by any apostles or any one who lived on the rich side of town.
When Chiwa got to the gates of the rich side of town, she was met with pearly white buildings. neat streets, even perfectly polished trash cans., and a few people roaming about. Chiwa took care to remain on her side of town in case there were apostles she couldn’t see.
The streets remained perfectly pristine and clean. She was fast, but it turned out the apostles were faster…there was no sign of a broken down chair. Chiwa wasn’t even sure they hadn’t dumped any trash out yet. Chiwa frowned, there was only one idea that came to mind.
Raid the trash.
Rudo had done it for years; he'd never been caught; she knew he’d been injured a few times but never caught. Rudo was a lot of things she wasn't. He was fast and strong. Chiwa knew she herself didn’t have a lot of strength but she was fast…or faster than the average person on the rich side of town, at least she hoped she was.
She’d be in and out. Letting out a small breath, Chiwa was surprised how shaky it was. She was doing something that could get her thrown in the pit, though these last few days she’d been at risk of that anyway. Maybe it was because in doing this Chiwa knew for certain that if she was caught the only consequence for this would be getting thrown in the pit.
She could risk it, for Rudo. She owed him because of her his final moments must have been horrible, full of pain and sadness. There was nothing she could do for the dead but respect the lives they’d lived…so that’s what she would do for Rudo, even if this all seemed inconsequential.
Chiwa inhaled, and stepped inside the gate instantly she felt gazes turn to her and the whispers from people around her. She quickened her pace trying to act like she belonged, like she wasn’t attracting the ire of every gaze that turned to her. She tried her best to keep her head held high…but also that didn't stop her from quickening her pace and before she knew it she had broken into a full blown run.
Turning the corner Chiwa rapidly turned around the narrow streets watching where people dumped their trash wondering where it would have possibly gone…underground. Well underground was just the lower levels of the rich side of the sphere. Chiwa had heard of a few kids sneaking there years back before the apostles had become so strict about tribefolk. She assumed that must have been before Rudo’s dad had—
Chiwa ignored the thought. Rudo’s dad’s rampage had made things worse for the tribesfolk; everyone knew that, but she hated associating that man with Rudo. Sweet, kind, and thoughtful Rudo. Everyone had associated Rudo with that man but if they hadn’t Chiwa knew they would have loved Rudo the way she had—
Chiwa stumbled a little with the thought of having to rapidly blink away any oncoming tears. Rudo who she would never see again.
Eventually Chiwa turned a corner behind a set of pristine white hoses she saw what looked to be steps. The underground, it had to lead there. Chiwa looked around before taking a few steps down. She paused and stiffened as if expecting to get caught but let out a breath when no one stopped her.
She went down the steps, two steps at a time until finally she’d made it down. In contrast to the clear white of the rich side of town the underground was gray and stoney, and smelled. Chiwa wrinkled her nose and put her hands over her mouth not wanting to breathe in the foul smell. Eventually Chiwa relented and gagged a little.
Even though it was disgusting down here, and dark it served as a little proof to Chiwa the people on the rich side of town were no different than her and all the other people in the slums. Chiwa felt for the plushy in her pocket relieved when she was met with something soft, it was still there.
Chiwa squinted in the darkness trying to make out the different piles of trash. Chiwa had wanted to stand there and look but she knew she had to choose a direction, Rudo hadn’t gotten hurt down here for no reason. There were apostles down here and she knew that as fact.
Doing her best to be cautious she looked at the way down to her right and decided to turn left hoping the chair was down there. Chiwa crept around feeling for bags of trash she felt them squelch around and found them uncomfortable when some more things dropped down paper bags and something hard she made a little yelping sound…feeling it she realized it was a whole couch. It was damaged and had a few holes in it, so Chiwa could see why they would throw it out.
If Rudo was here she knew he’d argue otherwise and say it would need to be patched up. But Chiwa wasn’t here for the couch. She was here for the chair and any other furniture from Rudo and Regto’s home she could salvage from the trash.
Chiwa turned a little and a lot of things in this area weren’t in bags.
“It looks like we made the right turn,”
Chiwa hadn’t realized she had said it aloud until she heard the unmistakable voice of an apostle.
“Who’s there!?”
Chiwa didn’t have much time to do anything as she heard a bang from somewhere beside her she turned and ran. Chiwa couldn’t think the only thing in her mind was willing her legs to move one in front of the other. She didn’t look back, didn't stop, but she heard more voices coming from her other side.
Chiwa could hear the sound of her heart beating in her ears, so much so that she was sure the apostles would hear it too. She forced herself to breath and looked around…that couch from earlier. She crawled over to it, sticking to the floor.
She felt the hole around it…upon further inspection Chiwa found it was big enough to fit a person…a small person, it made Chiwa ponder what the owners had done to break such a luxurious couch in such a way. She heard another bullet bounce off the walls and didn’t question any longer.
Quickly she forced herself into the couch, and waited. She waved for a bit, noticing people walk past her. She didn’t move, Chiwa didn’t know when it was safe to move. She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut until this was all over, but didn’t.
T-they were that close, and Rudo did this all the time.
Chiwa inhaled a sharp shaky breath. She had to find that chair. She waited five more minutes before slowly starting to pull herself out when she felt the ground shift beneath her she was sure of it. She didn’t get much chance to ponder this change as she was shoved violently back into the couch she couldn’t hold back the pained gasp that arose.
She was sure the apostille heard her when she heard footsteps getting closer but couldn’t hear what they were saying as she felt blood rapidly rush to her head it took her a few moments but as she lost sight of the garbage disposal saw the faces of the apostles and several bits of trash being pulled towards her direction it became apparent they were being thrown out.
Eventually Chiwa could see the sphere and wondered if she could pinpoint the old slums. Chiwa wasn’t like Rudo in many ways; she wasn’t brave like him, she hadn’t even managed to get a valuable item from the trash like him…but at least she knew they’d be dying the same way.
Chiwa didn’t think much people would miss her, at the most before people forgot about her they’d turn her into a cautionary tale maybe assume it was suicide. But her mom, her poor mom who she had left all alone, tears blurred Chiwa’s vision.
Sorry mom…
As Chiwa fell she felt eyelids get heavier each time she blinked but eventually she gave up that last bit of strength and closed her eyes, letting the darkness consume her.