zigfried kerrington, eight | cb

he knows the truth now: that his parents own the district's premier underground auction house. wanna sell something you aren't supposed to have? looking for something you aren't allowed to buy? kerrington auction house, baby. they go in there two at a time, the sitting room, with the two chairs against the wall. sometimes he can see them taking their seats in the moments before the doors close. and he knows they're taken to the secret underground show and store rooms now. he knows everything now.

but when he's five he knows he's been in that room with those chairs hundreds of times and there are no doors he can see. he thinks his house eats people. when he's six and much more sensible, he thinks they must be using a secret teleporting pad because they're late for work or something. adults are always late. it also explains why they're always so well-dressed, and why he never sees them come back out the way they came. when he's eight, he thinks people are pranking him. that someone found out he so foolishly thought those childish things and is making a mockery of him now. when he's nine, he tries his hardest to ignore it. it isn't until he's ten that he perks up the courage to ask at dinner one night, little ziggy with his chin resting on the table and a toy parasaurolophus pinching his thigh from within his pocket: "where do those people go?"

"which people, dear?" his mother absentmindedly twirls her pearls between sips of some kind of cold soup ziggy will not be finishing.

"the chair room people."

"oh. downstairs, of course. where did you think?"

his brow scrunches in confusion, and then sworn secrecy.

"downstairs?"

"mhm. it's where we have our auctions."

"oh."

he guesses now it makes sense, why his parents always call themselves auctioneers but never go anywhere for work, and now he feels silly. people have been having auctions downstairs. he doesn't know they have a downstairs from the ground floor. he doesn't even know what an auction is.

he feels bad for being a child in that moment, and though he likely might not even remember it today, it's where his childhood begins to die. the auction house literally killed his childhood, man. that's fucked up. his parents are fucked up for raising them around it. mmm. fuck, he can't talk about them. they might be dead. he hopes they aren't- but if they aren't dead, he's gonna kill them once he and deja find them.