Love Unspoken

The next morning, Quinn woke up to the blinding sunlight making her eyes ache. She raised her hand to block it and slowly opened her eyes. Alexander was gone again. "Did he go crab hunting again?" Quinn mumbled to herself.

She got up, still using Alexander's suit jacket as a makeshift bed. She scanned the beach but didn't see anyone, so she headed towards the village.

'Maybe he's by the well,' she thought.

But when she got there, Alexander was nowhere in sight.

"Where did he go?" Quinn muttered.

She called out, "Alexander!"

No answer. Her heart skipped a beat. Did he leave her to do something else?

Ignoring the bushes around her, she ran inside. "Alexander, where are you?" she shouted.

Just as she was starting to panic, she heard Alexander's voice from the house, "Over here."

Quinn turned towards the house. 'Why is he inside again?' she wondered.

After a moment's hesitation, she walked to the house.

The door was open, but Alexander wasn't in the living room. She heard noises coming from another room.

Quinn had a bad feeling.

She slowly approached the door, peeked inside, and saw a coffin with Alexander standing in front of it, staring inside.

Quinn almost fainted. She clung to the door frame. "What are you doing in there?"

Alexander turned to her. "What are you standing there for? Come in."

"No way, you come out. Why did you open the coffin? That's creepy," Quinn said. Why was Alexander so curious? Did he really need to see what was inside? Alexander laughed. "There's nothing in here. If you don't believe me, come and see."

Quinn shook her head. "I'm not going in. Come out, or I'll get mad."

Alexander smirked. "Come on, I'm not lying."

Quinn still shook her head. "Even if it's empty, I'm not looking."

Alexander sighed, closed the coffin lid, and walked out.

Quinn grabbed his arm and pulled him outside. "Did you wake up just to look at coffins? You're so boring."

"I just wanted to see what they were for," Alexander said. "Turns out, most of these unsealed coffins are empty." Quinn paused, shocked. "Most? You looked at a lot?"

"About half of them. Eighty percent are empty," Alexander replied.

"What about the other twenty percent?" Quinn asked.

"They're filled with random stuff. Didn't you notice more things around when you woke up?" Alexander asked. Quinn was stunned. She hadn't noticed, too busy looking for Alexander.

"Since you know they're empty, stop looking," Quinn said.

"I want to check the sealed ones," Alexander said.

Quinn glared at him. "They're sealed for a reason. Let's figure out how to leave. We've been here for days."

Alexander patted her head, and she dodged, grossed out that he had been touching coffins.

Alexander smirked.

Quinn threatened, "If you touch those coffins again, don't touch me."

"Really?" Alexander asked.

"Yes!" Quinn confirmed.

"Okay, I won't look anymore. Let's go back," Alexander said.

They returned to the beach, and Quinn noticed a lot more stuff there, like bed sheets and covers. Probably because they were sealed in the coffins, they looked very clean. But Quinn didn't want to use them.

"These things are useful," Alexander said.

"Use them yourself," Quinn replied.

"They're clean, and there's nothing else in the coffins. They're just storage boxes," Alexander explained.

"No way. I'm not using them," Quinn insisted.

That night, it started raining, so they had to go back to the house to avoid getting soaked.

The house was leaking everywhere, even the roof. The pots, pans, and buckets they used weren't enough to catch all the water.

They'd catch it in one spot, and it would start leaking somewhere else.

Finally, Alexander threw the bucket down. "Let's find a better house."

"Let's do it tomorrow. It's raining now, and we have to clear the grass in other rooms," Quinn said.

Alexander glanced at the inner room. "That room doesn't seem to be leaking."

"Stop fussing. Let's stay here. It's not leaking in this corner," Quinn said, carrying the blankets to a relatively dry spot. She spread one blanket on the ground and used another to cover herself. Alexander found it amusing. "Weren't you not going to use them?"

"When did I say that?" Quinn pouted. She grabbed the blanket and sniffed it. No strange smell, just a strong scent of wood.

The blanket looked new, so she decided to use it.

They crashed in the leaky house for the night. After being there for so long, Quinn seemed less freaked out by the coffins, either because she was getting used to them or because Alexander kept telling her they were empty. The next day, it was still pouring, so they were stuck inside. Alexander burned anything that could be used for firewood, making the place cleaner.

Thanks to the fire, the bugs in the house were gone too.

Quinn, bored out of her mind, noticed how dirty the floor was and grabbed two brooms to sweep the place.

After cleaning, the house looked almost new.

She clapped her hands and smiled at the clean house. "The house is clean now. It looks much safer," she said. Alexander nodded. "It would be better if it didn't leak."

Quinn looked up at the leaking tiles. "Let's just make do. Kyle and the others should be finding us soon, right?"

It was weird they hadn't found them yet, given how long it had been.

Alexander looked at the gloomy weather outside. "Who knows how long this rain will last."

Kyle and the others would have to wait until the rain stopped to find them. Until then, Alexander and Quinn were stuck here.

The biggest issue was that they hadn't expected the rain. The food Alexander and Quinn brought might not be enough, and it was tough to find food in the rain.

They stayed inside all day, and it was still raining at night. The rain finally stopped in the middle of the night, and the next morning was clear. Quinn's face lit up. "The rain has stopped." They went outside. The sky was dark, with clouds almost merging with the sea.

Alexander frowned and shook his head. "It's definitely going to rain heavily again. Let's find a safer house."

Quinn looked at the clouds over the sea and frowned. It looked like the next rain would be heavy.

The house they were in would probably turn into a river with the leaks.

Alexander was right. They needed to find a house that didn't leak. The current house was close to the sea, and if it rained and the tide rose, it might get flooded. Although the village had been abandoned for at least fifty years and looked safe, who knew if the village used to be bigger?

Given the wide beach in front, it was possible that it used to be part of the village, now submerged.

Quinn followed Alexander, walking a bit further. They chose the house they had seen before, the one with three coffins in one room and two other empty rooms. They checked inside. This house also leaked, but not as badly as the previous one. There were only three spots with water on the floor.

They checked the inner rooms, and the two empty rooms were dry.

"How about this house?" Quinn asked.

Alexander looked around and nodded. "Good. Just clear the grass at the entrance."

This house was near the central road, the one leading to the well. The grass on this road had been cleared a few days ago, so it was easy to manage.

They quickly cleared the surrounding grass and moved their things here. Seeing that it was still early, Quinn, with nothing else to do, cleaned the house again. Alexander watched her busy figure, thinking they must have been really bored these past few days.

He helped tidy up the room and then, before it got dark, went to the sea to find some food.

At night, there was lightning and thunder, followed by a storm. The old house creaked in the wind, and Quinn feared it might collapse at any moment. She nestled in Alexander's arms, listening to the storm outside and the banging of the doors and windows.

"Is it a hurricane outside?" Quinn asked, worried.

Alexander frowned. "I don't know."

"If it's a hurricane, will we be blown away?" Quinn continued.

Alexander chuckled. "You're overthinking. If these houses were going to be blown away, they would have been long gone before we got here."

"Who knows? What if we're just that unlucky?" Quinn said.

"Alright, stop talking," Alexander said.

Quinn fell silent. A flash of lightning lit up the room, followed by a deafening thunderclap.

Alexander said, "Now I understand why everyone moved away."

"Why?" Quinn asked.

"With weather like this, who wouldn't be scared to live here?" Alexander replied.

He looked around and analyzed. "From my observations these past few days, this place probably experienced a hurricane before, so people moved away." "How do you know?" Quinn asked.

"Because the doors and windows have been reinforced multiple times," Alexander explained.

"Really?" Quinn said.

"Yes, so don't be scared. These people moved away, not because of some supernatural reason," Alexander assured her.

"But why didn't they take the coffins?" Quinn asked.novelbin

Alexander glanced at her, his look seemingly questioning her intelligence.