[Chapter 1] — Lakeside Lament

A lantern bobbed intrepidly above wispy lines of fog, sparsely accumulating in rough, disorganized layers beneath an old miller’s bridge, which had since transitioned to carry cargo trains across the lake.

A distant skiff rumbled further along the shoreline; it’s dim light barely touched the rippling wake left behind. An overhanging branch briefly blocked the lantern altogether, but a gentle gust of wind shook the limb low, allowing the flames to continue their flickering dance.

Alice had taken me dancing after we left Clearwater the last time. There was a city, not far from here, that surely had clubs. There were too many bars in the dusty, desolate reaches of American-life, where not a soul danced. Alice said she would take me to Spain. where Every town had dance halls. Sweet wine was poured from oak casks, which doubled as a seat near the bar.

Alice didn’t drink, but she had always made for the best drinking companion. When we had a car, she’d pick me up from the dead bars where no one, but I lived. But, by that time, Alice would be there to scoop me up and drag my presence from the disgruntled patrons, who might find life pleasurable when accompanied with sweeter wine and a quicker rhythm.

The trains passed through the valley on Monday and Friday mornings as well as Tuesday and Thursday evenings. This was the only indication of time passing. That, and the change of seasons. Alice kept a dated journal, but I never cared to ask. The days had begun to blur together. She knew this.

Sometimes Alice would say, “Stella, did you know today was the eighteenth of January.” I thought it was cute, but time had its uses, and we didn’t need to dwell on those just yet. I sat; I got high, and dreamed of Spanish dance halls. In these dreams I wore a beautiful, crimson dress that shimmered from the smoky lights, drawing a pleasurable eye from strangers, who will never shake the name, Stella, from their wine-stained lips.

I waited, now, in temperate lake water for a shower of sparks from rusted iron. The shrill shriek of the machine’s propulsion drove my heart to a frenzy. There was music in the squeals colliding with the tremble of ancient stone and mortar.

My anticipation was momentarily satisfied with a silent watch over four neon lights, which were nailed across the bridge entrances. They dimly shone against the blackened stonework. Red X. Red X. Red X. Green O. Red X.

I felt the lake water flow around my pale, naked body. The dark current whispered loving notes through its incessant gurgling. The remnant wake rippled through my hair, which lied spread atop the shoreline as mushy, dead, lake grass. The movement dragged my partially-submerged body across the mud, which after some contemplation, I decided was unwell for my meditation. I anchored my feet in the muck, squishing the grainy clay between my toes. The current contested my view of the bridge, which I had fought to regain. The webbed silhouette of interlacing pine branches distorted my view of the sky, yet that too did not matter, for the moon had not arrived. This brought comfort; her light was nothing more than a reflection of one brighter than she. Alone, the moon was as dull as the rest of us. On the purest nights, fishermen and other night-folk were less likely to bother my peace.

The lantern’s flame faded to nothing more than a distant speck as the skiff rounded the river’s bend. Pine trees obscured mostly all, but a few patches of the starlit sea. I was alone, anchored to these dark shores, wishing for the distraction of a grisly, ill-mannered fisherman to watch.

Alice had found them “obtuse”; she disliked vulgarity and especially the occasional unfiltered outburst of an old, powerless man against their own extinguishing flame. I believed she didn’t like to see a reflection of what could have been her fate. She knew how close it might have been. I never felt that pain, that fate would have never been mine if a shotgun had anything to say.

I found the old men amusing. Their curses were cracks of thunder funneled through a miller-lite can. They lolled through the lake’s countless inlets and coves before morning light; however, a few found themselves traversing the tender folds of the night. Whiskey or another comfort traditionally clutched in a wrinkled hand, while the other played with a tightened line. A source of simple pleasure existed through fishing. I could not grasp the appeal other than supplying task to one with nothing but a few dwindling years left to drag behind in begrudging acceptance.

Our apathy was driven into us from upbringing. Alice and I were saved, but most succumbed. A little drink and a night alone will encourage wretched action in all. They thought they were alone; they were wrong.

I watched the fish.

I mostly watched from afar; however, if curiosity overcame my dissociation, I could crouch behind the patches of reeds that grew in wild tumbles upon the shore. If I felt particularly bold then I would undress and swim beside their canoes. I listened; I judged.

A few had certainly died , I thought, or perhaps moved away. Or went to a farm. These thoughts forced a giggle to my lips, which sent a misty spray of lake water into the air. The droplets glistened against neon lights. A reflective shade of green light struck them at just the right angle to capture my attention. The waters brought an ability to dissociate from existence. Dreams strung themselves together in the back of my mind to jarringly break at odd intervals. Memories returned speckled and dyed with sunspots akin to standing too quickly, yet they sprung as a predator upon my helpless heart, shredding through the meat without warning.

***

I had liked a specific fishing rod. It shone the color of honey with whittled carvings reaching from the handle to the tip. In the day, the wood appeared pure despite its bloody purpose.

The man had told a dying fish that the rod was inherited from his father. He wanted to give it to his son, but illness struck… Or his son was a dick… I wracked my brain in a futile attempt to recollect one old man’s woes.

We were close through collective sorrow, yet they were never wise to this. Fishermen were wise to matters of fish and regrets; little else. I knew of regrets and I watched the fish, and it did not take me a lifetime to figure it out.

A fish jumped nearby breaking the glass surface and crushing any chance of my memory to work properly. Something about not speaking… I decided to not care further. The rod was pretty; I would have taken it, had I been his daughter.

The man paddled through every other morning for the first few years of my solitude–before Alice, and before Mickey.

Loneliness bonded us, despite him never knowing me. I had anticipated his camo-wrapped kayak gently drifting through the inlet. Occasionally, the movement was accompanied by a soft tune he whistled rounding the bend.

I ignored him most times. A man like him would have drifted through my mind as a ghost if it were not for him assigning me the grimmest of responsibilities.

Week after week passed without his presence some time ago. Past days were wrapped in razor-blades, but after a time the pain turned meaningless. Before Alice took me dancing, it was hard to remember.

I had noted his absence over others. A few weeks later and I figured he had died; however, upon another moonless night some time ago, the same tune he hummed was echoed in a drunken, mournful howl. Ice had drifted lazily upon the lake’s surface just as the last touches of snow was receding from the forest.

Curious as I tended to be, there was little choice other than to investigate. In the winter I had occupied myself with retracing the different bark patterns in the mud. The textures scratched an itch in my head, but I abandoned this effort to take watch behind a fallen oak tree. The water was dark except for the blobs of ice protruding from the surface; no flashlight could cut through the murky shallows.

I hadn’t feared discovery that night; his kayak displayed neither lamp nor bow lights. The night had tightened her noose around his whiskey-drenched throat.

My interest had only grown. The most secretive of deeds were attempted on moonless nights- or escape attempts; those always came at night.

His white, bushy beard reflected red as the canoe cut through the bridge’s opening. The paddle had fallen from his grasp drifting behind. It appeared to wave farewell as the fin struggled deciding which side to rest. I twinkled my fingers as a parting gesture.

At this point, the man had loosely clung to an empty bottle of whiskey–or bourbon. One was made from Kentucky? I was not entirely certain. I remembered the red light conjured demonic images with the brownish-hue of the glass. The canoe shivered as a guttural gasp resonated beneath an unkempt, red-washed beard. His wail persisted into a high-pitched whine; a release of control, I had surmised.

In truth, concern had touched my heart. I often found myself listening to the groundhogs whistle, as was their namesake, to one another through deep, entrenched burrows. These were liable for ransack by coyotes or foxes. Their torturous shrieks split the air until peace came at a shake of the predator’s jaws and the snap of its neck. Often enough the hunter ate its prize in front of the victim’s family. Throughout this rabid feasting, I could not decide whether it was cruelty or nature.

I heard, within their shrill cries, a panicked fear. Fear of what lied beyond its sunken burrow or a fox’s teeth? Life promised pain. It was Death, who brought peace. I understood animals. They hung on with tooth and claw because why would they not?

The man knew. His cries were not of self-preservation, but of bitter acceptance. Fools clung onto life as blood and breathe mingle within punctured throats. Some needed reminding of their contract. I had thought to say something then, but what words could I offer a sentenced man?

The empty, liquor bottle was thrown against the center column of the bridge. He had enough energy for one final fit of screams and roars that erupted in a symphony of desperation mingled with sorrow. Wearied from emotional plight, the old man laid back against the seat of his kayak. Had innocence not already abandoned my spirit, I would have laughed at the grown man’s emotional outburst. Especially while he sat within the confines of a camo-wrapped dingy. The man raged just enough to not tip himself into the cold water. I had known better; I knew the grief he had contained; I knew of the sorrow that drained the color from the world. He had kept his practice wearing a bright-orange lifejacket. The comical accessory forced his head back at an awkward angle. I had thought he might have fallen asleep or died right in that moment. Then, even in the darkness, my weathered-eyes caught the slightest movement of his right hand.

An explosion of light burst in the air as a single firecracker. The stars had met a short-lived contender. I plunged behind the fallen tree’s roots, afraid he might see me, which was of course, silly in hindsight.

After the noise dispersed, shells and other gunk plummeted gracelessly into the lake. Gunpowder mixed with the smell of dead fish and the cold earth. He had disappeared then. The life-jacket was all that remained against the back of the seat.

Eventually The kayak stabilized, sending the last echoes of his life to the muddy shores. The kayak spun, but continued to drift lazily along with the lake’s guidance.

I had approached the shore to apologize, but no sound had come from my lips. The kayak passed quietly.

I had left then. I had no desire to gain ownership of another’s final moment.

A few cops trawled the river the following day, returning to scoop chunks of skull and goop into a five-gallon bucket with fishing nets. They told me to leave, but I retreated to the hillside.

I hoped he got what he sought, though I doubted it. I could not guess how many others had passed these purgatorial shores. The fog consumed all, each in what I could only imagine to have been an intimate display of all unknown and cherished. A touch, a bang and a breeze to carry our spent particles away. Then silence, but what came to him, between the moment of his finger’s fatal tap and the fireworks?

I wished he had brought his rod; I may have stayed a moment longer.

***

Tonight, the water was calm. The last disturbances of the rogue machine settled. Its gurgles were distant and indiscernible. All was quiet, until a low-hum and a series of vibrations shook the edges of the lake. A horn blared through the valley as the train approached.

The hum roared to life as the iron beast neared. The water trembled from its power. The bridge rumbled a thunderous roar as a beam of light struck the other shore’s tree line. A bat fluttered away in panic. I watched a train car shake as the change in incline jolted the front suspension. The undercarriage screeched. The bridge in turn sung its grievances. The iron squealed in a shrill-pitched cry of agony.

I enjoyed the noises, the scraping wheels, the rush of blinding light. The rows of aligned train-cars rumbled in tow toward an unknown depot. Stella hated surfing. I sympathized; it was dangerous, illegal, and dirty. We branded ourselves Outlaw for the sake of discomfort and danger, and for the sake of freedom – or escape. It was another dance. Only much more dangerous, and a shimmering, crimson gown was liable to get us killed, caged, or worse.

I closed my eyes to focus my wandering thoughts and the vibrating water. I pushed my toes deeper into the muck to better position my anchoring. I thought of the midwestern plains and the northern valleys. The sun was the same, yet everywhere we went He had shone in a different brilliance. Stella knew this too, despite her best efforts to hide it from me. She loved the pursuit of movement just like Mickey- just like me.

Stella distrusted the tremors and the squeals. She hated the box we had crouched in with cramped backs across from certain death. Travel brought days without washing, faithless friends, and peril; however, that was not to say she hated trains. The art of wanderers, nomads and troubadours drew her in as an archaeologist to a hidden tomb. There were stories etched upon rusted hulls wrought from the hands of the burdened, outcast and wicked. Poems, teachings and historical accounts, scratched with a knife’s edge or painted from a can.

Stella worshipped her duty as the bookkeeper for remnant tales of rusted ramblers. Even here upon these settled shores she wrote the symbols into the dirt. I empathized. Stella had her records, I had my trains.

***

Summer had begun her dance through the valley. Her pink-painted nails adorned the breeze with campfires, flowers, and sugary spray. A concoction of life brought energy to this false flesh. The lake crystalized, in spite of the various ripples echoing from fish breaching the surface.

I rolled my body, so my belly laid in the shallows. I had given up on my hair tonight; chaotic braids were covered in brambles, and dirt splashed against my back as a wet sponge. I slid my body forward, dipping my finger in a deep divot in the mud. If I were to wait long enough a bass would approach curiously. My pale fingers drew their hunger. Had I wanted to, I could wrench the slimy thing from its home. If only to show old men that their grandfather’s rods were useless to the taste of my flesh.

Fish died more often than men. Their carcasses floated onto the muddy banks of my shore. Just as Stella, the fish kept the time. Their skin receded from their bodies as bubbles blistered then popped from bloated innards. Crawfish and other creatures would carry bits and pieces of meat back to their own abodes. The bones remained. We never took the bones. I followed the scavengers to their next meal.

I retreated my hand from the depths of the lake. I never grabbed them. Tonight, was no different. Only the stars shone, their light had never betrayed me. I watched the train cars roll along for a few minutes before retreating from the water. I stood naked and pale, baptized by the lake water and the holy rays of train lights. My fingers squeezed the excess water from my hair as I allowed my skin to breathe in the night air. I tugged a blue, cotton dress from a pair of spindly pine branches, twisting my sticky body through the fabric.

The dress was cursed, but so too was my flesh. I had abandoned superstition long ago. The light blue complimented my brown hair well enough to dissuade my mind from folding to fears of a forgotten witch.

The wind smothered herself within the saturated folds of my dress. The night was warm enough to thwart any discomfort from my wet frame. I stepped upon the wooden tide-barrier and disappeared into the fog of the forest.

***

I dashed through rugged hills and soft, sandy creek beds. My toes squished mud underfoot as my hair released the layers of dirt and plant that had intermingled with my curls. Remnant leaves from last Autumn crunched beneath the weight of my strides.

Over the hills I ran, until the mud turned to shattered rock and compacted earth. The pitfalls and ravines had only worsened. At one point I had arrogantly thought I had known all there was to know of this land and yet every-so often I’ll find myself at the bottom of a gorge or within another compartment of a mountain.

As I climbed the ridgeline I felt vibrations flutter within the earth. They awoke on dark nights, I knew; I was still unsettled. Stella had said we were safe, but they were unnatural. The trains were dangerous too, but the wheels only turned one way. I never was one to guess the way a person spun.

The earth split in a sharpened indention. As I skipped over a bramble of spiky-vines I stumbled upon a fawn nestled among a thick foliage of cover. It made no protest as I hopped across a prickly-shrub.

I knew the fawn’s destiny. It ended with tooth or claw. This should have saddened me, and yet it was the just the way it was. Coyotes and vultures would prey upon decayed flesh. I would watch them struggle over the scraps of meat. Beaks would fly and the victor would sacrifice an eye or a gash to the throat in exchange for more. What did they get from this? Another day of survival; another chance for something worse to come along.

Alice told me it felt like that. She said humans were the same, but at least we had toys and drugs. I always thought she was a pessimist. What a life it would be, running across the valley, feeding on wild berries and fresh fields of grass. To sleep every night under the stars, knowing not to move because my mother told me so, and I trusted her. The cost was a grisly death, sure, but that experience may be worth it too. How would we know?

Everything that made my life worth living was wrought with my own hands, yet every pursuit withered away, darkened by the days, fading to obscurity. I warned them; Pleasure staled with abundance. This bond I had to my life was destined to rot as sugar-coated teeth dissolving to its roots. Pain staled slowly, but it too would fail me. The sensations shifted to that of passing breezes or droplets of rain. All meaningless.

Death’s touch, the first time, shocked my core. I felt the blood drip out from my skull down the top of my head. Alice said someone hit me, but that never made sense. Before we danced, I had thought of death before. It festered within me as a parasite, dragging darkness across the fringes of my soul. Sinister thoughts turned to sinister action, which simmered to pain and blood.

Now, I was nothing. Death had staled. The promised dessert was nothing more than a palette cleanser. A fire once burned within me, a roaring flame ablaze with hatred and fury. How dare her. If I were anything but me, she would have known. She would have begged me for mercy. But, anger burned away just the same. I could burn the world to ash and salt the earth of every acre of land. I could cry and scream and howl and rage, and when I finished this thunderous display of passion the stars would look down in apathy. The fish rotted. The trees grew. The shorelines receded. Hatred turned to sorrow, sorrow to numbness.

The scrape of iron continued to shake the valley. A furious light emblazoned the forest as the row of carts roared across the ancient bridge. I wondered how much life was left in those stone-stacked joints. I watched the cars slide along for a time. The squeals of rusty cogs were not so jarring from this distance.

The fawns stayed put. No noise or terror could drive them from where their mother knew. They were too young to trust themselves. They placed their life in their parents, and for that, I never blamed them.

***

My feet tapped the moist leaves that cushioned the forest floor. I felt the fabric of my dress rush above my head as I jumped down from a rocky spire. The ground shook as I crashed into the earth. No break or fall could hurt me. I was wind; I was the world before and after. I was the crunch of leaves beneath my dirty toes and the spark of flame that flickered ahead. There was nothing else I needed than distraction and patience. Time cared for the rest.

The forest thinned as islands of campsites, separated between patches of trees, began to speckle the sides of my vision. They were empty. They were always empty after spring torrents, which left the shores to Alice and I.

A town laid dappled as ink stains upon a clouded and distant lakeshore. Little stars freckled various windows. I knew it was rude, but I wanted to watch. To see what normal people were. A chance to feel my body through their own. From the anxiety of a man choosing a suit for his first day to a child playing with figurine warriors. I could lay on hills adorned with wildflowers and watch lives flow uninterrupted as thin streams through an ever-changing terrain.

There was a cream-colored cottage, which sat upon the peak of the peninsula. I could see it through the openings in leaves. A hedge grew as a fence around the home, I knew. During the day I would see tulips lined in little rows. A woman lived there. I saw her tend the gardens and prune her hedges. Last week, she hung a birdfeeder from a low-hanging maple branch. The woman brought a stool out to watch. I could not make out the birds, but they must have been beautiful. The woman almost watched them longer than I could watch her.

I thought of this woman often. She did not look old, and yet she was alone. It was just her and the birds she coaxed to friendship. Did a woman, who nurtured a garden of flowers, look at her body any differently?

I imagined there was, within that cottage, a bathroom. Sealed above a porcelain sink was the scornful edges of a mirror. Atop a granite counter laid a pastel pink pot. There was, within the pot, a few of her favorite tulips plucked and arranged by varied colors. It was there, away from my eyes and toward false notions of intimacy, that she would face herself as I once did.

Did a woman, who spent hours disciplining wild hedges, weep as I at an unexpected reflection? I envisioned the stretch marks that had crept through aging skin. The scars from drunken spills and sorrowful nights.

Did this woman, who hung birdfeeders and watched from a shallow stool, sit in her bathroom in a similar fashion gazing at her bare features in silent, bitter acceptance. There were marks present, I was sure, that others were to never see. The invisible saboteurs that flicker with time. False promises from green tongues convinced her they were gone. A night of peace interrupted by the scrape of a rusty blade across her veteran heart. Would she believe this? I would.

I was not as old as the mountain – yet. There still existed significance in separation. I knew I was a person, yet I never felt like I was a part of it. Alice had said that’s normal for some people.

***

I slowed my spritely dash lifting my arms in the nightly gusts. For a moment I thought flight had overcame me, but it was just a passing stroke of adrenaline.

I had known shame, once. I felt the presence. I heard the whistle. I laid my hand down by my side, my fingers slightly curled inward. I couldn’t remember exactly, but I liked feeling her hold my hand as she swam through curtains of leaves and rocky inclines.

Ahead, within a nook in the forest, a campfire was alight. In prior years, fires would have echoed on both sides of the lake. Jeeps and sedans had rumbled through the dirt roads with coolers of beer and returning college students. An assortment of motley-colored tents was pitched in no particular order. While children had danced in the shallows, their older siblings snuck off to smoke cannabis in the dilapidated huts their forebearers had built for the same purpose.

Curiosity drove me near. This land was sold. The campfires had stopped a few summers back. Hikers would cross the faulty-fencing to walk around Savage Mountain, but few spent the night.

I turned toward the mountain, Alice would not want me to go alone, I thought, but knew she would not investigate either. They were most likely locals or tourists. I knew they weren’t one of us—we wouldn’t have lit a fire—however, if they weren’t local, and it was Her. The thought sent a shiver down my spine.

I closed the distance between the fire and myself. My fingers shook slightly as I crouched behind a tree near the entrance to their campsite; however, relief settled in me as I saw a silhouette of a girl dancing around a low fire. Music softly played on a picnic table adjacent to a pair of erected tents.

Shaking the fear from my heart brought a sense of boldness to return within me. I yearned for company, and Alice was busy with her plants. I crouched just out of reach from the vanguard of the fire’s light. Liquor was poured in four shot glasses as the friends celebrated. I giggled watching them convince their last friend to take it.

“Come on, Jason.” The girl mockingly beckoned, “Try to be fun for once.”

“I have been fun; I’m just fucked.” The boy said, waving away the glass.

“Okay.” The girl said, slowly taking the shot away from the boy’s grasp.

I saw a drunken conversation ensue within Jason’s thought until as last he reached out, “Wait. One more.” He stumbled onto his feet as the girl gifted the shot. The music cut as a flash of light shone from one of their phones to record them shooting back the liquor.

Their celebration continued far into the night. Intermittent laughter was silenced with a vicious shush from Jason, which eventually became a game in-and-of itself. They drunkenly shushed one another for what could have been an hour.

I enjoyed watching people to a certain extent; loneliness emanated weariness. The world had once turned my food rotten and staled earthly pleasure, but nothing compared to this thin wall of darkness that separated us. I poked a large patch of moss I sat atop of. My hands stroked the squishy flesh, feeling the impression of moisture fold within itself.

A song they must have liked came on as my thoughts were interrupted with a drunken chorus of singing obviously forgetting their previous attempts of silence.

This was stopped suddenly as a flashlight shot into the clearing from the trailhead.

“Shit!” One of the boys said, which was immediately hushed by the girl.

The footsteps loudened. I tightened my body against the earth. The moss squished uncomfortably through my dress. A pair of jeans crept gingerly down the rocky path.

I held my breath, not daring to breathe in fear of what Alice had warned me of.

“Ugh… Hello?” One of the boys called out.

“Sam?” A mousey voice replied to my slight embarrassment.

“Yo.” Sam replied, “Wait… Alex? Is that really you?” The boy called out, which piqued my interest. Before I lived, I once had a strange encounter with an Alex.

“The very same.” Alex replied as they shut off their phone’s light.

“When did you become anorexic?” He replied to the immediate reprisal of the girl.

“Alex looks great, when are you going to start caring about how you look, dickface?” She said.

“When the lady’s stop caring, I’ll start.” He said

“When did they start caring, Sam? Don’t forget we knew your ass in high school.”

“…Rebecca Chambers…” The other boy said between a convenient fit of coughing.

They began recounting old stories of Rebecca Chambers in high school; each successive story inched Sam’s dismissal to resentment as he attempted to silence the attacks.

I poked my head from the ground to better spy. My dress was no matter. I would clean it in the morning. That could occupy my mind for another hour.

“Okay, okay, okay.” Sam said waving his hands in the air, “Can we just drink beers and get this man some calories?”

“Works for me.” Alex replied taking a seat next to the girl.

The group hugged Alex and passed them a beer. Their face was familiar, but I was not sure.

I crawled to the edge of the closest tent. It was comical next to a tiny orange one. I felt the fire’s light flicker through my facial features. When I first discovered my ensnarement, I threw myself at strange travelers and lonesome wanderers. It had been my naked silhouette against a roaring flame; however, the bravado rusted with strained effort. Any lust I had burnt to ash. Their beds were cold. Their eyes never met mine. I would leave before the last bit of smoke departed from dying embers.

They sat silently around the low-burning fire. I had seen Sam before, now that I saw their faces in better light. He was one of the few townsfolk to jump the fence and hike the trails.

There were only a few logs left to burn, but they did not let that interfere with the most important task of catching Alex up on the alcohol they had missed. The girl, Claire, was passing more shots around as the other boy, whose name I did not catch, continued to wave them away only to begrudgingly accept after minor opposition.

After a time, Sam called it quits, taking one last piss on a nearby tree and stumbling into the large tent the group was sharing. The last boy had crumpled into a ball by the opposite tree line. A chorus of spitting and coughing confirmed his breathing, which was left unbothered by everyone else.

I drifted around the edge of their tent listening to the occupants bicker about their sleeping arrangements. I paused as I nudged my eyes past the corner.

There was lust. There was love; Then, there was kinship. Dissimilar to the sort of kinship I felt with the wizened and foolish. My sister had come home; however, similar to the old men, she was equally unaware of our relationship.

Her eyes reflected a golden hue hidden behind a partially-finished bottle of liquor. I knew now, that I had met her once, in a different forest. I was dead and she was a child. Now, I was given yet another responsibility. Wounded souls were my burden to witness.

Frost bit within the veins of my chest as the fire conjured shadowy etchings under her eyes. Her color faded with the silhouette of the forest; unlike, the old man, her remedy was at hand. Did fate drive our paths together?

She dropped the bottle beneath her chair, before waving goodnight to her friends. Her eyes gazed into the flames as she mindlessly poked at the burning logs. She was dead, but we were stronger than that. She was soaked in oil, needing only a spark, but none were willing to light the match.

Oh, my sister. You still do not see.

Thank you for reading ❤

[Preface] *** [Next Chapter]