𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 |𝐃.𝐌

𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄 | 𝐥 𝐨 𝐬 𝐭

"𝐈 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐈 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝.
𝐈 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫, 𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝."
- "Marjorie" by Taylor Swift

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June 5th, 1998.

Even if the Memorial Park of Wiltshire stretched infinitely before her like a line with only an initial point but not a marked end, Hemera knew exactly where to go.

An immeasurable number of headstones rose like jagged mountaintops from the ground, their granite color nothing but a sense of plainness drowning in the sea of the green hues of the short grass— every shade and every inch like a different note aiming to complete the miraculous symphony of nature's wonders. Across the flat clearing of the cemetery's acreage, a few narcissus blooms fought for recognition, their stems slender and their white petals fragile and paper-thin in a way that Hemera worried would allow the blustery wind to tear them up.

The delicate beauty of the flowers made the house of death look slightly more welcoming, yet their symbolism wasn't at all unrelated to the underworld. Thanks to the bedtime stories her mother always narrated when she was little, curled up in her bed and safe, Hemera remembered that the blooms indicated Hades, the God of the Dead— according to Greek mythology at least. She'd only seen them decorating coffins and rarely houses when someone was mourning. That, along with the gloominess of the weather wouldn't allow her imagination to trick her into believing that she was anywhere else.

Hemera clenched her fist tighter around the cold handle of her black umbrella, the plastic biting into her palm, and hung her head low. She kept walking, the wind blowing her wet hair into her squinted eyes as a few raindrops ran down the side of her pale face. The cobblestones beneath her feet were soaked from the rain, and although blood ran thicker than water, one was easily mistaken for the other when no one paid enough attention.

Because, at the feel of liquid drenching her shoes and shivers spreading on her skin like cobwebs, the flashbacks came back— reminding her of how even coming close to feeling clean was a race against the kind of time she didn't have.

She was past the point of letting hope and optimism consume her at every sunrise. She hardly believed that the sun would bother making an appearance today— or any day to come. Hemera didn't think that the universe would plot against letting this atrocious world rest in the darkness it deserved, or that the morning chirping of the birds carrying out the chorus of the dawn would ring familiarly in her ears. She hadn't heard the amicable song in weeks and was left to cling to the conviction of dying with only the memory of it carved into the most distant crevices of her mind.

On either side of the stone path she so familiarly followed, the headstones seemed to mock her— pity her for having to pick up the ruins the war left behind and make a life out of them. Not a life worth living, but the kind that was conventionally easy to tolerate.

Hemera tried to focus on the raindrops heavily splashing on the grass around her, on the sound of the wind howling through the naked tree branches, brown and curling like the crisp fingers of a corpse. Beneath heavy lids and sopping lashes, she managed to note the fog looming over the horizon, a cloudy barrier stopping her from cursing the star under which she had been born. Her attention was scattered the way the shards of broken glass spread on marble floors, the sensation of the forthcoming puffs of air in her lungs the only distraction she was granted.

Not that it'd ever be enough.

In the back of her mind, the sounds of war still echoed hauntingly.

The screams, the spells exploding from the tips of wands and surging through the dusty air, the dripping blood as it leaked from fresh wounds and soaked through her clothes. She could still feel the heaviness of it clinging to her torn pants, and her dirty shirt, even if the clothes now hanging on her body were nothing but freshly washed— though they still smelled like him. His scent lingered on the black turtleneck T-shirt and as Hemera fisted the material and inhaled against it, she could almost say that the coppery smell of the blood that had stained her hands that night, faded away.