Silent Horizons

Chapter 9

Looking down, he saw the hand upon which he had just oafishly stomped upon. Following it up the arm, he found the corpse upon which it was attached slumped over to the side.

A middle-aged man, skin gaunt and falling off his body as he decayed. His hair was matted to his skull, caked in old blood as if he had sustained a significant head injury but had not died from it. Maggots writhing in the coagulated gore. The man's dead eyes filmed over in deaths embrace, his mouth gaping open as flies followed the crimson rivulets, crawling in and out. His other hand clasping his ripped stomach as he died holding his internal organs inside his body.

John retched and covered his nose. He'd never seen a dead man in such a decayed state so close.

Considering how the man was sitting, John concluded he'd died leaning against the door. Almost as if he was blocking something from entering the room up until the very last minute. He wondered what led to this man's life ending in the back room of a bookstore.

As he turned around, he found the rest of the man's family.

Akin to a poignant tableau, a small child kneeled, held in the arms of his mother. Even in death, the woman held the little boy in a strong embrace. The child's head fell back as the mother gripped him by the hair, barely slackened in their mortal embrace. Hands limp beside his body, the wounds on his wrists carved deep enough that equal pools of blood surrounded them. Like tiny ruby lakes, a backdrop to his small white palms facing upwards to the heavens. The scene unfolding like a morbid painting, the child's backside revealed itself to be covered in streaks of blood from his mother's own wrists. The scarlet bloomed at his shoulders and ended in rivulets streaking down his back till minute droplets reached the tile floor.

The blood upon his white shirt like wings of a fallen angel, his mother clutched him fiercely. Her devotion to her son unwavering, holding firmly even in death. Their bond unbroken even as their mortal souls had been severed from their bodies.

John fell to his knees. Tears poured uncontrollably from his eyes as he sobbed at what he beheld in front of him. Words could not describe the despair that howled within his very soul. Sobs wracked through his body, causing him to shake uncontrollably as the pure weight of emotions that surged within him forced his body down closer to the ground. Falling upon his hands, he sobbed for what he felt was an eternity. The weight of what lay in front of him crushing every fiber of his being. Like a rope unspooling, he could feel his sanity fraying as the scene before him continuously replayed in his mind. All he could think of as the despair this family must have felt to end their lives in this manner. He couldn't wrap his mind around what could have driven a mother to end her son's life and her own in such a drastic manner.

His face against the ground, sorrow wracked through his bones and whipped furiously throughout his soul. Like a blowing gale churning furiously, his mind screamed as he sobbed.

After a few moments, he forced himself to regain control of his emotions lest he lost the battle with insanity and fell deep within its clutches. He had seen too much in his life for this to be the event that finally broke him – as much as he felt despair and horror like never before.

This scene having shaken him so thoroughly, John knew he would never be the same again.

Slowly, he pushed himself back onto his knees. His eyes blurring from the tears; he raked his trembling hands down his face erasing the signs of his emotional collapse.

His visage held in his palms, clutching himself as if he could hide from the horror, he forced himself to think.

What could have led them to this? The father had clearly sought to block whatever had been trying to enter the room. Even as the man had been so savagely wounded to the head and his internal organs had been spilling out, he had fought to protect his family for as long as possible. Until his dying breath he had held the door – John could barely wrap his mind around the agony the man must've experienced. The father had chosen to give them the mercy of ending their own existence rather than face what had been trying to enter the room.