𝙰𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙴𝚗𝚍

Chapter 39

In the dark

----Violet's POV----
Violet was shaken awake by Isadora, who's eyes were wide with terror and concern. Tears spilled down her cheeks and dropped onto Violet. She had never seen Isadora like this before, so she knew immediately something was horribly wrong.

"What is it?" Violet gasped, sitting upright and taking hold of Isadora's shoulders in the attempt to comfort her.

"It's--" Isadora began but was cut off by more desperate sobs. "It's Duncan!" She choked out before surrendering to her tears. Her brown hair spilling past her shoulders, which shook violently as she cried.

"What? Where is he? Is he okay?" Violet rambled, her mind racing with worry and guilt. She could feel her heart begin to thud as fast as an Indian drum, threatening to burst straight through her chest.

"I don't know! He's gone and I can't find him!" Isadora cried, her sobs growing louder and louder. The others began to stir, awakened by the sounds of Isadora.

Violet immediately jumped up and ventured into the cold night, leaving Isadora sobbing in the cave.

This was all her fault, she'd driven a wedge between the Quagmire siblings to the point of Duncan running away.

Violet stumbled through the cold, desperately crying out for Duncan. How had she let this happen? She had been so caught up with being in love with Quigley that she hadn't noticed what her happiness was doing to Duncan. She had been selfish and this was all her fault, and that's why she had to do everything in her power to find Duncan.

She was now deep into the thicket of trees, the snow falling more wildly than ever. She spun around in one last desperate attempt to find Duncan but to her great sorrow he was nowhere to be found. She fell to the snowy ground, and called out his name in the futile hope he would return.

And so she was left in the dark.

The phrase "in the dark," as I'm sure you know, can refer not only to one's shadowy surroundings, but also to the shadowy secrets of which one might be unaware. Every day, the sun goes down over all these secrets, and so everyone is in the dark in one way or another. If you are sunbathing in a park, for instance, but you do not know that a locked cabinet is buried fifty feet beneath your blanket, then you are in the dark even though you are not actually in the dark, whereas if you are on a midnight hike, knowing full well that several ballerinas are following close behind you, then you are not in the dark even if you are in fact in the dark. Of course, it is quite possible to be in the dark in the dark, as well as to be not in the dark not in the dark, but there are so many secrets in the world that it is likely that you are always in the dark about one thing or another, whether you are in the dark in the dark or in the dark not in the dark, although the sun can go down so quickly that you may be in the dark about being in the dark in the dark, only to look around and find yourself no longer in the dark about being in the dark in the dark, but in the dark in the dark nonetheless, not only because of the dark, but because of the ballerinas in the dark, who are not in the dark about the dark, but also not in the dark about the locked cabinet, and you may be in the dark about the ballerinas digging up the locked cabinet in the dark, even though you are no longer in the dark about being in the dark, and so you are in fact in the dark about being in the dark, even though you are not in the dark about being in the dark, and so you may fall into the hole that the ballerinas have dug, which is dark, in the dark, and in the park.