Undead

The Kara Lily. (307)

"You weren't supposed to see this." I whisper. I don't trust my own voice not to break, not when I've seen this massacre.
"Didn't you bring me here to see it?" He asks confused.
I shake my head. "You were supposed to see sun and flowers, color and the sound of the river passing the rocks.... not this."
"Madison, it's Winter." He points out.
I nod. "I wasn't thinking ...."

"Hey." He pulls me in and I just stand there. I don't even have the energy to wrap my arms around him too.
"It'll come back, Madison. We can come back in a month or two and I'll see it all then." He assures me.
This is different. Carl usually never babies me and I would never let him. But it's different now and I'm not sure I like it.

Fangs, who has remained quiet the majority of the journey here, lays by the river, drinking from it.
"C'mere" Carl ushers me to stand next to the stream while he takes his jumper off and lays it on the ground for us to sit on. Even when I sit in it I can feel the dampness from the grass creeping in. I lie back and he copies me, taking me hand and not letting it go.
"Tell me about it." He whispers softly.
His voice is like satin and almost gets lost in the wind.

"Well... the grass was long and soft so when you lay down on it, like this...it felt like you were lying on a cloud, softer than my own bed. I often just slept here. It's so serene, so untouched. That's what I like about it. And the river used to trickle down past the rocks and the sound would make you drift into a deep sleep. And the flowers, they were my favorite. Wild flowers. We used to have them at home when I was young, in the field behind my house . You were there once, when we found my bow. Anyways, when you looked at them it's like...like you never seen color before. Carl, they were every color of the rainbow and they just swayed in the breeze. Pinks, yellows, blues, purples, white, red.... the list goes on. They were all there. The sun made the color look vibrant. It was amazing. I wish you could've seen it. For the longest time, this was just my place and I didn't want to share it with anyone. But if I had to share it with someone then it would be you."

He smiles.
"You recognized the flowers?"
I nod. "My mother used to talk about them all the time. Her mom told her about them too. She told me a story about them, I don't think it's true but I still liked it."
I take a deep breath, closing my eyes and reciting the story like my mother had to me.

"It was about a soldier who went into war so that he could provide for his family. He left when he was young and never seen his family again but he wrote letters all the time and they would respond too, but one day he sent a letter to tell his mother that said he was assigned to go into dangerous territory and that it would be a while until he could write again. The truth is, he didn't know if he would be alive to write again so he told her he loved her and he went to war.

He was in a wooded area, everything had been overgrown and wild much like the war and the bullets that we're being shot at them. He had been with a friend of his that he made in the army but he got shot and the soldier knew he couldn't leave him to die, so he left his base and carried his friend through the woods until he found the small infirmary that was set up on standby by a woman who had lost all her children to the war.

He begged her to save his friend, to use or do anything she had to do so she could save him. She had nothing else to do and no money and nobody else to provide for so she helped the injured in the war. She was the someone she wished was there to saved her children during the war. Anyway, the nurse saved his friends life with the last of the medical supplies that she had.

On the way back to his base the soldier got shot and he was bleeding heavily, on the brink of death until the nurse found him. He was hidden by long grass that almost covered him but still, she found him, unconscious under a tree. She dropped to her knees and prayed to god for a way to save him. She had nothing left to save him with because he had begged her to save his friend. The wound has deep on his side. She tried to think of home remedies to save him but she had nothing of use. When she finally looked up she noticed wild Lily's gathered around the trunk of the tree. Different colors, different sizes. She tore them from the ground and squeezed them, gathering the moisture from the plant at the roots. She rubbed the extracts onto the wound and like magic, he healed. Life after death. They say that's why the Lilly represents innocence after death. But this wasn't just any lily. It was a Kara lily." I smile.