Exhumation

Succumb

It is an unforgivably humid summer night. The air is stagnant and suffocating. A blindfolded woman is forcefully pushed down into rough dirt. Her teal dress fails to protect her knees from the soil as it scratches and leaves little rocks embedded into her skin. She desperately tries to maneuver out of the rope that binds her hands, when that fails the woman releases a few ear deafening screams before a rack of a shotgun silences her. Her heart throbs. She tries to determine where she is but she is terrified that it was not going to matter if she figured it out. She pleas with her captor.
"I'll give you anything you want, just please let me go!" Her voice cracked, the woman starts to sob so much her mucus runs out of her nose and makes its way to her mouth. She instinctively sniffs up the fluid and picks up a scent from around her. Mint. She's somewhere in Station, her hometown. Her captor never replies to her pleas. She kept hearing footsteps behind her, pacing back and forth while cocking an empty shotgun over and over again.

She is being terrorized, the woman now understood what was going on. She didn't have anything that the captor would want other than her life. This was entertainment for them, whoever is wielding the shotgun won't be reasoned with and like a wild animal is just toying with their prey. Her captor wants her to scream and beg for mercy, they want to completely dominate the situation, once she realizes this, she stops her screaming and pleading. She speculates that there's no bullets in the shotgun just by it freely being racked. But would that information help her? Her heart palpitations were slowing down as she came to terms with her situation. She is still terrified but she switches to be more pensive. As she collects herself she formulates a survival plot, it was better than nothing. She purposely falls forward as her body makes complete contact with the dirt, she feels the barrel of the shotgun on her back but instead of hearing another pump of the gun she hears a large metallic thud behind her. She assumes it was the shotgun being thrown to the ground. Maybe she's got a chance of escaping now, maybe this is just another one of their games. Her body remained paralyzed as she contemplated her next move.

Last night she was mourning the loss of her husband who had recently passed away from lung cancer. They've been married for twenty years and had two children, both of which had moved out and gone their separate ways. Even after she notified them of their father's death, they seemed to lack empathy. She swirled around half melted ice cubes in a glass of watered down sangria. She was basking in her grief when she heard the song of her doorbell.
The woman reluctantly rose from her seat and walked to the door.
"Amy! I am so sorry for your loss!" Her neighbor Alexandra muttered while holding a pan of homemade brownies. Amy allowed the aged lady to walk in and place the treats down. Alexandra softly embraced Amy with her frail body. Both of their eyes turned to glass until tears rolled down in thin streams. Alexandra is an elderly woman who had lost her husband a little over a decade ago, she noticed a stretcher with a body bag exit the house earlier that week. Although the two weren't that close, she still shared her condolences.

"I'm relieved he was able to go in our home, the hospice aides and nurses did a wonderful job." Amy composed herself "It's over now and he's no longer suffering." Amy patted her eyes with a tissue. She knew death was imminent for her husband ever since they got the diagnoses nine months ago. She had cried about the situation over and over again until she became numb to it. Saying she was relieved was an understatement.
"Are you having a service for him?" Alexandra questioned
" I managed to get the arrangements done today. It's more of a celebration of life, both of us decided that was best, he also wanted to be cremated, he never believed in spending so much money on a funeral, even in death he was a penny pincher." Amy lets out a little laugh at the thought. She's glad they were able to figure out all of the end of life plans while he was alive. "It'll be at the Veteran building if you're interested, we're ordering a bunch of food so there should be more than enough! It's on Thursday around five." Amy enthusiastically invited her neighbor.
"I'll be there." The old lady didn't skip a beat in her response. The two ladies continue to talk and reminisce for a little over an hour until the sun starts setting. Amy was thankful of her neighbors compassion and was grateful for this being the most normal conversation she's had all week. The nurses and aides that would visit meant business and they did show their sorrow but didn't really connect with her.