My fingers linger on the rusting, charcoal-black gate. I look hesitantly out to the collection of gravestones. The morning's fog makes it seem like a caricature of a horror movie.
The sky is grey and the temperature is slightly chilly with February's paradox. February always seems cold and dreary, yet the start of spring tries to war with it to begin earlier than it should.
The result is a slightly humid month and a constantly changing forecast. Fog in the mornings is the most irritating part, to me. Can't see five feet in front of you.
I slip past the gate opening, but my dress gets caught on a bush that was neglected so much that even it seems like it wants to escape. I sympathize with the feeling, and gently untangle my knee-high skirt from its prickly fingers.
I slowly close the creaky gate made silent by condensation, if only not to make more noise than needed. The aura of death permeates the atmosphere even more thoroughly than the fog, and it makes me feel at home.
I was never one for the constantly bustling and aliveness of towns or cities. There is something inherently comforting about silence. It means that nothing else can disturb you and it means peace.
Noise can be screams, laughter, or sobbing, and sometimes they run together in an incomprehensible mess that overloads my senses and I need a break. It makes me feel so tired, sometimes.
The crunch of the leaves under my shoes is a jarring distraction from my thoughts. A needed one. I hate noise, but I need it to stay grounded. I knew what I was doing, and I can't have regrets now that I've been given a chance. I glide past a few graves and stop at the fourth. The air crackles with mourning and melancholy.
Everyone dies, but some resent that fact. It shows prominently in this one. I kneel in the dirt and read the carving on the stone;
Clare Alec
1914–1928
There was nothing but old blank cement below it. I press my hands down on the dirt and relax. Letting the lapidary melody of trauma keep me determined.
I forget how to feel, I haven't done it in a long time. I was given more of a chance than this poor girl, wasn't I?
My eyes slit open as this tired body slumps backward, relying on this old marker of loss.
I can't let her, or anyone else, down.
I will avenge you, I promise with my wordless movements. I will not let your sacrifice or suffering be in vain, I avow as I drain the last dredges of life from the unfortunate.
It's lonely, below the dirt.
It's lonely, in the sky.
You won't be lonely much longer, I think.
Reapers will soon be the merciful ones.