The Red Day

I.

           He was gone. He was really gone.

The feeble girl watched as the love of her life was hauled off down the sandy path, leading away from their small village... and leading away from her. She continued to watch the entourage of carts and caravans until they were merely black dots on the horizon. Only then did her knees finally give out on her, and she let out the first agonizing cry she had made in a long time.

It could have been minutes or hours later when she felt a rough hand on her shoulder. While she knew it was merely a gesture of comfort, the hand was only a reminder of her new reality. Kallen was gone. And he wouldn't be coming back.

"Renua." The sound of her name broke through the breeze and she almost winced. "Come, love. The evening storm will be coming soon. We must get inside."

The girl, Renua, stood in reply. Head hung low, she followed the owner of the rough hand back towards town, not allowing herself to so much as glance down at the remains of the day. The winds were beginning to pick up, and the two individuals covered their faces so as not to breathe in the rising sands.

Ren didn't dare go back to her home. The place she shared with him. A small part of her thought she would never be able to step foot inside again. Situated inside the home of the owner of the rough hand, a Mrs. Friedla Bartall, Ren looked around as if it was the first time she'd ever been inside. For some reason, nothing looked familiar to her.

"Poor girl has nowhere else to go," Friedla murmured to her husband, just on the edge of earshot from Ren.

The husband replied, "She can stay in one of the infirmary beds as long as she needs."

The Bartalls set off to make up a spot for young Ren, and provided hot food and drink to which she did not touch. How could she eat when he was probably starving? How would she be able to continue living, knowing the conditions he was in? "Friedla."

Her overly polite nature had kicked in, and Mrs. Bartall turned her attention to the girl. "Thank you for your hospitality. I think I will turn in for the night."

Friedla simply nodded and watched as Ren headed to her new room, the now lukewarm food and drink left untouched.

The husband and wife embraced for the first time on this reddest of days. The infirmary was empty, but the graveyard would soon be full.

~

A tiny ray of morning light peeked its way through a crack in one of the boarded up windows, and rested on Ren's exhausted face. It was during the late spring and summer months that the evening storms were at their worst.

The girl pressed her palms into the back of her eyelids, wiping away the sleepless night. What if she just stayed in bed forever? Until there was nothing left of her but decomposing flesh and a rotten smell? She shook her head. She couldn't do that to the Bartalls.

Ren dragged herself out of bed, grateful that it was a bed for a single person, so she did not have to gaze down at an empty side. She approached the common area and found the middle aged couple sitting in suffocating silence. The Bartalls provided the village's only health services, and so their home was filled all kinds of supplies and herbs growing in every corner. All of the plants felt both foreign and comfortable out here in the sand village. Ren thought Friedla must have some magical tough for being able to grow anything out here that wasn't cacti. The village, Tenb'ir, was forever thankful that this couple of healers actually wanted to live all the way out here, and Ren was even more thankful that Tenb'ir did not lose either of them the day before.

Mr. Bartall had prepared a simple, but hearty breakfast for the three of them. Friedla greeted her. "Renua, love. Would you like some breakfast?" Ren had to force herself from cringing at hearing her full name.