Berceuse for The Suffering (Complete)

1. {The Faults}

The sun had just dipped below the horizon, casting a golden hue across the sky that signaled the end of another day. As the colors faded into darkness, a lone figure could be seen at the side of the road.

It was a woman.

She appeared like a broken statue, donning a white satin dress that was too short to cover her private parts. She was looking down at her hands and feet as if she wasn’t quite sure what she was seeing. Her eyes darted from one appendage to the other, and then back to the road ahead. It was as though she had never seen such things before.

There was confusion on her face—as if she didn’t know where she was or how she had gotten there. She rubbed her arms like she was warding off a chill, then looked up and down the deserted road.

She took a hesitant step forward. Then another. Her feet shuffled along the gravel. Her head turned slowly from side to side, taking in her surroundings with equal parts fascination and fear. Wherever she was, it was unfamiliar—and she wasn’t sure she wanted to be there.

But the woman continued, shoulders hunched and head bowed. Her long hair, once pulled into a neat ponytail, had come loose and tangled around her pale face. The rubber band had snapped, leaving her to walk beneath the stars with only the rhythmic crunch of gravel beneath her. It was the only sound in the silence.

Her eyes were glassy. Her cheeks were stained with blood and tears. Her breath came in long, deliberate exhales. Every few steps, she paused—trying to steady herself from emotions she wasn't sure she should have.

After a while, she stopped and looked up. Between the trees, stars twinkled in the pitch-black sky—but they offered no comfort. No clarity. They kept their light to themselves. Cold. Indifferent.

She clutched her chest, as if trying to contain the ache within, and walked on.

Soon, she stood before a cemetery. Confused, she wondered why her feet had brought her there. She looked up at the moon.

“Why?” she whispered.

Her pale face twisted, and then—like lightning—something in her cleared. The haze lifted. She remembered. She finally recalled why she had left home.

Her face hardened. She stepped past the iron gates, no longer lost in confusion, but moved by purpose.

The cemetery looked overgrown, forgotten. But for her, it held a memory no amount of time could erase.

As she pushed the gates open, they groaned. The sound echoed in the night air like a warning.

Her steps became slower. More deliberate. Her eyes scanned the old headstones—names long erased by time. But she was unfazed by the silence. Her hair billowed around her face as she pressed deeper.

Then she found it. A weather-worn headstone, forgotten like the person beneath it.

She knelt.

Her fingers traced what was left of the inscription. The date of birth was unreadable. Erased. Like they never existed.

Tears welled in her eyes.

She cleared her throat, and with only the wind to witness, she whispered something. Words only she and the dead would ever know.

Slowly, she leaned her head against the stone. Here is where I belong, she thought, as the wind tangled her hair again. The silence wrapped itself around her like a blanket.

She loved the silence.

But it didn’t last.

A rat scurried nearby, stopping just a meter from where she sat. It looked at her—unmoving. As if it understood her pain. As if it had heard her secret.