Ripples of grief

Chapter 33

There was yet another snarl in the back of her mind, a growl like a wild animal that sent a shudder trickling down her spine with an intense quaking. As if something shattered, and jaws simply opened before her. Each door was sinister to her fatigue-ridden mind, a slumbering threat that could so easily be unlocked and unleashed. But perhaps it was just a door – not looming jaws with petals for teeth, ready and waiting in a perfect preparation to devour them both; yet the terror somehow never showed – something grew to hide it, masquerade its grotesque complexion of the monster that lurks under the bed. Petals. Pure and growing with each moment that passed by and was forgotten – who knew petals so pure could glint with such malice beneath, and the silk hiding the corpse could be such an uncomfortable blanket of false innocence. We all fall down. Childhood always excused so much. Innocence too; just the wandering mind of that pure white rose. Because there are always thorns, just as there are always petals that hide anguish of every corpse dug up by a crow. Innocence drowned out the ribs showing through, and left the grey threads torn; just a melody of suffering as the door let out a cry – almost like an ancient wail of anguish – but corpses can't scream. What if they could. What if they could. That cry felt almost sinister, sinister as crumbling, ashen grey threads against her throat and his. A child with mere dull threads of a wail, of a melody, to drown out the ravenous child's cries. A glimpse of glinting gold and they were free only for a moment; before it flooded back in a pulsing wave. One almost familiar – like the hunger of a child. Ever present, lurking like a scythe glimmering and sharpened, yet still jagged with tears of desperation in tones of crimson. The door's wail ended, and she breathed for a moment. But something she was always aware of were glowers from the shadows, hearing the echo and turning straight to her, eyes piercing with disdain; the echo was an insufferable sound, one of a distant memory that she wandered through, stumbling and weeping into the insatiable jaws of soil, the image of decay. And the snarling never went away, hellhounds following demons.

The thoughts in her mind, full of inescapable corridors and chasms of the night and all that held woe its warm gaze, began to wander back toward the flower. The white rose – so pure, an image of innocence – yet as if the crows sang overhead, she began to tremble, feeling the tall grass of overgrown guilt beneath her hands – yet corpses couldn't scream. Nothing here was real; there were so many images and so many melodies and yet the crows chose this mind to follow. Watching as they tore off the petals in mockery. Innocence leads way to those thorns. The foxglove simply lay among the shadows – ready to leap out with venom in its gaze; a dull comfort too great, to bright, too blinding, to be true. And poison tempted the crows. Maybe that was why. Why among the tall grass that she swam and waded through, there was that incessant ring of a crow's cry – she almost remembered the cry of the crows, the sharpened scythe approaching as she stood, paralysed, the final petal. Cascading in dreary bliss. And yet still the thorns never emerged, drowned out by the melody she had heard so many times – one that had silenced the cries of the perishing, the corpses simply resting like a flame that continued to smoulder. That continued masquerade as a living soul – but corpses can't scream. That melody held such little joy, yet no sorrow, or phantom woes; it was a melody of comfortable despair and desolation. Winds blowing across the desolate landscape – and yet it was... Comfortable. As a familiar face of cruelty is comfortable; as if a complexion hid those thorns. A complexion familiar as if the same motif played over in their footsteps, footsteps of two despairing, disconsolate widows humming the same mournful tune. Same song – but before the wailing child survived. Now it does. But the next was not so lucky. Death was ravenous. Two paths. One of a wilted flower; one of a rose. And the melody that cried out was louder this time – the path vivid and luring, a glint of metal hooks. All it took was to grasp one, and among the fog of false memory, a hand emerged from the earth, before vanishing, vanishing to ashes in an urn – cries of the cursed child, wailing. With not even a tear. And yet the soft toy lay there. Among the soil it looked almost dejected, drowned in tears. Because a child could wail into the void. But the vipers would only coil. For corpses can't scream. Corpses can't scream.