The Sylph

an opening

The Mallium

It was a dull, cold, and unhappy evening when the rain finally decided to fall. I know it was inevitable, because I've had my eyes trained on the clouds all morning—they've only been growing darker. The echoing pitter-patter of rain coats the ground. It's the only sound I can seem to focus on right now—the only sound that my ears will let me hear. I try, believe me, to remember where I am and be respectful. To remember my place. To keep my head held low and coax my eyes into conjuring up some tears that will likely fool at least someone into believing my sadness.

But for some reason, I can't.

Part of me believes it's because I've already separated myself from the situation. I've accepted long ago that this would happen, and its sudden occurrence doesn't trouble me as much as it probably should. Or maybe, and more likely, I'm just so troubled that my emotions don't know what to do with themselves.

I never expected that I'd be walking down this aisle to meet my fiance in a god-forsaken casket, feeling like I owe him something I know I never could have given him. But I did expect his death, and I always knew it would come sooner than anyone planned for.

My mind can only register the background noises of the pitiful rainfall. There's a heavy scent in the air—resembling ashes and dust—as the rain stirs up the ground.

Lights begin to dim in the old chapel, but still, I gaze out the shattered window panes and watch as each harrowing drop of water reaches its destined end on the cobblestone, melding into the dry rock. How terribly alone that little raindrop must feel as the scorched stones suck away all its moisture, leaving nothing behind save for only my memories of it. Nobody else knows of its descent. Only my eyes—the ones that had carefully watched it fall from the gray sky and perish on the heated ground.

Some deep-voiced man begins to speak, drawing me momentarily out of my haze. I didn't realize how far I'd walked already, but the person behind me reaches out and catches my elbow in a death-grip, preventing me from taking another step further. I look over my shoulder at her, waiting for the pain to wash over me because someone I'm supposed to be close to is giving me that obligated attention that comes with the death of your fiance. But it never comes. She pulls me into her side, though I truthfully have no idea who she is or why she even matters, and I stand there, frozen, tense, and uneasy in her arms. She knows who I am, as I'm sure everyone else in this chapel does, but I don't know her and don't even care to.

I'm plastered to the side of her body, feeling uncomfortable and over-stimulated by her touch. But I know I can't make a scene, and I definitely can't leave until this miserable funeral comes to an end, so I turn to the front of the room to focus on my fiance's casket as it's lowered into a shallow hole in the ground. The hole hasn't been dug out of real dirt, just a thick layer of cobblestone that's been drilled out large enough to fit the coffin . . . Rius doesn't even get the luxury of resting six feet beneath the stones.

It's not uncommon for people to be buried in chapels—my own mother was. While it does make for some sloppy-looking pavement work along the chapel flooring, there isn't really anywhere else for them to be put to rest. A dusty chapel with room enough to fit nearly thirty people is stationed every couple of blocks in Haersith. If someone doesn't regularly attend the mandatory weekly service, they won't get to be buried at their local chapel. Their corpse will simply waste away at home until someone decides they're tired of smelling the rot and dispose of it—that will usually either result in a large bonfire that stinks up half of Haersith or a banishment of the corpse to the abyss below the city.

Nobody's been down there save for all the rotting corpses, and I've never stopped to wonder what's below myself. Life moves too fast for me to care.

A few Haersith officials begin to dump wet concrete over Rius's coffin, forever sealing him away from us. From me. My younger brother, Eli—how I missed him coming up to me, I don't know—grabs my hand. It's meant to be soothing, and I do acknowledge that it's a sweet gesture from him, but it does little to make me feel any better. I say a silent goodbye as best I can and watch as the concrete begins to fill up the hole in which Rius now lies. A few musty bubbles pop before it settles still and level with the rest of the cobblestone.