In Love with Death

Chapter 3: Goodbye

"We have the answer to all your fears

It's short, it's simple, it's crystal clear

It's round about and it's somewhere here

Lost amongst our winnings"

-Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Chapter 3: Goodbye 

(queue music)

Anna couldn’t explain what she had seen that day. It was both soothing and terrifying. She had watched her father die right before her very eyes and yet there he had been standing before her.

But before either of them could come up with a silly excuse, she ran. She ignored the calls from her maids and from her mother. She ignored the cries from her father and Mr. Mortimer, who she knew only she could hear. She bolted out the front door and back down the dirt path where she had recently come from.

Anna ignored the screaming pain coming from her legs, heart, and lungs for her to stop. She wanted to get away. Sheneeded to get away. This wasn’t right. She couldn’t bring herself to believe what she had seen, but she knew that all of what she saw was true. Anna could do nothing about it. What happened, happened and there was no running from any it.

Anna’s legs could run no further. She collapsed in the dead center of the flowery meadow, where she had left her things before pursuing Amos. She let her tears flow freely, now, as she curled up in a ball, holding her knees to her chest, trying to patch up the gaping hole-like pain in her chest.

But no matter what she tried, the pain was red hot and it burned freely in her chest with no sign of stopping.

For what seemed like hours, Anna laid in that meadow crying, shaking and whimpering. The smell of Amos’ honeysuckle sent permeated the air, somewhat soothing her frayed nerves as she worked to calm her ragged breathing after her tears had run dry.

Soon the sun, which hung low in the sky, was setting and disappearing beyond the horizon, creating an amazing pink landscape across the sky and flowers.

A dark cloaked figure appeared into the meadow out of thin air.

It was Death, in all his Apocalyptic glory.

He slowly walked towards Anna, trying desperately not to startle the poor girl. If only he knew that Anna could feel her scar burn slightly with every step he took closer to her... She knew that he was there.

Anna gathered all the strength she had left in her small, defeated body and pushed herself up from the ground into a sitting position. She turned her head towards the direction from which she heard Death’s near silent foot falls and looked straight into his obsidian gaze with her teary sky-blue eyes, searching it for something... Anything. Anna searched for some kind of remorse, sadness, any clue that would lead her to the conclusion that Amos Mortimer, whoever he was, had regretted doing what he did... Even though she wasn’t sure herself what had transpired a few hours earlier.

But there was nothing. Did he feel nothing? Did he not know what sort of incontrovertible pain, suffering, and immense confusion and heartbreak he had and still was putting her through?

Unfortunately, he did. Naturally, she wouldn't know such things though Death could feel the emotions pulsing heavily throughout and around her body like an aura of sorts.

It pained Amos greatly to see her like this, even if he didn’t exactly know why. Why was she any different than any other ape that’d lost her father? Why did he pity her above all the other countless, insignificant souls that he had collected? Was it because he cared for the child?... Could it be because he loved the child?