The City of Broken Hearts

Heart Attack

That was my introduction. It was not a particularly informative greeting, but at the very least it put a name to the place that I now seem to find myself in. And since the others are being less than forthcoming with information, it's all I've got to go on.

"What good can come of this?" growls the pale man, gesturing angrily towards me.

"Well, it's not like I meant for it to happen this way," responds goddess, "He sort of just showed up when we were hunting."

"You bloody idiots," mutters the pale man, "I ask one thing, and this is what I get! I should have done it myself! I can't trust a single one of you!"

"Perhaps there's a reason he showed up instead," says the red-head.

Abruptly, they all turn towards me and I find myself shrinking as closely down onto the table as I can.

"What are you doing here?" demands the pale man, leaning over me and blocking the narrow light source.

"I don't-"

"You weren't supposed to be buried there," interrupts the pale man, poking me angrily in the shoulder.

"Buried where?" I ask weakly.

He narrows his eyes at me. "You're not bothered by that?" 

"Bothered by what?" I ask as a heavy weight settles in my chest. They're all staring at me now, as if I had just committed some egregious crime worthy of lynching. It's only as the pale man begins to glower in a not-very-friendly manner that I realize that the sin I had committed was of not being shocked to find myself dead and not dead.

"What are you?" asks the goddess in breathless wonder as fear creeps into her eyes, "You aren't a Hunter are you?"

"We don't take kindly to Hunters here," says the red-head, stepping closer menacingly.

I blink furiously, trying to bring back any inkling of my life before. I have flashes of memory, and I know there should be more. I know I did something important in my life, and that in death, I should not be anywhere but the one place that I hardly left in life...if only my memory wasn't so clouded.

I hold my hands before my face defensively as they close in around me, each of them muttering some dark curses that my clouded mind vaguely recognizes as death threats. Although threatening a dead man with death seems counterproductive.

Or perhaps it's not so counterproductive. After all, the broken hearted very often find themselves trapped in a fate worse than death...a fate that needs the help of someone very important to rectify...I fate which I, myself, was facing not so long ago when Roman...

"I'm a Seeker!" the words escape my lips before my mind has time to process them.

The party of four stops, a stunned silence falling over the room.

Suddenly, memories flood back to me...I died, I was buried behind the House of Memories, my grandchildren discovered that I was not as dead as I should be, Roman discovered that he carried the gifted curse of the Sight.

I almost remember it all.

But not how or why I died. All I know is that it was certainly not a heart attack.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

So we get to see the world from Grandfather's point of view now! Or the world after death anyway.

I'm so excited for you guys to be able to read what happens to Roman and his family in this story! 

Keep your eyes peeled for another announcement coming soon about how you can read more than just a chapter a week!

~J.S