Witch Sister Three and TMNT *EDITING*

43- Stroke of Luck (Kylee)

They're conspiring agaisnt me, I swear... ~Ninja

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There’s never enough time to mourn.

The dead pass, they are buried, and then the only thing left is the memory in which they live on. It doesn’t leave much time for the living to accept what has happened and leaves them with a drowning sense of not being able to understand.  Where do the dead go? They were here and then they became a corpse. How does that happen? What force gives a power to an otherwise dead body and what force gives that power the ability to become what we consider a person who can love or hate as they will? Death is an easy concept to understand, and we only feel pain towards it for the life we’ve seen prior to it. But can we possibly understand what gives life, such a precious and fragile gift?

We burned Tomoyo, just Mark and I. We carried his body to a clean patch of earth and sat vigil as fire licked flesh and ate at bone. It’s funny to think that what hurt the most to see was his hair ablaze. It wasn’t the face that had smiled at me, or his hands that held me and picked me up, it was his hair that hurt me to see burn.

“A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all. I might have saved her; now she's gone forever! Cordelia, Cordelia! Stay a little. Ha!” I had chuckled bitterly “What is't thou say'st, her voice was ever soft, gentle, and low- an excellent thing in woman. I killed the slave that was a-hanging thee. And my poor fool is hanged! No, no, no life! Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more, Never, never, never, never, never! Look on her! Look! Her lips! Look there, look there!” I sighed and stared at the flame, Tomoyo’s silhouette ever a shadow to be burned into my memories. “He dies.” I couldn’t think of any better words to say as eulogy for such a great man. I’m not even sure they fit…but they sounded right at the time. I sat there, knees to my chest, arms wrapped around my body, and I leaned on Mark.

“What is that? Shakespeare?” His voice asked dully and his arm rested on my shoulder, providing some warmth to the both of us. I nodded and Mark sighed. There were no thoughts, no emotions that could’ve made Tomoyo’s funeral beautiful and no words that could’ve captured the way Tomoyo had lived. The thought had made me smile bitterly.

“The wonder is,” I whispered, “he hath endured so long. He but usurped his life.” We sat vigil over Tomoyo until sunset loomed over the city; the sky was as if it’d been stained with blood then. And we sat there for some time longer, looking at the burning ash that had once held someone so dear to us. A breeze blew across our patch of land and Mark and I watched as Tomoyo swirled into the air, ash had never looked more elegant, and we saw him slip away over the land, never to be seen by us or anyone else again. And as Death does suddenly depart, so did we have to eventually depart back into the shadows of life.

Now I stand inside the tower, knowing Tomoyo is spread all across the city by now. Maybe his ash can give the people a sense of courage and strength. Perhaps my sisters will be touched by him.  Oddly enough, I cannot cry for him any longer.  I can feel a sharp stab of guilt and loss and I feel this way for both my friend and my sister, but I cannot cry for them. Perhaps I’ve cried the last of my tears; perhaps my mind has made me too numb to be able to mourn them properly. All I can do is stare out through a window, toward a wounded and burning city. What is weeping in this world, when I have no right to be the one weeping. In some way I aided the making of this world; I was unable to control the demon within. Grandma warned me when I was little that I had to watch myself. I can’t understand why she didn’t pull him from me then, and save people from the pain and mourning that I would eventually cause.

I’m unsure of what to do at this point, for all I am is stuck inside my own thoughts- and not even those are safe, go figure. I don’t talk much to anyone, save Mark. It’s like both my mind and tongue are mute and yet I still have thought and function. How does one describe something that is untouchable? I know that my body is in pain. I know it hurts to have someone touch me. Over the last few days the Shredder has abused me tirelessly for my insolence and disobedience. He’s left deep wounds and stitches in my arms, torso, and legs. I am nothing but puckered, angry skin around stitches, with a mind too tired to go on for much longer. My body is a callus. If I have any luck, I will not survive till the end of the war; sometime soon I will die. I believe my cursed life is coming to its end soon and I have nothing to leave behind in this world but a name that people will spit on.