It was nagging at their brains. The thought of that mansion where they once served, where they once slept, kept slithering back into their minds, like a viper, ready to strike. One night, while the moon was full and shone all of its glory down on them, Eli and Colin snuck out of their warm, cozy, comforting house to creep back to where it all began, the goat-pen. It was empty. All the goats had obviously escaped, as well as the llama, and the fences were torn apart, laying on the ground. Some posts were still upright, but the weight of the wood on the ground was pulling them closer and closer to the ground. And laying on the ground, was an object. The moon reflected itself on the curve that peaked out of the ground. Peering up from the dirt were two, bottomless pits, yet swirling with knowledge.
"Colin its..." Eli stammered but then dropped of his tone into the lowest whisper so even the trees could not feel his breath.
"Errol." Colin finished the sentence for him.
"Perhaps, I should t-take him, and bury him s-someplace proper. I was in the goat-pen after a-all." Eli all of a sudden felt a lump in his throat, but it wasn't from seeing the skeleton of Errol buried under the dirt, or from finding his friend becoming one with the Earth, or glimpsing his future—all of our futures.
Have you ever felt emotionally attached to anything? Maybe it was a book, or a show, or even a song. But if you have, you will know how Eli felt. Eli was emotionally attached to his home, and for most of his life, this was his home, but then he came here because his parents died, and this long trail of what he loved eventually led to the happy times he had with his family. Being young and carefree, being loved and knowing that whenever he woke up, a family would be by his side to love him and hug him and feed him and tuck him in at night. Now, he had none of that.
However, it brought him rejoice when Colin became his adopted brother, and he had a family again. Maybe this was a new beginning, he thought. Maybe, Mum and Dad wanted me to have this life. Maybe, they are letting me go to a family they know will take care of me. For a long time, Eli had been a skeleton of a human. Fragments of a walking boy who once knew happiness in his small life. But now, he was gaining structure. He was become whole again. And as that morning the sun began to rise, the two boys looked at each other, knowing, that while standing at this mansion with a skeleton of a man who they would soon give a proper burial to under a weeping willow tree, this marked new beginnings for both of them, and unlike Vi, who shied her eyes from the sun, Eli and Colin welcomed it with open arms.
