A guttural noise escaped my lips at the consuming, burning ache as I glanced down at the knife buried in my stomach. The coarse brown material of my shirt was being overtaken in dark red. So much blood.
The Sylvian woman’s omen had proved true. A small intuition had always told me it would, but I never thought it would be so soon. It was easy to imagine death, but there was nothing like it when it truly captured you in its unforgiving snare.
I wasn’t ready.
Sorrow filled the emptiness in my veins as fast as the blood rushed out of them. Each red drop hitting the sand was a memory of a future I would never have.
I would never see Grandmother again and in that revelation, the weight on my heart ached worse than the burn in my stomach. I should have pet Benji; it truly had been goodbye.
The experiences I would never have flashed through my mind as though death would only give me a taste before it ripped it away, and I blew away into the nothing.
I would never fall in love.
I would never make love.
I would never have children of my own.
I was too young.
My glassy eyes looked up into my murderer’s. I couldn’t see his expression through my blank stare. I was falling, but instead of hitting the solid ground, I felt icy water lapping at my limbs.
The murky depths pulled me down. My eyelids were too heavy to keep open, and I let them close as the water covered them.
Shaking began and water sloshed as the river was disturbed. Promises of peace were whispered in its depths. They lied. There was no peace as my body was surrounded in a cloak of emptiness.
There was nothing.
As I sank deeper down, it became quieter. Quieter than I had ever known before.
A haunting silence.
I sank deeper and deeper into the dark until it knew me.
And I knew nothing.
* * *
Water sloshed softly.
“Ca-lam-ity,” a voice singsonged.
“Ca-lam-ity,” it sang.
“It’s time . . .”