Cursed Ground

So, for the time being it seemed best to allow her senses to remain numb by the shock she’d experienced from the night before.

But today was a different matter altogether.

She was now in full possession of her emotions and they led her on a different quest than the near numbing sensations she’d had last night.

She stood to her feet, gripping the gun tighter than necessary and stepped inside.

“What kind of monster kills a twelve year old boy?” She aimed the gun at his head a few feet away from where he sat on the ground. There was little else he could do since his leg was chained and his hands were cuffed; a circumstance in which she considered a perfect opportunity for revenge.

Her hand shook, not from fear but from desperation—the desire for absolution. Memories, thoughts and yearnings assailed her, making what she’d fought so hard to deny a reality she could no longer ignore. Her son was dead and there was no getting him back.

Ever.

Everything was gone, erased. All the years of happiness gone—like that. The light in her world had died. The emptiness she’d managed to forsake from years of abandonment and abuse threatened and taunted her future. She’d have to walk through the dark tunnel again and that’s what scared her the most. She’d already walked through it countless times before and unlike what others professed, there was no light at the end of the tunnel. Not in her life at least, and her bitterness left her thinking similar thoughts about death.

Both would be an endless torment of darkness.

“I can explain,” he said.

“I don’t want your explanations. I want my son back. But you can’t give me that, can you? Tell me why I shouldn’t put a bullet through you right now?”

“Don’t you think I’ve already tried that? Don’t you think if I could end it all right now, I would? That I wouldn’t give you back what I took?”