Page 2 of What Remains

He started to move, his boots sticking to the tiles and his steps growing heavier until he could not walk anymore. He turned the corner –

And there she was.

Molly with baby AJ in her arms.

But something was wrong.

There was no smile in her face, no eyes that looked at him. She gazed at something far off, filled with terror.

"Molly, baby – come to me," he whispered.

She opened her mouth, the word coming out hoarse:

"Run!"

Then the aisle shifted and darkness wrapped everything except Molly and AJ, illuminated by some invisible spotlight while the shadows behind her moved like some grotesque fun house.

The footsteps echoed in the dark.

A man's shadow appeared behind her.

Seth's pulse swished in his ears. He tried to run, but the darkness fought him, dragging at his legs, and no matter how hard he clawed and fought, the distance between them widened, bending into an impossible gap.

"MOLLY!" he shouted.

The man grabbed her from behind.

AJ started crying – tiny, desperate cry Seth remembered hearing a million times, the sound burned into his soul forever. Molly fought, kicking, curling her body around their child. Her hair – the hair he used to pull and twirl in his fingers when he kissed her – got into the man's fist, exposing the pale line of her neck as he dragged her backwards.

"STOP!" Seth shouted.

But he could not reach her.

He could never reach her.

A gun shot rang, distant and muffled, as if fired underwater. But like the day it happened he never saw the actual killing, never saw the ending. He just heard it.

He scanned the room with his eyes and then drew his hand across his face. The dark room held only shadows. Across from him, the window shone with the moisture, condensation forming on it where the warm air met bitter cold February frost.

Late February. Four and a half months passed since his world ended. Since the day when his family – his whole purpose of living – was ripped apart from him in one shot. Yet the nightmares haunted him every night like if grief decided not to let him go no matter how much time passed.

The soft snuffle broke through the silence. At the bottom of the bed, Watch raised his head and looked at him in the dark with sleepy amber eyes – the shepherd mix who had started to spend most nights there as though he sensed the turmoil in Seth long before Seth did it himself. Watch whined once, low and soothing, before putting his head back onto his paws.

Seth swallowed, fighting the feeling of tightness in his throat. This room was too small and filled with ghosts he brought with him from elsewhere. He laid back on the thin mattress and rested his head on the pillow, knowing that he would not be able to fall asleep. He stared at the ceiling, tracing the wavering pattern of the cracks over his head, forcing his mind to concentrate on anything – anything at all – to keep it from dragging him back into hell.

Tonight, his mind would not stop. His chest hurt, empty, the grief occupying the place where peace used to be.

Yet he closed his eyes anyway.

Not because he thought he would fall asleep.

But because he had to keep believing that someday he would.

In the morning, long before the sun rose over the tree line, Seth stood in the pale-blue dawn. Frost glittered in the yard and crunched beneath his boots as he moved to the chicken coop, his breath trailing behind in thin white clouds. The watch trotted by his side, nose lowered to the ground and tail wagging every step.

"Good morning, buddy," he muttered, yawning in exhaustion. "I guess it's just us and the eggs duty today."

Watch nudged him in his thigh as if to say that he agreed.