The Young Riders is an Ogiens/Kane Production, created by Ed Spielman. I only borrowed his characters, no infringement of copyright intended.
Prologue
The sound echoed inside her, hollow and haunting.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
That ghastly bitter sound was the only thing that kept her from losing her mind. From falling down and embracing the coffin and dying right there with him. From screaming out loud, scratching the Reverend's face. From bursting of the hate she felt soaring in her veins. A sensation so utterly overwhelming that her breath threatened to fail her. The silent consuming despair that made every breath she took fueled a hatred she had been sensing grow since that fateful morning. It was like it had it's own life and flared up, consumed her and made her helpless against the harsh words that had become her primary weapon in keeping her sanity. Yet it wasn't the first time she had experienced loss. But it was the first time she had sensed such a hate toward her bleak fate. Such a burning need to lash out and make the world pay for her despair. A bitterness that grew with every word spoken to her, every condolence yielded, every sympathetic smile rendered. A sense of anger that would never be quenched.
It was taking her over.
Only that sound kept her from reaching out for a gun and ending it. Get revenge on life itself. On God.
She felt the need to redeem the sense of a life cut short, a life she had fought for every day the last dew years. A life that had become her main concern, her reason to get up in the morning. Her reason to be. And it was taken away from her. It was ripped out of her life without explanation to why. There were so many questions left since that day three years ago, so many questions she'd never get an answer to. Or maybe this was the answer? If it was it filled her with nothing but anger and a need for revenge. She had loved him with a love that no words could encompass. A fierce love. Every smile and glance had filled her with renewed hope and a joy so deep it made her core tremble. Every feeble gesture had filled her with a sense of purpose, a hope that despite all refused to die. If she wouldn't have fallen asleep that night, if she just had been there he would still be around. If she just would have been there, those last hours in his life.
But she wasn't.
She had fallen asleep after a week of constant vigil over the faint breath she tried to will to continue. She had abandoned him that one night and he had given up his breath and taken her life along with it. Those few hours of sleep in the dawn had realized her fears and crushed her hope.
All she had left was the sound of the earth falling onto the coffin. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Ghastly hollow sounds of a good-bye that she wouldn't ever have been ready for. A good-bye she fought to postpone with all her might. A good-bye that was like entering the land of eternal dusk, where everything lost its color and the long and lonely, cold black night was all that awaited her. A colorless world without hope, without reason. A lonely world of shapeless sorrow keeping her tightly bound to the aching and steely despair lodged in her core. That was all she had left.
"Louise?"
She turned to the sound and nodded curtly. It was time to leave the graveyard. Time to go home and forget as they told her. So she followed them through the drizzling October rain. A cold rain that steadily increased and smudged the edges of her friends faces. Dawn walking by her side, silently with downcast eyes. A more compact figure on her left, clad in a black suit that seemed dusty and old. Soaked in cold rain and the smell of wet wool made Lou's stomach revolt. She wanted to yell at him to get away from her because he reminded her too much of what she had lost. But that wouldn't bring what she had lost back. Nothing would bring him back. The dirt under her feet made sullen suckling sounds as she walked, avoiding the offers of support. Avoiding the faces offering sympathy and understanding.
And with every step her bitterness grew. Like the moon that night she had admired out on the porch before going to bed. For a brief moment she had stood there and watched the full moon and listened to the wind in the old tree. For a brief moment she had stalled and looked at beauty like she hadn't for three long years. She had filled her lungs with the crisp October air and watched the moon with bleary eyes aching from lack of sleep. It seemed to grow as she looked up at it, like it was breathing and living as small clouds sailed over the dark sky, momentarily dimming the glow. And she wondered if that moon was the last he ever saw?
Her foot slid on the muddy path and a hand gripped her elbow in support but she shook it away with determination. That moon had lured her away, that moon had made her fall asleep and stop her vigil for a few hours. And he had passed away.
And nobody came to get her when his time was up. The moon had let its pale light wander in the room where he took his last breath. And with it he had taken her reason for being, her long fight was over and she had nothing left. Nothing but this rage she had to fight every moment of every dreadful day she faced.
To be continued
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