Chapter 2
After Death
Scarlett
Death was something I didn’t know. I never had a pet or any family members who have died.
Death was unknown until that morning. When my mother died, death swallowed me.
The Grim Reaper took me and walked alongside me, a cruel taunt of what I no longer had.
I would beg him to take me, but death would be too kind.
Instead, I looked death in the face every single day, and I embraced it.
What death has taught me is that there is betrayal, longing, and hope.
It sucks you into this dark, forbidden world of loss, feeding off every good memory like an appetizer.
Then comes the main course, delicious in its presentation, a glimpse of all you are hungry for, the milestones they will miss, the loss of a comforting touch, the future they will no longer be a part of, before the dessert of bitterness and longing.
Death doesn’t care if you are as strong as tungsten; grief will break you.
The Grim Reaper will sink his scythe and enslave you.
It’s not the breaking of oneself that leaves you feeling defeated; it’s what you do to others in the process of the wreckage, who you break in the progression of being enslaved.
That is why I’m here, because I broke, I have become a slave to the what-ifs and what could have been, and the whys—the eternal loop of a never-ending question that will never be answered.