Lost Wanderer

It’s dark in graveyards.

It’s like time freezes along with the stone statues twisted into the Virgin’s figure or weeping over the dark earth below. It’s like the living step into a portal, merely visitors to the realm of not quite gone, but too far gone. The sun rises and falls as it wishes, but the shadows seem darker, the atmosphere thicker, the decades of despair from mourners seeping into the headstones. The dew of dawn looked more like the tears of the dead.

Kai liked the darkness. He liked the freeze in time, the feeling of otherworldliness. The graveyard protected him from the intensity of living. It protected him from thinking about the truth. He never wanted to leave.

The dead do not judge.

And yet, every rise and fall of his chest reminded him of how out of place he was even here. The real members of the dead never breathed. He wasn’t one of them. He didn’t belong here in the graveyard, out there in the town, in his boat in the middle of the ocean.

He didn’t belong anywhere.

Sweeping his dark hair out of his eyes, he finally rose to his feet as the sun’s dawn light broke through the trees. His ragged trousers were damp with wet earth, his fingers dyed brown with it. His face itched from the salt lining his cheekbones. His muscles ached from the burial he had insisted he be a part of.

No one had wanted him there. No one had believed the motives he claimed to have.

And yet, he had been the only one in the graveyard past midnight. Past dawn. He had been the only one who mourned for hours on end. He had been the only one to shed tears when all the others were sleeping in the morning hours. He hadn’t left.

He hadn’t moved on.

He scuffed his feet as he debated finally walking through the gates and facing the morning light. Facing the living. Finding closure.

Abandoning her.

His sigh echoed along the gated perimeters like a gust of wind. His bleary eyes focused yet again on the name he only wished he could replace with his own, eyelids heavy from past tears.

Nia Shiloh Suri

“Guide this child to her home. Give her restful sleep. In our hearts you will remain.”

The shiny headstone and newly turned soil stood out in the ancient burial place. A tragedy only some would remember a few years from that day.

Kai reminded himself yet again that this stone was not his sister. This stone did not define her. This stone only marked an important moment in her life story.

That moment just happened to be her last.

That moment would haunt Kai forever.

A/N: For the reviewers- Where do you think this should go? What do you think I should answer? I'm deciding whether I should continue it or not. Thanks for your support! :)