eulogy 4
Her Perspective: The Scrutiny
The church doors, a gaping, wooden maw, swallowed my shadow, then exhaled the raw and curious silence of a thousand eyes, sharp as the slivers of small-town lies. They didn't come to grieve. They came to see. The failure, the scandal, the dark tragedy. Each whispered breath, a stone upon my breast, “How could she? Didn't she? Did he know? They guessed.
I walked the aisle, a puppet on a string, the widow monster, the wretched, broken thing. My black lace veil, a brittle, thin defense against their hungry, burning insolence. And then the casket, cedar, carved and deep, where my poor Arthur lay, in his eternal sleep.
I leaned to look, a final, cold embrace...But his face was not there. It was my face. My own pale features, sunken, drawn, and dead, a hollow warning of the life ahead. If I stayed here, consumed by guilt and shame, his ghost would finish what his self-slaughter claimed. I felt the pull, the choice, so stark and clear—Change now, or join him here, within the year.
I stepped away, a breath I didn't plan, just as a new shadow fell—the other man.
His Perspective: The Confrontation
I saw her shudder, saw her fight for breath, this beautiful ruin, wrestling with his death. I knew the risk, the open, public scorn, but I had to come. A respect must be born. For the love we shared, beneath the stolen time, a pure, true feeling wrapped in ugly crime.
They looked at me, her hand in mine, their plea. The quiet town had already damned the three. The air grew colder as I reached the rail, my knuckles white beneath my suit so frail. I closed my eyes for just a single beat, to shed the burden, accept the harsh defeat. Then looked down, ready to say my last goodbye, to the kind man who, by my fault, had died.
But where his body should have calmly lain, was only velvet lining, dark as rain. The casket was utterly, disturbingly bare. My pulse froze solid. A shock beyond compare. I spun around, a chill against my neck, and saw him standing, a towering, dark wreck. Arthur. Taller, colder, eyes like frosted coal. Not flesh, but vengeance, claiming back his soul. His lips didn't move, yet a sound filled the room, you both played the fool. Now, pay for the tomb.
We stood suspended, her terror and my dread, haunted and alive, by the truly, eternally dead.
The Ending
Arthur's figure swelled, a horrifying height, he swallowed all the sacred church's light. His curse required no dagger or no knife, just the cold power to extinguish life. He stepped toward her, slow, a shade of black, and ripped the final breath out of her back. Her eyes, still wide, reflecting empty space, held all the terror of his pale, dead face. She didn't fall, but shrank into the shade, a final payment for the choice she'd made.
Then came my turn, the fear that froze my tongue, the awful song the truly damned have sung. He raised his hand, not touching, but the force hit like a hammer, ending all remorse. The pain was instant, sharper than a blade, the debt of passion suddenly was paid. My knees gave way beneath the crushing chill, my final, desperate love completely still.
The town saw two dark forms collapse as one, beneath gaze of the departed son. Arthur reclaimed us, sealed within his gloom. Our stolen love replaced by one dark tomb. Our flesh was nothing, just a shell of dread. He took the living and possessed the dead.
Chloe