The After - End 06

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His wife was chained to a thick metallic rod and her body was still on fire, there was no scream as she was already dead. His stomach churned up abruptly and nausea rose in his gut. He knelt before her and shrieked. Frustrated, he pushed back his hood from his head and yanked at his hair. He cried out in inhumane sobs and lamented cursing himself. He laid down with his face on the dirt and prayed in a loud voice, talking between sobs.

"Why? Why me god? What have I done to deserve this? What offense could I have committed to warrant this, what great sin has she committed? My wife… is dead, she hasn’t committed any offence"

And I couldn't save her...if I had left my hiding place, sooner, before dark, I could have saved her.

"Why? Why god? Must we all die?" He lifted his face to the sky and screamed in a loud voice.

Maybe I should just put an end to this misery, it will make my passing less painful. He searched for a weapon to kill himself but found none.

Who will miss me? No one. Nobody.

Then an image of a little girl and a boy seeped into his mind. My sister? My brother? I have siblings? Why don’t I remember anything? They might even be dead. He conceded.

There was no weapon lying around, he became frustrated and his body began to twitch.

“I will die with her, that's it.” He said as his face lit up.

What's there to live for? He concluded.

He stood up to his feet and moved to the stake, his face was devoid of color as he made up his mind.

"What do you think you are doing?" the sudden harsh voice came from the burning carcass. His wife spoke, although burnt up beyond recognition.

He was alarmingly startled and on reflex, he took several steps back.

"What right do you have? Do you think killing yourself is the best way? What a Coward! I married a stupid and selfish coward!" He became very frightened but continued to stare dumbfounded at the blazing carcass and he isn’t any where close to recovering his composure as his body began to shake violently. It’s still a surprise that he was standing on his feet.

"It's always you, this world does not revolve around you. Are you so weak that you lost your right to think?"

Her remains strained to come off the chain that held her to the stake and pounces on him. Her eye socket erupted in small fireballs, her anger soaring as the inferno rekindled. The remaining unburnt hair on her head spiked up and suddenly turned to fire. The chain that held her, was red hot and was starting to melt. It separated the remaining crisped flesh that has not been shredded from her body off from her bones. Her wrist was folded in a

Flesh less bony fist as well as her skull. Her jaws opened wide and a tongue like fire blazed out from her mouth. "How could you have let this happen to us? you were supposed to protect us" Her voice spoke in a legion of voices. He could hear his father and mother's voices from it. Those words finally did a fatal number on him, it punched him in the gut and he shockingly squirmed to his knees weeping in pain. His wife's body had finally degraded to a blazing skeleton.

"I'm sorry" he repeatedly confessed.

The voices in his head came back in full intensity he gripped his head and forcefully shook it sideways,

he thought the shake would put an end to the episode that occurred in his head, but it felt as if he was

about to go mad. He couldn't hold it in anymore and eventually, he blacked out.

The red sun was going down and was slowly replaced by the bright sky when he got back his consciousness. He peeped through, his heavy eyelids trying to adjust his eyes to the raising daylight. He stared for a long time at the red sky filled with small patches of grey-violet clouds. He caught sight of some dark eagles in the sky above making croaky noises putting an end to the quietness his body craves. Looking to the right, he noticed that the bones of his dead wife had cremated into dust. After a moment, a powerful wind zapped them all to the sky. He quickly averted his eyes to the left to shield his face from the wind but he caught a glimpse of a tall dark-haired woman in a strange flowing off-white cloth running towards him, she waved her hands in the air as soon as she saw him. He looked confused and thought he was dreaming, but as she came closer to him, he sat up immediately as his sights spotted a familiar resemblance.

"Sister!" He exclaimed.

Jackknifing, he sprang on his feet and he jogged towards her. For the first time in a long while, his heart was filled with happiness, an incredible smile was splattered on his disheveled face, which made him look strangely

weird. Gone was the remorse he had felt, his heart became so light he wanted to jump for joy at that very moment.

My sister, oh my sister. His eyes was clouded with tears of relief.

On getting to her, she pounced on him and he embraced her. She was as light as a feather, he hugged her squarely to his chest and swung her around.

"I'm so glad you are safe" he relaxed this hold on her and stared at her face.

"Are you okay?" He inquired of her, he checked out her disheveled appearance for any fault but found none.

She answered him by nodding her head. "I escaped, while …they slept I crept like you...taught me when ...Papa was looking for us in the...bush" she stuttered, she snapped her finger as she spoke.

Right from the time his sister was little, it had been difficult for her to speak words fluently. She had always followed him around instead of playing with her age mates. She had confided in him that they always made fun of her because of how she ended up stammering her words whenever she tried to speak to them.

"I don't know ...where your wife and ...daughter is but…th" she disclosed.

"She's dead" he glanced to his right and pointed at the stake . "Burnt" his pain surfaced again.

"It's …too late" she mumbled.

"Why?" He asked, raising his bow at her

"It's too late, I wish you had f...found me sooner..." She slumped towards him. He caught her and turned her in his arms. She was unconscious, he held her wrist and checked her pulse but it was very faint, she had become cold on his hands. He was upset the smile on his face had disappeared into a frown, he noticed blood dripping from her clothing. The white dress she wore, although tinted with dirt was getting soaked in her blood. His hand was stained with her blood too, he turned her over again and checked out the wound on her body, she had been shot with a feathered arrow.

He glanced up immediately, he looked towards the direction she came from and saw the two archers that had pursued him earlier aim their arrows at him from their crossbows. For a slight second, he wondered how they found him. Blinking back the tears that had gathered in his eyes, he quickly carried her on his back and escaped.