CURSES AND CANDIES - REMUS LUPIN

𝑠𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑦 𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑒.

A person had never seen a sunrise more grey than the one emerging from the blurred horizon of those fateful, crashing waves with so much salt in their severe peaks and valleys that one could not tell if the strong taste on their tongue was from the ocean or their tears.

Nature itself seemed to have decided that the last day of the first month of the year would not have any color or contrast in it, nor did the hours deserve to after the tragedy that had happened the previous night under their watch.

As if a magnet had been placed in the center of the earth made to draw out any sort of, the clouds around the cliff with waves crashing all long it were so thick that they blocked out any temperature or hue of warmth that the sunrise would provide except for the pinprick of weak, trembling light far off in the distance.

The rock stabbing out from the wild, churning flesh of the ocean like a dagger through the heart was a mixture of hazy ice slicking over the rough surface and the rock itself had hundreds of tiny imperfections that jutted into the frigid air.

The girl sitting on top barely noticed as they stabbed into her skin.

She had a cut just below her shoulder that was repeatedly made more painful by the wind biting at the open flesh and saltwater piercing it with sting after sting of pain that would have deeply affected any other person into tears.

More alarming than the cut, though, was the way she looked as though she had just escaped a roaring fire.

There was a smear of blackened soot going down her cheek, and the scent of smoke still clung tightly onto her eyelashes and neck, overpowering even the salt surrounding her. Her clothes had small patches on her calves charred away by fire, revealing a sickening patch of scalded flesh on her tawny skin.

The one place untouched by the remains of the fire was the locket hanging around her neck.

Even though the silver was already tarnished and the thing much heavier than it should have been, it was the most vivid thing about the morning, even the girl's brown eyes seemed to be out lustered by the evil energy radiating off the locket.

Hollis Rosier was void of any emotion that she knew she should be feeling.

The only time that any notable sensation passed through her was when she briefly closed her eyelids and saw the blazing fire painted on the back of them again, which sent a jolt of some deep feeling that she couldn't quite describe directly through her stomach.

The last thing that she remembered clearly was dueling him.

After that, things went into a desperate haze of lungs and fingers and bones where details were murky and feelings were sharply recalled and then blocked out.

She didn't know what to do.

Moving forward on her own seemed impossible because after she left this place, she knew that she would never be returning.

But that would also be leaving him and accepting that he was gone.

She felt like she was watching the conflict in her head from a third person point of view, as if her emotions were only shadows of what they used to be. Even though her mind was sharper than ever, she didn't know how to feel anymore.

Hollis wasn't in denial that Regulus was dead.

She would never see his deep, thoughtful eyes crinkle up at the corners with either a smile or idea again. She would never truly understand everything that went on in that brilliant mind of his. She would never learn what thoughts had gone through his mind in the final moments of his life. She would never receive another bone crushing hug from him that momentarily wiped all her worries away again.