An Unfortunate Existence

The Collective

 And it was these five people that were the only ones who attended the service for Benjamin Skinner other than the priest and undertaker. Skinner had a family but they had estranged themselves some years prior due to his undesirable state. Not to say his illness, they would have loved him had he been coughing blood or permanently drunk, no matter what conventional ailment Skinner had, they would have still loved and stood by him. But it was his hatred for life and living people that made him undesirable. The five who attended his service two weeks after his body was discovered and identified were not family, nor were they friends. They were enemies, not of Skinner, but of each other.

Pearson, the first, was a lean young man, perhaps too lean for his own good, with rectangular glasses and somewhat short wild brown hair, leaned over to speak to Brougham, the second man, a much older fellow with a merry face and greying combed hair, and a stocky frame. Pearson mentioned something to Brougham, to which he spoke back. Olds, the third, a stern faced older man with shockingly white hair and beard, leaned in to better hear Pearson. Pearson spoke about Skinner, and his death. All five of the people there knew what had happened to him - he was seduced, not in the conventional, sexual manner, but in a form of alliance, by the antichrist itself, Squire.

They knew that Percy Squire had only been using Skinner as an underling, a lackey to carry out his less desirable tasks. Knight, the fifth, who had appeared to not be listening, mentioned that they could have saved Skinner. Knight was a tall, brooding man, with grey hair thay may or may not have been a toupeé, large glasses and an ageing face covered in wrinkles and spots; Knight was the oldest. Williams was the fourth, and the only woman in the group. Young, not as young as Pearson, but still fairly youthful, with copper-blonde hair and a pointed face, she constantly wore an expression of concentration. Of the five, Knight and Williams generally found themselves disagreeing with Brougham, Olds and Pearson on a great many things, causing a sort of schism within the group. Williams too was the outsider, as she had been the only one not to participate in the Ring, and had only become a "member" of the group some months before. Nonetheless, they agreed on the case of the corpse lying in front of them

Knight began about how they had tried to bring Skinner away from Squire. How Brougham had prayed, and how Olds had tried to connect through speaking; how Williams had nearly broken through with convincing him to avoid Squire. Nonetheless, their progress was erased as Skinner's life was forcibly taken. The coroner was baffled, but nobody would believe them. As they knew what he was all along, a man doomed to perish.