❝ You said you’d come back for me. ❞
The words echoed through the darkness as faces passed before the man’s face. So many faces appearing and vanishing in the darkness like a visual Rolodex of his past. People Stan knew, people he’d killed, innocent faces, guilty faces, friends faces, foes faces. Each one with something to say, but none of them were as painful as that one phrase.
From the darkness appeared his girl Gigi, the flowing red dress she wore at her debut shredding as invisible blades chipped an fractured her body into ever-shrinking shards.
“Ya left without even saying goodbye…” her shards whispered Bonely desperately reached to gather them up only to see them crumble into dust. Overpowering guilt blossomed in his chest as he watched the dust disappear. He looked up and felt his stomach sink. It was Humerus, his eye sockets hollow and his form fizzling in and out of existence.
“I thought you were gonna take care of him…” the short skeleton murmured, the grief-stricken tone of his voice making Bonely’s soul ache in his chest. Humerus gave him a sad, broken smile before he too was swallowed up by an invisible blizzard and vanished into the darkness. More faces swirled in front of him; Steak, Torri, Dove, Sansie… everyone he knew that he’d left behind when the plague came and whom he couldn’t find again upon his return.
Finally, one last voice whispered from behind him.
“Don…”
Bonely felt his blood freeze and his marrow turn to ice. Slowly, he turned around and gaped at the tattered figure of his righthand man, Smoke. Cracks spiderwebbed across every visible piece of bone he could see as if someone had shattered him like a vase and clumsily glued the pieces back together.
“You said you’d come back for me.”
“I did! I did come back!” Bonely shouted, watching in horror as bits of bone began to fall from his friend’s skull. He started when the skeleton tipped forward and rushed to catch him, to break his fall, to save him like he couldn’t save anyone else.
“You said…”
But all that fell into his arms was a scarf and jacket while Smokes dust scattered about in a cloud of death and bone powder.
An ear-piercing, blood-curdling howl of horror and grief filled the bone orchard as Stan Bonachard awoke, gasping for breath. He clutched his chest, a choked sob escaping him as he pressed a hand to his face. So many were gone. He hadn’t come back in time or said goodbye to so many folks and they were gone.
“Stan?”
The stocky fella jumped and looked up as his brother clicked on the light. Worry creased every one of Salem’s features as he looked into his brother’s room.
“You alright?”
Stanley buried his face in his bed’s comfortor, a low, cracking whine his answer. He listened as his brother’s boots thumped their way over and felt the weight of his brother’s arms around him. He leaned into it and let out another sob. It was one of those nights, those rare nights when he’d been unprepared to face off with the guilt and regret of his past, and the gaping loss he still felt in the hollow of his ribcage.
