Post Chapter Short - Hazel

Under an ochre sky sat a girl. Lost to her own thoughts and unsuccessfully hiding from her pain. An unusual state for someone so loved but the child still hid. How could they not when monsters lurked from the darkest corners and there was a witch within the home.  Hazel always thought it funny that she ran across this girl. Just rocking in the middle of a desolate field.  Why didn’t the girl move? Why didn’t she at least try to run? Each night the carnage would rain down like blood from bloated clouds and each night, the girl would sit and wait to be saved.

With a sigh, Hazel kept going. Working around the girl. She would not be her savior. It wasn’t her job. Besides, the girl frightened her. She held too much pain. And pain like that was not something to be repaired. It twisted and contorted, consuming until there was nothing left but a malnourished bag of bones that wept bitterly for love that could never be had. So Hazel continued picking her berries, gathering her herbs. She continued wishing that the animals would come to see her.  And she ignored the girl.

Even when her weeping reached a crescendo and her heart began thundering through the field, Hazel ignored the girl.

Her own hands were stained with berry juice, red and dripping. The coppery tang of the raspberries was particularly strong today. The girl for some reason hated this the most. Hazel couldn’t control the amount of juice that got on her fingers and didn’t understand why the girl even cared.  It was ridiculous really.  Blood from fruit was such a natural thing.

“Please stop. Please, please stop. This isn’t us.”

Hazel began humming, drowning out the desperation. All that showed was weakness. A harmonic approach to life was the only way to survive and the girl's words were nothing but a discordant note.  If Hazel didn’t have to pick berries, she would have left. The girl was extra loud today for some reason. And the berries were ever so sweet.

“Those people… all those people. Please, let me out. I have to get out. We could save them.  We could…”

“Shut up!” Hazel screamed, putting her hands over her ears.  She was so loud. So unnecessarily loud.

“We need to do the right thing!”

The right thing. Hazel was doing the right thing. She was picking the berries. Harvesting the sage. She was living her life of solitude so no one could hear her ever again. Because that’s all people did. They hurt and they went away and they left her again and again and again… why did they leave her so much? Why didn’t they love her enough to stay?

The blood from the berries stained her nails, rotting beneath the beds and blaceking the pads of her fingers.

“Please. Just let me out.”

Hazel rose from where she had curled herself into a ball by the bushes.  She glanced back at the girl with the tanned skin and heartbroken eyes.

“You made your choice,” she hissed.  Gathering her basket, she went to leave. The child could cry on her own. 

That’s all she was good for after all.