My mother collapses on the floor as her claws dig into my arm. The air is filled with what I can only assume to be the smell of embalming fluid as I stare at my little brother’s lifeless body.

Stiff, cold, on a hard wooden table with a blanket draped over him. I’m aware of nails in my skin somewhere in the back of my consciousness as my mother vomits all over the floor. Her screaming is a roar in response to her only sons body. That scream is primal, world shattering, unending, and the very essence of pain given life.

My brother used to jump when my mother screamed. He doesn’t now.

His fingers don’t interlink with mine. The cold chills me the bone and I trace the Y incision beneath his shirt where they tore him open for answers.

I can see the glue keeping his eyes and mouth closed.

Glue.

Embalming fluid.

Makeup.

I sniff again.

Death.

That smell is death.