As he reaches the rocks he carefully lays aunt Evie on the water’s edge letting her Wet sand scraped of the oversized pants of jasper, a poor trapped soul roped into something he had no control over.. In his arms, the corpse of his dead aunt lay cradled limp. He didn’t want to kill her but demelza… he had no choice. The cult he was born into, the fort on the hill, demelzas watchdogs. A foot hold in everything, life was strict no one crosses demelza but how is that a family? Well I guess it’s only his die hard believers who believe that, Jasper has other ideals..

He looked down at his aunt, non-stop apologies stringing from his chapped lips. Jas remember demelzas talk on how 7 bodies must be sacrificed to become a part of this family, what he never mentioned was how close to “home” these sacrifices had to be. This was Jaspers 3rd body, he got better at carrying the dead weight but less so the voices they left behind. The wind talks, we all know a howl in the night a whisper in a door crack but what no one hears are the words. The words the dead carry across, this night the moon shone high and the screams reached the just as high.

Spotting the rocks, jasper slowed his pace, his breathing picking up. That’s where he was shown, where she must lay but what if he wasn’t ready to say goodbye? Can you ever be? His feet trudged through the sand now, almost tripping on his pant legs, the voices became louder again. As if he could feel the breath on the back of his neck, goose bumps raided his skin. One voice stood out among the crowd in the wind, his brother. They had made plans to escape Demelza, Mark was already a part of this group of watchdogs but also longed to escape save his brother from the sights he had to endure on a daily basis. But the night before their planned departure Jas was called upon, to be told his first victim. It was the woods to the east where he buried mark.

He laid his Aunt down leaving her feet be washed with the growing tide. He begins to paw at the sand, the damp crystals beginning to cut deeper under his nails. Grunting he dug for what felt like hours and could’ve been he was so lost he had no clue of time it was washed out, after he was as satisfied as could be with a grave or a loved one he lifted her body up and once she was placed, arms crossed in the pitiful grave, her voice was the only one heard along with the gentle purring of the waves growing closer.

How many voices would end up lost, how many words would never be spoken, all because a coward couldn’t run away?