Anonymous asked: The Pine Box
“Funny, how we go out of our way to remember the dead and sometimes ignore the living…”
—-
He puffed on a cigarette. The smoke curled around the collection of pine boxes and dusted the ceiling of the room before vanishing in the cement. The action caused a strange burn in his chest and lungs, but Veld ignored it. His own health wasn’t what it had been when he was young. Recent events had made him realize the truth about his morality. Maybe Veld was tired of Death ignoring him in favor of everyone else.
Death was a woman, beautiful and dark with perfect features. Her broad nose gave her a regal profile like queens from lands long forgotten. She was strong and she danced with an open embrace for those who wished to leave the world behind them. Only a monster could really earn her scorn. Man and Woman she brought to her each in time…
“Remember how I told you about the Waking Warriors of Wutai? The zombie warriors that were unwanted by heaven or hell, so they simply went on fighting?” The cigarette burned and hissed in his lips as he pulled at the filter. “Maybe it’s true.” He coughed then, a tight wheeze slid out of his chest. “What do you think I did? To get her to ignore me like this?”
Parents, Sister, Partner, Wife, Child…. “It’s like Felcia and you came back to taunt me. Prove that I can’t have what I thought I did. That it couldn’t have happened.” Veld smashed the cigarette out on the ground and sighed. He sat there in silence for a while, the cold cement flooring and the rough pine box rubbed at his clothes.
Sounds above him drew Veld to attention; it was time to go. “Ugh, I hate this place.”
“No one asked you to tag along, Yuffie.”
“Pft, like I’d let you wander around here alone. You’d lose track of time and miss my birthday party.”
Veld left silently through a back way in the manor. There was no point in the walking dead meeting old ghosts.
