The sun dipped below the horizon as the coffin was swallowed by the earthen maw. Dusk’s dying light casted our shadows across the grass and nearby gravestones. I stood stoically among the others, their faces twisted by grief. The iron clanking of chains accompanied their sobs.

    Isaac patted me on the shoulder.

    I appreciated the gesture, but I would never reciprocate it, that just wouldn’t be me. Isaac knew that, or at least, I hoped he knew. 

    It felt like my organs were being flattened by an anvil. 

    Not a single tear shed since she’d died. 

    A psychologist would call it shock. Isaac said it was denial. 

    I liked to think I knew the truth. But it wasn’t something I’d ever admit. Iva had died last week, and in that time, all I wanted to do was run away. 

    They say that when somebody close to you dies, your own mortality became apparent. That you realize your own life could end in a flash. 

    She had died on impact in the prime of her life. 

    Iva, in a way, had been lucky. She had died like a celebrity: young and beautiful; to be remembered by all her friends and family, at least, until their minds began to fail, when cancer spreads through their body like spores in the forest, or the lives they struggled so hard to build fell apart. 

    “She’s in a better place,” Iva’s mom said to her crying daughter.

    What kind of fucking bullshit was that? The last thing anybody wanted was to be told that there was a “better place.” Like what? Heaven wasn’t real, and anybody that believed in it were self-delusional or part of a cult with a membership over one billion.

    I felt an obligation to talk to Iva’s younger sister. To try and council her as the pseudo brother I had become.

    Yet, I didn’t know what to say. Was I to hug her and tell her something stupid like every thing was going to be alright? Or how about I told her that it was better than she died today rather than go on and suffer in modern society’s idea of an ideal life. 

    The chains were unhooked from the coffin. The iron chains were wrapped back up by the machine. 

    One of her relatives was passing out white roses. When she came past, I picked one out. 

    The crowd tossed the roses into the earthen depression. I stared at the flower, the thorns had been snipped off. 

    A shovel interrupted my empty thoughts. Mr. Ryder was holding it out to me.

    His once salt and pepper beard had been razed with salt. 

    Wordlessly, I took the implement and stuffed the flower into my blazer’s inside pocket. The shovel slid into the displaced mountain of dirt. Lifting the dark soil over to the grave, I turned the shovel. I watched the particles slide off, each clump rapping gently on the coffin lid. 

    Mr. Ryder joined me with a shovel of his own. He withdrew a mound of the soil only to collapse to his knees, covering his face with his hands, his shoulders started to tremble. 

    They let him grieve. 

    I passed the shovel off to Isaac who hadn’t left my since the funeral started.

    Sometimes I cursed myself for becoming friends with Iva. The crawling regret had hatched inside me like a basilisk. Her death had broken me. Seeing something as simple as a text using the same diction she had caused my gorge to rise. 

I found myself staring at the ceiling, thinking about the jokes we had made. The connections we made over our interests in music, video games, and literature. Talking about the bullshit we were dealing with. She was the first I had opened up with, and now it had all been washed away like chalk on the sidewalk. My three years of friendship became a tome I carried inside my chest. It was lodged deep inside of me, impossible to tear out. I was trapped inside my body with this soul-raking ichor of emotions. 

    I was hanging from my own self-inflicted crucifix.

    I wished we had never met, I wished I hadn’t made that joke about separating a scotsman from his sheep that had caught her attention, I wished for a lot of things.

    The only good coming from her death, was the lesson I learned, I never should have invested myself so deeply into another person.

    It sounded inane, yet it felt like a worldly truth. I didn’t want to feel like this again, not ever. It was too much, it was like drowning underneath a behemothian wave. It was a cesspit of horridness.

    Were I still in America, I would have never met her. Never to connect on such a profound level, never to meet somebody like her again. 

    Mr. Ryder was picked up by Iva’s grandfather, they peeled away, the mourners parting for them like the Red Sea.

    The excavator rumbled to life, the machinist worked the levers, commanding the contraption to mechanically maneuver the mass of earth into its place. 

    I stalked away, following the footpath to the cemetery gate. 

    The sun had nearly set by the time I was on the street. 

    The clapping of dress shoes against pavement drew my attention. Isaac had found me. 

    “Mate, you alright? You aren’t going to read your speech at the service?” 

    “I’m quite alright, thanks Isaac, back to Bob for the weather,” I pointed my thumb to the empty air beside me. 

    “Nate, look, I know it hurts,” he said, placing a hand over his chest, “but-” he floundered verbally, but I read the emotions set into his face. 

    “I got classes tomorrow, professors only gave me a week off.” 

    “Nate, please don’t do anything crazy.”

    I laughed, a loud chuckle that rang through the street. 

    “Don’t worry, I’m fine,” I said, “Some time alone is all I need.”

    “Promise me that you won’t, you know…”

    “I understand,” I said, letting a tinge of softness color my words.

    “Can I at least see you to the bus stop?” 

    “Sure,” I sighed. 

    We walked in companionable silence over the stone bridge that separated the countryside from the city. The dilapidated buildings wrenched the remains of dusk, leaving us in the tatters of night. 

Wyrich was an old city that had escaped the horrors of World War Two. We had moved from California to the wreck of England. My mother’s father had died of a stroke, leaving me the deed of his estate. The estate was on the other side of the city, opposite of the cemetery. Not only was I to inherit the land, there happened to be a prestigious university. When I had emailed Wyrich University, they had already decided to accept me, not for my academic value, but because my family name had a pull on the headmaster. Alcastor Lynwood, my grandfather, had been friends with the headmaster. 

It was pretty amazing not having to do a thing to get into a university, but now I couldn’t give a damn. 

In truth, I had been excited to get out of the US. It was becoming apparent that the country had fallen into the control of the cesspit of corrupt fucks that were more interested in money than the people.

Coming to England also meant a chance to start my life over. I had become lonely in the US. College was a strange place where making friends became nearly impossible because the amount of “work” that somehow piled over peoples heads. I had somehow managed to not become busy despite taking enough courses to be deemed “full-time student.” It was like I lived in a different universe. 

    I had come to Wyrich expecting a chance to start over, make a few close friends, have enough money to fund my interests, collect books, music, and games.

    What I hadn’t expected was to make two friends by cracking a joke in the middle of class, get reprimanded by the professor in front of everybody, and get approached by Iva after class, and later by Isaac in the cafeteria. 

    I stuffed my hands into the pockets of the pants I had borrowed from dad. 

Streetlights with shattered bulbs hung over the empty street, save for a rat scurrying across the road.

Wyrich was an old, shit city that survived from the income of its University and the students that attended. Where the tax money went was an open secret.

Isaac’s voice slit the silence, “See you, Nate,” I grunted when he wrapped his arms around me for a tight hug. He held onto me as if I was a piece of driftwood in the sea. 

Wetness seeped through my blazer and into my shirt. I patted the blond on the back. He took a few shuddering breaths before he released me. 

Isaac wiped the tears off his face. “Thanks,” he hiccuped.

“See you tomorrow.” 

He nodded, “See ya, Nate.” 

I watched the freckled blond slouch down the street, his form huddled against the brisk gales. 

The memorial service.

Iva’s family had decided to host it at their home, and offered me a ride to their home. I wasn’t sure how they would react to me not joining them, but I thought they would understand. 

Digging through my pocket I found the folded paper.

The paper crinkled as unfolded it. It was a speech I had written several days after her death. It was too dark to reread, but I had memorized the entire thing. I wasn’t sure why I still carried it around.

It was the only serious speech I had written in my life. The paper didn’t even sound like a simulacrum of myself in any way, past, present, or future. It was just so damn serious. The paper was an amalgam of the emotions that her death had evoked in me. 

I crumpled the paper, throwing it into a puddle of water. 

There was only one bench. It was harboring a homeless man in the throes of sleep. Empty bottles of liquor were keeping him company. 

Something sharp poked me in the ribs, my hand went into my jacket and found the rose I had stuffed in there. 

I rolled the flower, contemplating it. 

Iva. 

I looked at the hobo. 

    It was better than throwing the rose into a hole in the ground and filling it with dirt. Sure, it was symbolic, but, I wasn’t sure what burying a bunch of white roses was supposed to represent.

    The hobo was sleeping on his side, several bottles were sitting upright. 

    I was broken on the inside, but I still had friends, my family, and people that considered me worth talking to.

    The hobo changed rolled over, somehow managing to not fall out of his precarious position. 

    He was young, somewhere in his twenties, a few years older than me. 

    The anvil sunk deeper. 

    This was a man that had lost everything. His family, his friends, even the privilege to talk to other humans. Maybe a small, stupid gesture like a flower in his bottle would make him feel a tiny bit better. 

I placed the flower into one of the beer bottles, its petals held it up white its stem was surrounded by the glass. 

A pair of lights picked me out from the blanket of darkness. 

The two story bus squealed to a stop, its doors flattened themselves, and I stepped on.

“Hey, Nate.”

I acknowledged his greeting with a nod. 

“Heard what happened,” He looked down at the steering wheel,” sorry for your loss.” 

I ran my bus card on the reader, it chirped happily. 

The doors hissed shut.

I took the stairs up to the second floor, finding a seat in the front where I could watch the streets go by. 

Wryrich was an unwelcoming city. Windows at the ground floor were protected by rusted metal grates. Walls and lights were vandalized by stag parties and drunken students. The existence of the University seemed to prevent serious crimes like stabbings and acid attacks that were prevalent in other cities. 

It was a shithole. Perhaps the reason it remained unscathed from World War Two was that the Germans didn’t want to help remodel the city with their demolitions expertise. 

But still, a step-up from San Francisco. 

The bus lights lit the Wyrich fountain. It was a popular spot for students to hang around, mainly because the proximity of the Wyrich Pub, the only place worth getting food or drinks from. Next to it was a seedy inn that students used to get, and I quote, “shagged.” 

I pressed the stop button built into the bus and climbed down the stairs. The bus driver gave me a pitying look as I stepped off the bus. 

The strain in my gut felt like a chest-burster was ready to be released. I needed to take the edge off from this pain. To lose my inhibitions with something other than lying in bed and clutching a pillow to my chest wondering when the pain will go away. 

I pushed through the door. 

The pub was one of the places I frequented with them. The weight in my chest amplified as I saw the spot where we used to sit and study.

There was a group of six students sitting at a table meant for four. A couple were enjoying a drink at the end of the bar. At the back was a few older gentlemen with german sized cups. 

The bartender slid over to where I waited, “Heard what happened with your girlfriend,” Max said. 

“She’s not—wasn’t my girlfriend.” It said something about how news traveled in Wyrich. The only paper that ran was the University's, it created a sense of community, especially for someone like me...apparently. I hadn’t minded the attention when I had arrived, but now it was exhausting. My grandfather had owned a winery, the only hotel worth staying at, and was quite well respected by the community. 

There were also my parents. My mom traveled the country, doing attorney work, and my father worked IT. They worked under the radar. 

Then there was me, that respect had altered when people finally met me, I was Mister Funny Guy. Feeling down? Watch a video of Mister Funny Guy raise his hand in class and tell a joke in his out-of-place american accent, he knows how to lift you by your bootstraps and raise those spirits. 

Tonight though, the only spirits I was going to raise was a bottle of wine and if I was lucky, myself.

“You doing alright?” Max asked. He was a tall kid, the son of the owner. His father now managed the winery, which happened to be in my name. I had eaten several dinners with his family, they were pretty cool people. His father looked like a raging alcoholic, but apparently, the only thing he beat were grapes and finance records. Max’s mom was an accountant at the local bank. 

This past week though, I had withdrawn from life. I had stayed in my home and distracted myself with the backlog of movies I had been planning to watch for several years. It had helped to draw my mind away, but it was only a temporary respite. Since my withdrawal from the public, people had thought that I had killed myself or some stupid crap like that. 

I wasn’t going to kill myself because my bestfriend had died. It made me smile on the inside knowing that people were concerned for my well-being. 

The pain of losing Iva hurt, and sometimes it became unbearable. But killing myself over it would be embarrassing. We were all going to have one of those periods where life seemed to become a wasteland, but I knew that the pain would eventually cease. Like if you manage to walk past the rails of a bridge, or fell on a conveniently placed sword, or tripping into a well tied noose. The possibilities were endless. 

“I’m fine. Could I get a bottle of wine?” I asked.

“Uh,” Max stopped polishing a glass, considering what I had said. “Sure, it’s on me.” 

“Thanks Max,” I smiled. 

He pulled the tinted bottle from the winerack behind him as well as a corkscrew. 

“My parents’ll flay me alive if you off yourself, you funny cunt.” The cork came out with satisfying pop. 

I threw my head back, laughing. “See you, dude.” 

“See you, mate.” Max said, his words following me out the door. 

I carried the bottle loosely by the neck over to the large marble fountain. It was covered in cracks, and graffiti painted the statue of a man in a top hat with a raven sitting on his shoulder. It was a discount Edgar Allan Poe, but the graffiti artist had climbed the statue and painted the hat with the Cat in the Hat’s colors. Nobody had bothered with removing it. In fact, the vandal had made it far more popular with tourists. 

I finally found reprieve on the cold marble of the fountain’s top step. I sighed as I rested my back against the fountain.

Tossing the wine back, I imbibed a generous amount of the carmine liquid.

I rarely drank, not because of the disapproval my mom would heap onto me, or the inhibition it caused, but because it was too easy. Alcohol slid down my gullet like a dragon devouring sheep. It would be frightling easy to become addicted, in my current state, it was far, far too easy. 

I let my muscles loosen, tension poured out of me as the alcohol went through my empty stomach. Shame that I was a light-weight, seemed like I might fall asleep here like some hobo. 

I giggled. 

The moon steadily rose, it’s white glare bouncing off the hedges and trees decorating the faux-park around me. 

I finished the last drops of the wine and let the cries of the crickets whisk me to sleep.

As the tide of sleep pulled me under the water splashed, soaking my hair and clothes. 

“What the fuck!” I seethed. Using the fountain’s lip, I hauled myself to my feet. 

I did a once-over the area. There wasn’t a soul in sight. I looked inside the fountain. Moonlight illuminated the stagnant water, revealing black hair rising like tendrils of smoke.

“The hell?” I moved aside to let the light in. A woman was lying head down in the water. A cloud of dark ichor was spreading from below her knees. 

Was she bleeding?

Rolling my sleeves up, I plunged my hands into the freezing water. I grabbed the collar of her leather jacket, using what was left of my strength, I hauled her out. Her body slid across the lip of the fountain. Her legs fell with a concerning thump on the top stair. 

I took a step back, only to realize my foot caught open air. I waved my arms frantically, but I was already pitching bardwards. It happened as if I was in slow-motion. A silent scream formed on my lips as my weight carried me back.

Holy fuck, I’m gonna die with a split head. 

The thought came unbidden, and only incensed my panic. 

My back slammed into the ground, punching the air out of my lungs, my legs hit the edges of the stairs, my head hit a particularly soft bed of dirt.

I was gasping for air, but still aware of how lucky I had been. 

If that was a message to not kill myself, I’d gladly take it. Even though my principals already empasised the vanity of suicide. 

Coughing, I rolled onto my stomach. I pushed myself back on my feet. 

I scrambled up the steps, her neck was bending at an uncomfortable angle on the edge of a staircase, her face was covered in cuts and scratches. My gaze traveled downwards to her stomach, then to her legs.

I realized where the blood was coming from.

Her legs looked like they had been crushed below the knee. It was absolutely fucking brutal.

I swayed, my mouth began to water.

I was going to vomit.

I turned my head away, wine gushed out of my mouth, staining the white marble with a sickly red. 

Let the police figure that one out.

I coughed up the last dribbles of stomach acid and alcohol. 

Not only did I feel the crushing sensation of loss, I felt like a god-damned idiot.  

I should not have drunk that shit. God, I’m so fucking stupid. 

The alcohol had weakened my tolerance for gore. Or maybe I had drank too much, considering that I haven’t developed a tolerance for alcohol. 

Fuck me sideways with a cactus. I’ve seen videos of cadavers having their skin pulled and digestive system revealed but a pair of legs with shards of bones penetrating the skin from the inside was too much for tipsy Nate?

Her legs were either going to have be amputated or treated by professionals.

But she was going to bleed to death if I did nothing, or probably get infected, or be eaten alive by the local rats. 

I needed to stop the leakage. I needed tourniquets. Tearing up my clothes wasn’t easy without tools. I needed something that I had on hand...or waist! My belt! 

But first, I needed to move her. I hooked my arms under her armpits, dragging her down to the ground. I laid her down, unlatched my belt, wow, okay, thanks self-awareness for that image. 

Wrapping the length of leather right above the knee, I tightened it as hard as my tipsy self could.

Hey, the holes went all the way down the length of the belt, lucky me...or her. 

Was it lucky for her because she won’t die, or was it lucky for me because I wouldn’t have her death on my conscience? 

Doesn’t matter! The other leg needed Nate-Grade medical expertise. 

Shoelace? Try tearing off my sleeve?

The black tie I wore swung out of my buttoned blazer.

Working as fast as I could, my fingers dug into the knot. My heart was racing, it pounded in my ears, muting my thoughts. 

The tie finally came off, “Yes, yes yes, fuck!” I dropped the tie on the ground. My hand grabbed it, along with a few dead leaves. 

Clambering to the other side of her, I tied the knot firmly at the bottom of her thigh.

I needed to get her to a hospital. She was soaking wet and if the bloodloss didn’t kill her, exposure would. 

My hands shook from the blast of adrenaline running in my veins. I got my phone out.

What was the number for british police?

“Shit!” I had rubbed blood all over the screen. I wiped the phone on my clothes. 

“Fucking bastads! Why does everyone use different police numbers?” I snarled.

No wait, the bar! I could get help from there! I surged to my feet. 

“And where do you think you’re doing mister?” 

I froze. Pivoting my head to the direction from where the voice came I saw a rat was standing on her chest, arms crossed like a disappointed mother.

“W-what?”

“Where. Do. You. Think. You’re going, Mister?” It said. 

A rat was talking to me. Was I drunk? I was drunk, but I wasn’t on psychedelics? Had my drink been spiked? 

I backed away from the talking rat, “I’m getting help,” I said to the rat, pointing to the bar’s entrance 

Was my Disney princess fantasy finally coming true?

“That’s exactly what you’re not going to do. What you are going to do is buy a hotel room. You are going to drag my good friend Sarah to said hotel room. And then, you’re going to get medical supplies and we’re going to fix her up. Copacetic?” He finished by snapping his fingers into a finger gun. 

    I snapped my fingers back at him, my ‘play-it-on instincts going on show. Black was closing in around my vision. I careened into a tree, rebounding off of it, I said “I think I’m-” The last thing I saw was the full moon radiating brightly as I lost consciousness.