Page 4 of Grim

Utterly, completely alone.

And that breaks me.

I open my mouth again, and this time, the word falls out on a sob I can’t quite make. “Please?”

I don’t know who I’m asking.

I force myself to look up as the suffocating blackness around me begins to shift, like ink in water—thinning at the edges, rippling into shadows that stretch and lean without form. Shapes that almost look human if I stare long enough. But they keep slipping away the moment I try to name them.

I take a cautious step forward. The ground beneath my feet is solid but my feet are numb.

The emptiness is unbearable. An endless desert of loneliness. No one to say my name. No one to say goodbye.

No gates to enter. No bridge to cross. No warm hand reaching through the dark.

Nothing.

“I don’t understand,” I whisper, but the void offers no answers.

“I DON’T UNDERSTAND!” The near roar that leaves me is a raw voice I barely recognize as my own.

The black begins to pulse, and I see a light. Not white, not golden.

A flicker. A shimmer.

It’s … purple.

The air catches in my throat.

The light pulses once, twice, and I move toward it without thinking. Without fear. Because fear requiresthe possibility of loss, and right now, I’m not sure if I have anything left to lose.

I reach out, my fingers brushing the edge of the glow.

And warmth floods through me.

First like the gentle heat of the sun peeking out from behind a cloud, then like the scalding energy of a crackling fire, and finally the all-consuming burn of memory. That memory takes the shape of smell: fish, tarred rope, and salty air.

I choke on the sound that leaves me.

“Dad?” My voice cracks, the word torn straight from the center of my soul.

The scent of long days at sea and callous, oil-stained hands invades my mind. It’s really him! I scramble forward, reaching for the glow, my entire being lunging forward,toward him.

But a force hits me in the chest like the earth itself now denies my existence. The stab to my solar plexus feels absolute and final.

I gasp, my hands grasping at the thin air. My chest caves as the pinprick of soft light begins to recede.

“No!” I croak, the word jagged and torn. “Please don’t go!”

I reach for him again with everything I have left—my arms, my voice, my soul.

“Please, don’t leave me. Please.” My pathetic cries award me no sympathy. “Help me. Please, Dad?” My voice breaks around his name, splintering into a million lost moments of love and laughter.

The warmth fades as the last candle burning in my room full of shadows begins to flicker.

The essence of him vanishes. The scratchiness of his beard against my forehead disappears. The sound of his sonorous laughter falls silent in my mind.

I try to sob, but my body doesn’t remember how to cry. The grief just presses out through the seams of me stretching the thread.