Always
He stood at the front of the cottage, the sky dark and the world still as could be. Nothing seemed off, expect the fact that the cottage looked like a total disaster. Caving in and broken down, it appeared that a bomb had gone off from within, with the roof leaning to one side and crumbling onto the sidewalk. The lone figure stood as still as stone, emotions mixed within him as he tried to force his body to move forward towards the disaster area. Taking in a deep breath of cool night air and filling his lungs with confidence his heart did not have, he began to make his way forward. Past the half open doorway to the front room where all seemed normal, except the fact that the house was caving in around the neat and orderly furniture. The power was off in the cottage, and any normal person would have fled by now, yet he was no ordinary man. A pair of ink black eyes traveled towards the staircase where one could faintly hear the cries of a baby. Eyes unblinking, he moved pasted the front room and towards the stairs to climb them one at a time. As he did, his heart thudded loudly in his ears, a drum that got louder and louder as he climbed higher and higher. Placing one hand to steady himself against the wall of the cottage, he looked down to see on the landing just partially on the stairs the figure of a man, a man this man loathed with all his being. To see him dead was almost a blessing, but that gave way to a terrible thought. A horrid, heart wrenching thought. It was then that time seemed to slow down into fragments. A sense of him moving closer towards the back bedroom, a glimpse of his feet making no noise on the wooded floorboards below. The ink orbs never blinked, too afraid that if he did that his already stifled emotions would boil over into unwanted tears. For some strange reason, at the end of the hallway where the crying was coming from, a light shone…..the preverbal light at the end of the dark tunnel. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally came just within the threshold of the back room where upon he collapsed upon seeing something that finally made the man break down and give way to tears. For lying on the floor, spread out in a twisted fashion, was the figure of a woman with red hair splayed across the floor and behind her head like a puddle of blood. Having collapsed into himself, he choked on a sob that broke out from deep within his very soul and as tears spilt over his bottom eyelids, he inched his way closer towards the fallen woman. After a few moments of self-doubt, he took her straight into his arms and hugged her tightly, the world crashing in around him and life losing all color and meaning. She was dead. His Lily was dead. After rocking back and forth for several good minutes of seemingly frozen time, he remembered the baby boy who he had come to collect. With tears in his eyes and a shattered heart, he turned his head towards the cradle to see the babe weeping just like him at the sight of his mother not moving. Doing a once over, he noticed something amazing, he had his mother's eyes.
