The air was bitter and crisp with winter. The sky was a foggy, too-bright grey, the kind that only seems to happen on cloudy December days.
Deep in a forest of winter-bare trees, brown skeleton fingers clutching at the sky, two children stood in silence. A little girl, ankle deep in the snow, leaned against an older boy, their fair hair and faces alike enough that they were, to the observer, obviously brother and sister. The two were solemn and unmoving despite the frigid, slowly worsening weather. The boy had half-frozen dirt crusted on his hands from his long labor of the past few hours. The girl had tears half-frozen on her cheeks.
At their feet was an unmarked grave.
And they were all alone.
It was many hours before the girl spoke, carefully, as if she hadn't spoken for a very long time.
"Do you think we'll be next?" Her brother didn't look at her. They were beyond that, now. Once he would have put his arm around her, would have comforted away the tears choking her words. They were beyond that now, too.
"Probably," he said. He was lucky that he had learned how to lie to this precious sister a long time ago. She couldn't take the answers from him now. She couldn't see how he knew that the answer was always, always yes. She turned to him, tears trickling down her cheeks afresh, eyes wide and hysterical.
"No! No, no, we can't, we're not! Come here!" And the boy bent without speaking, allowed the girl to check his neck, felt her relax just slightly against him. Knew that for now, he, at least, was safe. For now.
"Now check me," she demanded, the calm hysteria still lurking in her tears. He obliged silently, sweeping her angelic blond hair out of the way, knowing very well what he would see.
Numbers.
Just as they had been for the last month.
"Well?" she demanded. He smoothed down the hair over the ink, and turned her around, pulling her close with a bleak smile.
"Don't worry, Angel. You're alright." The sister trembled in her brother's grip, and tried to forget what she had seen, what she had kept secret. It burned inside of her. She circled her arms around her brother's neck, one hand carefully covering what she had found there, and whispered the secret to herself.
"But you're not."