Roses
I walk through the door; the air is cold. Salt stains my cheeks. I walk through the door, and I look for the bloodred roses. Everywhere I turn, I see black. The bright stainless-steel windows are in shades of grey. The pulpit is in shadow, but I glimpse a flash of pale skin. Too pale. I feel sick. My world is descended into black and white. Colour? What is colour? But still, in my world of grey, I look for the bloodred roses. I am distant, vacant eyes, never really seeing. Overwhelmed by waves of grief, and pain, and fury, and sorrows of the deepest blue. All year, the roses, withered and brown. All year, waiting for a glimpse of scarlet. All year, as old blooms fall, as leaves fall, as rain falls, but no roses. Never any bloodred roses. I see the others. Tanith. Ghastly. I cannot bring myself to find them, I cannot bring myself to care. My world ended when Skulduggery did. I see his skull, grinning, unnatural in death. I remember how he used to look. I remember, but I… I can't. I can't. It's blurred and distorted, until it's no longer him, looking at me, his head tilted in a cruel smile. The ghost that lingers in my mind wraps its paper-thin arms around me, teasing, never quite there. I can't see him, it's fading, it's gone.
But I remember how he used to sit. I remember how he used to watch. I remember how he used to wait. I remember how he used to hope. How he would always hope. Watching, waiting, hoping for the bloodred roses.
I walk through the door; the air is cold. Salt stains my cheeks. I walk through the door,
and I see the bloodred roses.