30

And so Katrina found him like that. The TV was blaring because he found the white noise comfort in his sudden, violent sickness. A pen was in his hand, in the middle of forming a response to Katrina. She dropped her bag and rushed to him, feeling his pulse. She did not cry, not yet. Instead she looked around the room.

Grey light from an oncoming rainstorm flooded the room. The TV showed a commercial for a vacuum cleaner. Katrina clicked off the TV and examined the rest of the home, trying to clear her mind before she read Matthew's final words.

The kitchen had piles of half-eaten food rotting on plates. A faint smell resembling that of carrion crowded that area and Kat left that room, her eyes stinging. She avoided Matthew's corpse and went upstairs, into Matthew's bedroom. A simple room with an old bed, dirty sheets, and blood stains lined the walls like a wretched design. Kat picked up a picture frame from the night stand and blew the dust off of it.

There, smiling their metal mouths, Kat and Matthew were. It was cut out of a year book, a dull memory. Kat didn't want to go back for her senior year. She wanted to stay with Matthew forever, till death do we part.

She went back downstairs and sat by Matthew, shutting his eyes and picking up the paper. His arm dropped limply to his side. She began to read the note, the tears spilling out of her eyes at last.

Freedom take flight like a silver wing riding a wind singing a falsetto tune.