A Good Man Or Selfish Victim?

The midnight's cold, unforgiving storm had passed. Still, the warmth of the bright, comforting hope that all rejoice to embrace when the new year is upon us was not present on this cold, dry, unilluminating morning.

There, hunched over, covered with the thick coat of a rather unflattering mixture of snow and dirt, adding another layer of unbearable weight upon his already broken, bleeding, and exhausted person. Long before the unseen sun reclaimed its pose in the sky, when a bright crimson moon poisoned the night's sea with a macabre sense of misery, and the fading pulse of a troubled young female slips away from his ashamed, and confused shape, the deformed figure of a forgotten stranger works endlessly to forge a grave, echoing the profound despair and silent mourning that shadow loss itself.

Slowly, he fell deeper into the frozen soil. First, held tightly in his left hand, the Stranger thrust the rapidly dulling blade downwards, barely loosening the earth, then punched the earth, caking his cold fist as he dispensed mere ounces to forge the recently deceased an eternal bed. Hours passed before it was deep enough to barely cover her. Ending his labor with one final stab into the frozen earth, the stranger steadies his breath, then, with a heavy, undying heart, he lifts the still corpse of the unknown maiden he spent the cold night within his arms and gently rests her down in the narrow hole, embodying the solemn silence of mourning.

Now, under the dim rays of a winter sun, her pretty face was revealed. Despite being caked in a recipe of mud and blood, her face was simple in its beauty-an unadorned reminder that true worth often lies beneath surface appearances. Round, soft, with a pale complexion that the entitled or blind would ignore, the maiden appeared as nothing more than an out-of-place sunflower amongst a sea of overpraised roses.

Absorbed by a faint warmth from a flame unbeknownst to this unnatural individual, the stranger extends his fingers with immature grace as he tries to clean off the macabre stains from her face. Sadly, due to the cold exposure, he fails to cleanse her flesh from the spoils of her own destruction. Time slowed to unbelievable tranquility. Only for a moment, the stranger attempts to hold on. He knows it wouldn't last. Death always has to collect, regardless of how we feel or the stamina that fuels one's desires for affection; the end of all things is inevitable.

 In this shared silence, the universal ache of loss echoes, granting him a glimpse of our fragile mortality. Gently caressing her damp, soft black hair, the stranger sighs as he gazes up at the desaturated sky, seeking answers from a god unattainable to his blasphemous shape. 

" Why?!" He asks in a low, bestial voice.

Nobody answers him.

Shedding a single tear, the stranger stands with one final look at her. No words are exchanged. Extending his right hand, the stranger took hold of the knife, and with a hearty grunt, he began to haul the freed earth on top of the maiden. No name was left for others to find her, no song was cried, only silence leading a lost soul into an eternal slumber. Nevermore shall violators play with her, nor will venomous eyes judge her sins. Peace at the cost of life has been achieved.

Completing his labor, the stranger stumbles upward as exhaustion infests his unnatural figure. Steadying his breath, he stands in isolated silence as he gazes down at the brown, lumpy grave beneath his feet. Tightening his mud-caked hand around the knife's handle, that accursed rage still poisons him for the moment, his mother rejected him. Shifting his black eyes away from the earth and locking them sharply on the dirty steel that hungers for destruction, the stranger refuses to allow himself to ever be taken by the lies of hate and fear for self-protection. With a beast like grunt, the stranger tosses the knife out into the cold, dark nothingness of the cemetery's woods. Adjusting his ragged coat, the stranger bids this fallen maiden once last farewell as he walks away. 

Where was he going? He didn't know. What life or Angels had in store for him was unclear. Accepting that painful calling within the nothingness that all outcasts embrace, the stranger conceals his emotions beneath his hood as the dream of what may be shatters like shards of crystal glass against clean oak...

Taking place after the events of my previous short story, In Death We Shall Find Peace, this new short serves as the beginning of a tale that will come this year.