Chapter 44. Final Goodbyes

Handfuls of soil hit the corpse wrapped in white with soft thumps, as Cassandra's wails echoed hauntingly through the dark forest.  

Carla had attended many funerals, all mechanical and unfeeling, because she had never really known the people being said goodbye to.  

She had not known Cassandra's lover either but there was a heaviness in the cold night air. The sharp glow of the moon in its half-phase lit the sky like an eye staring down at the scene, its intensity greater than Alpha's pink gaze. 

It was as if the moon, once an inanimate fixture in the sky, had come to life to grieve with them.

It was a heavy feeling, suffocating in both the best and worst ways. Carla felt a connectedness to every man, woman, and child gathered, and she found tears rolling down her cold, flushed cheeks as she tossed her own handful of soil onto the body that had once been a man she could have called brother someday. 

They all stood there un