Legs pumping angrily under myself, I ran until my lungs were burning, my legs giving out beneath me. I’d wound up on the sidewalk on all fours, panting, coughing, tears burning my eyes as I tried to understand what had just happened. What had led to this sad state of affairs.
I thought I understood.
I blindly thought, for just one moment, that this was it.
The moment I’d figured out what happened to Mari, I’d assumed the girl would rejoice.
Maybe she’d go from this gruesome ghoul to a beautiful young girl—the one I’d seen in the yearbook, the one she’d been before . . . whatever happened to her had happened. I dumbly thought that there might be some kind of blinding light that would appear and, in a flash, she’d disappear. Having finally gone toward the afterlife.
