Life Ain't Always Beautiful

“Not any more, Zee. They buried their mother.” He whispered. It had almost broken Briar too, and maybe it would have if it wasn’t for Art. He found he could not begrudge his small girl some happiness. Young or not.

He listened with rapt, pained attention as she began to describe the night. The dark, the fire, heat, claws. “There was no sign of anybody else. The fire must have covered their tracks. They… they left behind bodies. They must have staged them. Killed a deer, found the pieces they needed… They must have done this. Done this to us. That means… that means you're alive, and you’ve been here, the entire time. Zee. I didn’t save you, I left you here. Six months.” He wanted to kill them again, slowly. He wanted to hear them gasp for breath. They hadn’t deserved the mercy of a quick, dispassionate kill.

"Speech"