Sundown Tragedy, The

ลำดับตอนที่ #1 : Foreword

Reese stands on the boggy earth.  Something thumps into his consciousness.  In the dark he runs forward, down the endless road.

            The road before him stretches far into a wall of slumbering mist.  The air is thin.  The soil and the trees are still wet from the last rain.  The road is a string of mud, flecked by shallow pools of water.

            Reese believes—it is this very road that leads to London.

            “Stop...  Stop...”

            A glint of torchlight wavers before him.

            “Stop...  Reese...  Stop...”

            He hears a little voice but continues to run.  He must keep going.  He must go as far as this last breath can take him.

            “Stop!  Please...  Stop!”

            He must…

            “Stop...  Please...”

            It’s over now.  Reese falls off the road.  He’s still breathing.  He’s seeing things.  Things from the past.  Things which burst abruptly from the deepest trenches of his memory...

            “No...  Reese...  Stop, please...  Reese, please...  Please...”

            “FOR GOD’S SAKE!” he cries, swinging about to catch the boy.  The carrier bag and the torch ram into the boy’s arm.  “WILL YOU SHUT UP!  JUST SHUT UP!”

            “No...  Reese...  Stop...  Please...  Don’t...  Don’t...” the voice begs, “Reese...  Stop...  Please, Reese...  Please...”

            Reese throws a wobbly fist into the boys face—his grip as ever loose and frail.  The boy falls to his knees, voice still coughing through his young, gnarling throat.

            “Please, Reese...  Please...  Please...”

            “SHUT UP!  JUST SHUT UP!  I DON’T...  I DON’T WANNA HEAR IT...  I DON’T WANNA HEAR IT...”

            “Stop...  Reese, stop...” cried the boy, “Please...  Please...”

            “I HATE YOU!  I HATE YOU!”

            “Please, Reese...  Please stop...”

            There, the voice dies.

            Something stops him.  Reese doesn’t know if it’s the death of the voice that has made him stop, but he’s on the ground now, lying in the dirt.  He looks back at the road.

            It’s almost gone in the dark.

            He waits now—patiently as every chapter of his life replays itself for him to see and now, at least, understand—and as a moment of silence becomes the fog of a new day...