Decending

    A horrified silence descended upon the room.
    The choked out sob dashed across the quiet.
    A young woman, only around twenty years old, dropped to her knees. One hand gripped her husbands sleeve; the other covered her mouth, attempting to hide her trembling lips.
    Her husband stared listlessly at nothing. He stood firmly in the doorway; his eyes shuttered shut, standing as though he hadn’t realized that his wife was sobbing beside him, as if she hadn’t collapsed across the floor, as if the silence wasn’t threatening to choke him.
    He shoved the bile back down his throat.
    Automatically, not knowing what, or why, he was doing, he moved toward the bed.
    The child, his daughter, lay on the sheets. Her hair was twisted around the pillow – a clear case of bed head – and her eyes were softly closed, her mouth stayed slightly open.
    She seemed as though she were merely sleeping.
    He dragged her soft knitted blanket over her head.
    His wife screamed.

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    Their movements were mechanical.
    The woman, her long brown hair fell across her face neatly, moved about the kitchen silently. Dark circles enclosed her eyes as she glanced at the living room. She twisted away. An odd oblong darkness seemed to shroud the house, cover her mind, and smother her dreams. She couldn’t escape from her living nightmare.
    Her husband hadn’t moved from the room in three days.
    He seemed unable to face the rest of the house.
    His eyes were dark, tired, and he began to thin. The sickly pale glow about his skin seemed to grow as he continued to miss his meals, his wife telling him – on more than one occasion – that ‘One will fade away without supper,’ with a pointed look.
    He wouldn’t mind leaving. Maybe he’d see Annie…
    Black shoes scuffed along the ground as he stood – rooted for a few seconds, as he stared at the four year old with unveiled interest – and walked toward the kitchen.
    His wife stood in the doorway, watching him with the eyes of a hawk.
    His stomach lurched as he stepped over the threshold.
    His (one-time) child lay behind him.
    Anna, she’d been named after her mother’s mother, lay pale. Her once vibrant eyes were hidden behind her eyelids. Her long, dark hair was braided, flowers woven in the threads of her hair.
    Her mother had sat her up, ignoring her own shaking hands, and had, painstakingly, done her hair as she had all those times before. She had chattered, babbling unintelligently, insensible words, for over an hour. Once she’d finished, she’d stood, turning toward the child with a smile.
    Before something flashed through her eyes and died.
    Her face crumbled.
    She had run from the room.
    Her husband hadn’t seen her enter the room which held their daughter again.
    He felt an odd sense of vindictiveness before he shoved that feeling away.
    Pushing his dark locks out of his eyes he stared at the woman, who so resembled her daughter, with an odd pain in his chest.
    It shouldn’t have been Anna.
    He gave her a polite nod as she passed him his dinner.
    It should have been her.
    And he gave his room-mate an odd, strained smile.