Sea Lion Shores when the shadow comes to take me away

val left sapphique at a speedy clip nearly four day's hence. it broke his heart to leave his family behind, but he did so for greater purpose.

for he had found, somewhere, the faintest inkling of rosalyn's scent fading from the world like a smoke tendril.

mad, panicked, fearful, anxious -- each of them a corporeal shadow which followed behind val's steps.

he did not see rosalyn fall. he only saw her body still in a pool of glittering water. in his heart, he feared the worst.

maman!" he cried.

oh, it was cruel -- so fucking cruel -- that she fell between a stretch of sand and ocean-water. val froze as he realized to get to her he'd have to dodge around thin spits of lapping ocean.

he could do it. he had to do it. he had no choice.

a dull roar whined in his pounding ears as val jumped from sand-patch to sand-patch towards the collapsed figure of his maman.