Wheeling Gull Isle amen

His family had returned but there was no coming back for Caracal. He dimly registered their presences gathered around him but he was too far gone to do anything about it. He couldn’t even tell them what had happened to @Judah, explain that he was repenting for his role in his son’s death as well as all his other sins.

Someone had moved him out of the water. Though they might have tried to revive him, he only slipped further away. Caracal did not fight to live, not at all. He hoped to be reunited with Judah. Perhaps he would see the others too, though their papa hoped they were still alive out there somewhere…

At some point, he opened his eyes and saw her there: his writer. Caracal couldn’t make much sense of what he was seeing but he sensed solemnity from her. She held something in her paw—no, her hand—and she shook it back and forth. She laid her other hand on his head.

He closed his eyes for a moment. When he reopened them, his mom was there in the foreground. She was bent over him, looking like a wreck. Caracal couldn’t see her anymore but he could still feel God’s hand on his head, smoothing between his ears.

“Don’t worry, Cackle…” she murmured from behind Towhee. “I’m going to take care of you.”

Don’t worry, mom, everything is going to be okay, Caracal tried to tell Towhee, because of course she wouldn’t be able to hear.