Firefly Glen these broken walls

zephyra was quiet through the words shared. 

she did not speak. she did not move. and for a long moment, she did not breathe. 

her sister surged with a wave of nausea, but zephyra could do little more than stare. she desperately, feverishly tried to grasp what had just been said. of what her mother had just proclaimed. 

her brother, a river. her brother...

gone?

she had not know loss. she knew it now. 

grief displayed itself in varying ways, but to zephyra it came in the form of denial and frustration. she slunk backward, brow furrowed as she looked to her mother with an air of rejection. it was not nephele she sought to shun, but the words that had just been spoken to existence. 

disbelief clung to the girl's heart as she finally released the shaky breath she'd been holding. 

it could not be. he could not be.