Moonspear southern gothic

The comment of their having walked together for a while forced her ears flat against her head with embarrassment. Was she that oblivious—no, self-centered—that she had not even noticed when her sister joined her? Apparently so. “Oh…” was all she could manage to say, uttered with hushed tones. Maybe she shouldn’t even go out, not when she could not hear the approach of others. Wouldn’t it better for everyone if she just stayed tucked away, out of everyone’s sight? She thought so, and hoped to make that happen, but found herself stilled by the one question that she did not want to—or could not—answer:

What is going on?

Yama swallowed hard and shook beneath her sister’s gaze, the question alone terrifying because she didn’t know the answer—or maybe she did, and it was the answer that terrified her. Because to come to terms with it, to accept its existence and verbalise it, seemed wrong. So, she forced it down and locked it away, answering with, “I don’t know what you mean.” She was fine. She had to be fine—she had to be fine, even as her eyes stung with tears she could hardly keep at bay and her stomach twisted and turned with bottled-up grief. She had to be fine because she was scared of what she would do if she accepted that she wasn’t.