Stone Circle One more body to bury

The world felt quiet, too quiet. A void that threatened to suck him in with no release as his thoughts only spiraled off uncontrollably as they often did. West was unaware of the dove watching from a distance, nor Arlette taking the chance to depart from what was left of their family. It was just Clay. Clay in a broken crumpled void that both he and West now floated in.

West never felt the tremble that shook his paws nor the blades of grass beneath him, it was all just air. Nothingness. It was only when his father brushed against him that the boy seemed to be grounded once more. Everything came back slowly, the spread of green beneath his family's paws, the living bodies that surrounded Clay, the trees, the sky. It painted a grim picture, one that he couldn't tear his eyes away from. Even with his limbs placed in a more natural way, Clay had been disgraced in too many ways.

Something deep inside him shook his core, a heat that threatened to build up and burst out of him, though it didn't. He wouldn't let it. A lump had formed in his throat that hit his stomach like a rock as he swallowed and bit back the bile and tears that pressed for release. Not here. West's eyes never met his brother's, but he would follow in his footsteps as Merrit reached down to drag their sibling's remains. Their parents shouldn't have to do this. It felt wrong to ask a mother to bury their child.

No further response was given from the woodland boy as he too found a hold on Clay. Instead, he would settle for silently dragging him up to the hill where the stones reached the heavens, where their family laid and where Clay soon would too.