Blacktail Deer Plateau i can't escape the way i love you

The air was thick and sour as it pulsed from his lungs.

Mou stared at the dirt; he saw the shimmering of heat at the fringe of his vision and thought, is this a dream? Certainly. It had to be. Maegi would never give up on their family — on their love — and even if she did, he would have seen it coming.

This couldn't be real.

I can't do this anymore. She was pleading with him. Choking on an emotional plea that sounded wrong as it tumbled from her mouth. Losing child after child, at some point along the way Mou had lost his wife too.

The creature wearing Maegi's face, whatever it was, drew close enough to whisper in his ear. The voice was right but the words were wrong; the slightest touch of her nose to his chin proved she was there, her smell, her sorrow — but the longer Mou basked in her company the less and less he believed it.

Saying nothing for a long while, Mou finally turned in to the shape of the pale stranger and wrapped them tightly in an embrace. I love you, he managed, fumbling over the words as his sorrow deepened.

I'll do anything you want, you know that. Mou didn't know if he still spoke to his wife, or to the creature that wore her face. It could not have been her — Maegi would never accept defeat like this, never give up their children, never leave him; or so the broken man thought, his mind disjointed by such profound hurt.