by Cynthia Merrill (Editor), A. S. Lorenzen (Author)
Amaris
At age fourteen, I watched my fathers empty casket get lowered into the ground. At age eighteen, I experienced a loss like no other. At age twenty-three, I work to ensure nobody else gets buried without a body and try to explain away the unexplainable.
The years have hardened me, rightly so. I thought that if I kept my walls up, that bridges wouldn't start collapsing beneath me. I was wrong.
In a matter of days everything I thought I knew, turned out to be mythology. In a matter of days, the mythology we were taught as fact, turned out to be fiction formed by twisted tongues.
Death has surrounded me my whole life, perhaps it's time I greet him with an open hand.
Merikh
The past nine years have been excruciating. I've searched for answers in all the wrong places. All the wrong people.
Turns out, the answer I needed has been in my periphery for five. And for all the wrong reasons.
Death has surrounded her, her entire life. It's time we get well acquainted.