The Lost Explorer

It had been a long time since she had been to this spot. The smell of the grass, the leaves falling ever so softly, hitting the ground without a whisper. Yes, she remembered it all, from a year or so ago. Returning was nessecary, it helped her cope with what happened the last time her eyes befell this hill. "Less blood this time", she said under her breath.

     "Memories," she mumbled to herself, "exist for every event in some way. Whether it's a smell, or a sound, or a scar or even the loss of an entire sense, there's something there that can make you recall an event." These words brought a tear to her tender eye, for many memories were associated with this spot. The clashing of metal on metal as swords were swung. The whoosh of arrows as they constantly missed their targets. The one rouge arrow that found her, an innocent bystander who could do nothing but watch as body after body dotted the landscape, so out of place with beauty of the rising sun. Her hand touched the rotting bark of a dead, fallen tree, it felt like she did at that moment. Decaying, out of touch with the world, worthless to all... even herself. "I could have done something to stop them, I could have done more than let my eye take that arrow. I could have saved them, but now all I can do is save myself, maybe not even that..."

     Tears watered the long withered flowers, and her nice, new red shirt. Tears watered the grass, and her soul. Tears watered the world, and were drowning her. Everything was drowning her. The memories, the flow of vision coming through her good eye, the odd, haunting feeling of knowing that people died where she was standing at that very moment. Thoughts of what she could have done that grimly fateful day, thoughts of what she wanted to do to herself because of what she didn't do. These did not drown her, they did worse. They choked her with unimaginable force, keeping her from breathing, from being. From anything. She noticed an unusually sharp piece of bark right next to her hand. Reality told her not to pick it up, but the mind doesn't like reality too much, and it didn't listen. The bark was shakily sitting in her palm, begging to land on her wrists and make blood flow. Her fingers curled around it, moving, moving, moving towards her fate.

     3 days later, a search and rescue team went out to the hill where she was. All they found was her remains. The wolves had just found her, teeth marks were all over. They cried over her. "Why did she do this?" they sobbed, "Why did she have to go?" To this day, the spot where she breathed her final breath is marked with a sign, carved out of a log of spruce wood. The sign reads:

     "Here lies the lost explorer, and while she is not here in our arms, she will always be here in our hearts."