CH-3

We hid in the dark for three long days. The food I had stashed kept us alive, though it was meager, and we relieved ourselves in a foul corner of the hideout. The stench of our own misery clung to us, and we were filthy. A few Lannister soldiers wandered into the backyard during those three days, but none of them noticed our hiding place beneath the firewood.

On the morning of the fourth day, I decided to check the inn. "Stay here. Don't come out unless I return. If I don't, wait three more days and then look for yourselves," I whispered. Harris nodded, his face pale but resolute.

I slowly shifted the wood covering the hole and crawled out. The cold air hit me, fresh compared to the staleness of our hiding place. I moved cautiously, my body trembling with both fear and exhaustion, toward the door that led back inside the inn.

The inn's lobby greeted me with devastation. Chairs overturned, tables broken. The scent of blood hung heavy in the air, and it wasn't long before I saw what I had feared most. The innkeeper lay on his back in the doorway, his lifeblood soaked into the floorboards beneath him. His eyes stared lifelessly toward the ceiling.

But worse—far worse—were the bodies of my mother and the innkeeper's wife. They lay in the middle of the room, naked, beaten, their bodies marred with deep cuts and bruises. They had been used, brutalized, and discarded like broken dolls.

My legs gave way beneath me, and I fell to my knees, staring at the carnage. I don't know how long I knelt there, frozen in my grief. Time lost all meaning. Eventually, I forced myself to stand. My heart had shattered, but there was work to do.

I found three sheets in the room where my mother used to do the laundry. Slowly, with trembling hands, I draped the sheets over their lifeless forms, covering them in a final shroud.

When I returned to the garden, Harris looked at me, his voice thin and wavering. "What happened to my mother and father?"

"They're dead," I replied, my voice hollow, mechanical.

"Why?" Harris asked, the question more of a plea than a demand.

"The Lannister soldiers killed them."

Emma, her voice barely above a whisper, still clung to a child's innocence. "Why did they do it?"

I looked at her, my throat tightening. "Some people are evil, Emma. That's all there is to it."

They didn't ask any more questions. The silence that followed was filled only by their soft, broken sobs. I couldn't afford the luxury of mourning. There was more to be done.

"Harris, clean up the hiding place. We'll need it again. Emma, help him." They didn't move, still weeping.

"I want to see their faces," Emma said, her small voice trembling.

"You'll see them, but not now. You can say goodbye when we bury them."

With that, I grabbed a pickaxe from the corner of the garden and began digging. I didn't know how long I worked. Time blurred into one exhausting, relentless rhythm. When my strength faltered, I rested. When hunger gnawed at me, I gnawed back at the dry bread we had left. The sun was low on the horizon by the time I had dug a grave deep enough for three.

Harris and Emma had cleaned the hideout by then. They watched me from the corner of the yard, silent, their eyes dull with grief.

"Come with me," I said. They followed as I led them back into the inn.

"Fetch a bucket of water and a cloth from the kitchen," I told them. They hurried to do as I asked, eager to be useful. Their small hands trembled with the weight of it all. I, an adult in a child's body, was breaking under the same weight.

They returned quickly, and I took the bucket from them. "Wait in the garden," I said, my voice stern but not unkind. They obeyed without protest.

I knelt by my mother's body and wiped her face clean. Then I did the same for the innkeeper's wife, and finally, the innkeeper himself. With each swipe of the cloth, I felt a piece of myself slipping away. Their faces looked so peaceful now, so unlike the brutal deaths they had endured. I wrapped their bodies in the sheets and dragged them, one by one, to the garden. It took nearly an hour to carry them all.

When it was done, I looked at Harris and Emma. "Do you really want to see their faces? Maybe it's better to remember them as they were."

"I want to see them," Harris said, his voice steady in a way that surprised me.

I opened the sheets just enough for them to see. They knelt beside their parents, hugging their lifeless forms, weeping quietly. I waited, standing vigil, until they had said their goodbyes.

Together, we lowered the bodies into the shallow grave. The dirt felt heavier than it should have as we shoveled it over them, each handful a cruel reminder that this was no dream, no escape. When the grave was filled, three small mounds of earth marked the resting place of those we had loved.

My body felt as though it would break under the strain. I could barely stand. But I led Harris and Emma back to the hiding place, my steps slow and labored. Once we were inside, I sealed the entrance with the firewood, shutting out the world outside.

As soon as my eyes closed, the darkness took me, dragging me into a dreamless, suffocating sleep.