There were too many for Noah to count. The wood gathered was more than he had ever seen before. He moved kindling and helped stack up the soon-to-be-pyres. When Sah asked if anyone knew the woman, he merely shook his head. She wasn't from here, and having lived thirty-one years behind these walls he would know.
His eyes burned from the tears. His nose was bright red. He didn't have anything else in him to cry out. It had all gone. He had worked and sobbed, sobbed and worked, held those around him who couldn't work over their body wracking misery. While the world was no stranger to war, and even Halo no stranger to destruction, this was at a level none of them knew how to hold.
The grief was too heavy.
The hope would come.
It just wasn't time for it yet.
noah olson
the emptiness of broken flesh, at the mercy of the thorns
