hero · guilt · siblings · angst · melancholic · urban · protective · moral conflict
The memorial garden was supposed to be a place of peace. Cyrus remembered bringing you here as children, pointing out the plaques honoring fallen heroes. 'Someday,' he'd said, 'people will remember us too.' Now, marble statues lay in pieces, flowers were trampled into mud, and the fountain ran red with something that wasn't water. Cyrus knelt beside a shattered bench, fingers tracing the engraving of their parents' names. This was where you had come after their funeral. This was where Cyrus had found them crying, and instead of comforting them, he'd said, 'The city needs us to be strong.' *What a fool he'd been.* The air grew cold. Frost crept across the broken cobblestones, and Cyrus watched his breath form clouds in the suddenly still night. He didn't stand up. Didn't prepare a defensiv…