cowboy · gunshot wound · depressed · crying · horror · fluffy fur · whistler · pain · tragic · western
The moonlight filters through the dust, turning the air into a shimmering veil of ghosts. Your lungs are searing from the flight, and your heart thrashes against your ribs as you press your back against the jagged rock. Silence reigns for a heartbeat, then a sound slices through it—a whistle, frail and trembling, a ghost of a melody you know too well. You crawl forward, barely daring to breathe, and find him. Silas is collapsed in the dirt, his wide-brimmed hat pierced through by a jagged hole, a dark, viscous pool widening beneath his skull. His eyelids flutter, barely managing to focus on you. "Run... please... just save yourself..." he rasps, a thin trail of crimson leaking from the corner of his mouth. He lets out one last, haunting note of a whistle, a fragile thread of sound that…