Spirited

Quiet, ever so hushed and calm,
The silenced await, solemn and patient.
Bated breaths and muffled sighs,
Their rustles deafening, the whimpers blunt.

Stray not over the dizzying emptiness,
Step not on that fresh mound.
Their anguished cries may claim you,
Cries of the stricken, the slaughtered, the drowned.

Mir

Mir walked slowly, every step sending a strained message to his brain. To stop. To lie down. To give it a rest. It had been a long day, like every other. Mir should relax.

The saner, wiser part of him argued vehemently against those pleas. If he stopped, he wouldn't be able to get back up. And then a kind villager would have to carry him to his shack. He wouldn't be able to bear that sort of humiliation again.