Free The Rise of the Phoenix by Mason Sabre

 
    ONE
     
    He didn’t belong. He stood on the outside looking in through some kind of invisible barrier, one that used to keep him safe, but now, it only kept him out. He was the outsider. He was the thing in the shadows that stared in through the darkness.
    They stood on the pavement, but not together. They all stood in a small group, but he stood to the side. He was the reason they were there. None of them spoke to him. None of them looked at him. He didn’t blame them. It was his fault, but it did not stop the tugging inside his chest.
    The black hearse pulled up alongside them, but he didn’t look. He didn’t let himself. Not out of sorrow, but out of guilt and shame and the blame. She was in there because of him. Eternally sleeping and forever gone, just like he was. Only, he was still alive. He still breathed air. He still saw each new day, but now with different eyes. That was what he had caused. Perhaps he should look. Perhaps he should see the damage he had caused. He knew the wreath on the top said ‘Mum,’ but his name was not on the card that went with it. Why should it be? Children don’t kill their parents.
    He watched the man who was once his father. He wished with anything that he could tell him how sorry he was. He could hear his father’s heartbeat speed up. He could hear everything now. Now that he was different.
    He reached down into his pocket with his small hand and touched the rose that was in there. It was red, freshly picked from his mother’s favourite part of the garden. He had spent the last few days there. They had all blended into one. Days turned to night, and then night turned to day again, and it all didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. She was gone and he had done it. In that garden, on the bench she had there, it was as if he could almost feel her there. He wished she was really there, to show him forgiveness for what he had done. Her scent mingled with the scent of the flowers. Each one bloomed from years of her guidance.  Yet, he had taken it all away. The sorrow in his heart roused the creature inside him from his sleep.
    “Not now. Not now. Please,” he whispered to himself and clutched his hands to his face. The bones of his cheeks vibrated, threatening to move and realign. “Please,” he begged.
    He had dreamt the night before, while sleeping on that bench. He had dreamt of her. It was a cruel dream. She had knelt beside him, whispered to him and told him that it wasn’t his fault. She had even run her hands through his fur… Fur. He didn’t know whether to love or hate it. He had woken with the impression of his mother’s hand against his face and his clothes in tatters from where his body had shifted.
    The Wolf inside listened to his plea and the hackles on the boy’s neck began to calm. He silently thanked his Wolf . The family’s car pulled in behind the hearse. He would not be welcome in that anymore. He was different now. Not one of them. Not a member of their family. He peered at his father, his brother and sister through the blonde hair that had fallen over his eyes. At least that way no one could really see the tears he held there, tears that he knew he didn’t deserve to shed. They didn’t look at him, though. His father held his siblings’ hands, one on each side as he swayed between them towards the car.
    He followed them, his feet as heavy as his thirteen-year-old heart. He passed the hearse where his mother lay. The sunlight startled him as it bounced off the polished surface. He saw the casket. Three red roses rested on the top in front of the mum display. Three red roses. His was missing. He wasn’t allowed to place one on it. His father had told him not to even dare. “You’re dead to me,” he had spat. The boy let his fingers slide along the glass as he walked towards the car and what was left of his family.
    His father’s shadow covered him, blocked out the sun and shrouded him in intimidating darkness. “There is no room for you