There are people in this world that suffer pain. The old man had known many of them over the years, and by now he could usually tell most of what burdened them by looking into their eyes. Some eyes hung heavy with regret. These usually harbored unspoken words, a sense of misgiving, or maybe a dark secret. But, there was also resoluteness in these eyes, and the burden of what they bore was most often genuine. Not the fault of the bearer.

There were eyes that danced with fear. Fear of illness, fear of death, or more commonly, the discovery of some treason committed against another. Eyes filled with a fear of dying always opened his heart and he felt pity for them, mixed with a little foreboding. Eyes that held treason always stirred a different reaction, almost electric in nature, and he closed himself against such feral stares.

On occasion, he looked into eyes that had simply given up. It was as if the person’s soul, the spark that made them unique in this world, had up and left the body. These eyes were like looking through windows into an empty room, the voices that accompanied them sounding like recordings.

In all of his years, though, the old man had never looked into eyes like those of the young man who stood before him now. If ever eyes could truly be named desolate, the man standing at the counter was worthy of the description.

The old man struggled to decide what type of pain could do this to a man and he instinctively reached to pull his sweater closer around him. But the sweater was not enough to stop the chill he felt close around his heart. The chill caressed him and whispered a promise to grind his heart into dust against some terrible, frozen determination. He felt a sharp spike of fear, but it mixed with pity for the realization that those eyes held not even a hint of joy.

The young man mechanically pulled a wallet from his back pocket and pushed a wrinkled bill over the counter. He looked down at the counter and did not count the change that was handed back to him; he just placed the bills into the wallet, the wallet into his pocket, and left without ever having said a word. The tiny bells over the door rang his departure as cheerily as they had his arrival.

The old man shivered as he watched him go. When the young man had walked out of sight, he glanced at the clock. It was a few minutes early, but business had been slow and nobody would fault him for closing early.

The sun was setting, casting pale and watery colors across the sky. It was beautiful in a wan and empty way; perfectly suited to match those strange, desolate eyes.

The old man felt a ghost walk over his grave and shook himself as something dark brushed through him. He shook it off immediately, wise enough to know that these things were only interested in a person that paid heed to them, and that they only chased those who tried to run.

He turned the lock to the small store and headed toward his home, making a pointed effort to walk slowly.

***

It was a sob that woke him, a moan followed by a stifled cry. The old man lived alone now, and his heart fluttered as he realized that someone was inside of his house. The telephone was in the living room, far from the bed, and he cursed himself for not leaving it in the bedroom. But every time they dialed his number by mistake, it woke him, and he could never get back to…

Another cry, soft, but filled with anguish and sorrow, echoed down the hall. The old man put his feet into his slippers and cinched his robe around him. Slowly, he stepped into the hall.
The young man was in the den, sitting on the couch and shaking with his face buried in his hands.

Panic thrilled through the old man. The phone was on the other side of the room, out of reach. He looked back at the young man and found those eyes staring back at him, wide open and filled with innocence. The young man spoke…

“I’m so sorry.”

The voice was rich, warm even, and held no lies or malice. The old man was at a loss for words. The younger man stood, almost said something, and then thought better of it. He turned and walked to the door, placing his hand on the knob.Words spilled from the old man’s mouth, “Do you need help?”

The young man paused for a moment, and then whispered, “There is no more help”. Then he was through the door and gone before there was time to answer.

Confused and shaken, the old man stood in shock. But the minutes passed, and as he calmed, he craved something warm to drink. He set the coffee pot to brew and looked at the clock. It was less than an hour until dawn. There was no going back to sleep, of that he was certain, so the old man sat down to the table and waited for the coffee and the light.

***

Well past the hour that the sun should have risen, darkness blanketed the town. The young man walked the streets, knowing that the people would be confused and upset. He also knew that it would only get worse, and that very soon, the fire would find its way to each of them, burning them and harvesting them like wheat under the scythe.

The young man knew all of this because he had chosen this town to sacrifice. And like every town he had chosen before, he had spent the preceding hours watching the people, visiting them in their shops and homes and apologizing to those that moved him.

That he had no choice in the matter did nothing to dull the pain that filled his heart. That was his to suffer alone, the price he paid for losing, and now he would witness their end as he was intended to.
Thunder pealed across black skies and the shadows began to stir. The wind blew around him, charred and burnt, and he knew that the time had come. He whispered once more, “I’m sorry.”

In the distance, the screaming began.