After the incident. Hester woke up the next morning opening the wooden door to the small deck he found Alexander looking tense. Hester didn't ask, instead the two watched the trees sway as the sun flew up in the sky like a bird with wings.

Hester doesn't remember who broke the ice first, maybe Hester asked—or Alexander got tired of waiting either way it happened.

The world seemingly froze

As Alexander slowly put his hand digging in his pocket for a moment then pulling out a green envelope unbroken with a purple wax seal having the symbol of a dagger with two small detailed wings paralleling it, Hester silently stretched out his hand, hovering over the letter like a death omen—which in same cases it was.

"I don't understand."

Hester said simply confused by the audacity.

"You saw me throw it in the fire, you saw it crumple in the flames—how d-did this?"

Hester's lips were a thin line, as Alexander spoke.

"It was on the floor when I opened the door, I didn't want you to find it and panic this early."

Hester paused for a moment at the statement, he couldn't possibly express how thankful he was, Alexander thought of that, was so grateful he was even here now handing it to him.

"You didn't open it." Hester noted running his hand against the wax seal, it was perfectly shaped with no bumps or smudged wax.

"It wasn't mine to open, see?"

Alexander leaned over and slowly guided Hester's hands for the envelope to now be facing the opposite side, in elegant looping handwriting it said simply 'Angel' with no further clarification, it was in an almost identical colour to Hester's wings—black and gray shade like soot.

The next second, the whole envelope was the black shade of soot, as Hester stepped inside and threw it in the hearth.

This was going to be a long night.

Hester couldn't sleep that night, staring up like the roof would open up and let him float away into the sky, almost like he was expecting something—anticipation gripping at him, though the sky never opened and never showed its secrets.

The second day was taunting, the same cursed letter slipped under their door, Hester repeated the cycle from yesterday,and the day before that, the envelope was in the fire before Wilbur or Alexander could say anything. Burning away leaving a stain of black where it was originally, it seemed fitting for no matter what the reason Death never seems to purify or repair, unlike the stories she leaves marks everywhere she goes, marks of stains and unspeakable scars of nights.

For many, Death is seen as a promise, a promise of peace and tranquility for their end.

Hester wasn't foolish enough to believe in that anymore.

The third was mocking the letter in Hester's hands seemed to be alive, whispering his name to open it—then Alexander knocked the idea loose with a question.

“Tell me, is it a matter of pride that keeps you from going back? Or something else?“

Hester paused staying silent, he didn't really think it was pride, it was something close to it though—he just didn't want to say what it really was,

Betrayal.

What a horrible feeling, the feeling of the pit in his stomach yearned into something close to a gaping wound, one of much longer infliction—and much longer pain. Like a ravine stretching onwards, towards the sun and sea it was endless that ravine—branching into hundreds of different trenches over time, the original one being covered and almost indistinguishable from the rest.

But it was still there.

"It's more," Hester flounders for the...