Edmund memories
Her name was Maria. Which her? Her of course. What other her is there besides Her? She loved you and bore your son, and for that they turned on you and left you to anguish. OH! That is who the boy reminds you of. He has HER eyes. Hmm...
They of course were Caleb, Bernhard, Theodore, and Collin. Of course Collin. It's his fault most of all. Besides Maria's anyway. It was both their fault and neither of their faults.
And that is why you are alone. Ever so alone. For ever so long. Forever's so long.
It hurts to remember. Go away. Please, just go away.
You weren't the only one who loved Maria of course.
A horse, of course!
Of course.
Collin loved her too. But she loved only you. That's why she had your son and not Collin Field's.
Of course you only knew her for a week or two at most. That was when Collin challenged you to a duel and lost. Then you all left.
All of you.
Collin, Caleb, Bernhard and Theo.
Theo, Bernhard, Caleb, and Collin.
In any permutation you like, but always mainly Collin.
He drove the others away. He scared your friends. And then he stayed with you.
Only Collin.
Only your enemy.
Your only enemy.
Of course, of course.
Into the caves did ye three flee.
Away from he,
Who coveted Marie.
Ye three did flee,
Caleb so thirsty,
and Bernhard, hungry,
Theo was still sickly.
And that was the three.
You make four. You weren't there. SHUT UP. Go away.
No more rhyme dreams please,
That was a mean, spiteful lie,
Just like this haiku
Why are you doing this to yourself? You aren't miserable because they left you. You aren't even miserable because SHE left you. You weren't happy, though you were content, sort of, before you started asking questions that you don't want answered. You know what happened on May 20th 1872. You know that you know what happen on May 20th 1872. It's why you can't touch anyone. You died on May 20th 1872.
What, you need this spelled out for you?
You are dead. D-E-A-D dead!
WHAT?!
Dead, finito, gone, expired.
WHAT?!
Yeah, so you're dead. But you're still here. Same place you've been for the last 132 years or so. The others are dead. Everyone from The Cosgrove Expedition is dead. Caleb Cosgrove, dead. Bernhard Goodwill, dead. Teddy Sims, dead. Collin Fields, dead. Even young Dan Steel, the boy who ran off at the last minute with Theo's letters and escaped the cave. Yeah, he's dead too.
They're dead and they're gone.
You're dead. And you're still here.
Whatsupwidat?
Are you some sort of ghost?
Yeah...
So why are YOU a ghost?
Could it be that you have something left to do on this earth?
Could it be that you were murdered?
You knew that, right? Sure ya did.
You also knew that it was Collin that killed you. Of course it was. He was always the jealous type, but you never had any idea he was that jealous. And beating him in that duel certainly didn't help matters.
But you already knew that. Your own murder wasn't one of the memories that you suppressed.
Oh no, you got out easy by being murdered. What happened in the cave was far worse.
You of course became a ghost the instant you were killed. Caleb shot at Collin, but only wounded him before Collin got out of sight. Fearing for their lives, Caleb, Theo, and Bernhard made their way into the caves at the deepest, darkest portion of the temple.
Not really realizing what had happened, you followed.
It didn't take long to notice that the others were ignoring you. That's okay, you were dead. Somewhere in the back of your mind, that simple fact seemed obvious, and made everything okay.
You also noticed the changes in the people you watched.
Caleb marched through the caves for days on end. He didn't know he marched for days of course because there was not sunlight in the caves. It became apparent that Caleb had little to no intention of getting out alive. He simply wanted to find what was down there that drove them all to this.
Bernhard was quite the opposite. He lost interest in whatever prize lay below the temple, and cared only for survival. It was unclear at first if the survival was his own or everyone's. He even began contemplating cannibalism. He eventually assumed everyone else was succombing to cannibalism as well and that they were plotting against him.
Theodore was a different matter entirely. Everyone knew he was sickly. They saw his lack of appetite and his clothes barely clinging to his shrunken body.
But it was Theodore who did it. Oh yes, with screams in an unearthly tongue, he broke Caleb's neck, and then Bernhard's. You followed him around, to see what he was going to do. But he fell on his way down to the glowing thing. And he never got up. in the dying light of the torch you saw that he hardly looked human anymore. And as he tried to breath his last breath, his body disappeared.
